Young age groupers have a lot going on with skill and technique development. Here’s how core training has a critical role to play in improving technique, stability and speed.
Young age groupers are learning fast and learning a lot.
New skills seem to click every week, massive personal best times are routine, and growing bodies are learning how to move more efficiently through the water.
At this age, swimmers don’t really need a big, complicated dryland program or an hour of ab circuits every day.
The main goal is having fun and developing great technique. The technical skills are what will sustain improvement as swimmers get older and progress naturally begins to slow down.
But that doesn’t mean dryland training doesn’t have a place.
Age-appropriate core training can help swimmers develop the stability and body awareness that makes learning good technique easier. When done right, core training is less “six packs” and more about giving swimmers better control of their body in the water.
Here’s what coaches and parents should know.
Why the Core Matters in Swimming
If there is one form of dryland that matters most for swimmers, whether they are a beginner age grouper or three-time Olympian, it’s core training.
Why?
Because the muscles that surround the trunk, hips and spine keep your body stable while the arms and legs generate propulsion.
This is especially important in the water, where we don’t have the ground to plant our legs and drive power up the body. Stability has to come from somewhere, and that stability is the core.
When the trunk is stable and strong:
- Swimmers use a more horizontal, efficient body position in the water
- Body rotation is controlled instead of spinning out-of-control
- The stroke becomes much more coordinated—timing between the arms and legs is smoother
- There is far less wasted lateral movement in technique
For young swimmers who are still learning how to move and position their body efficiently in the water, this added stability can make it easier to hold good technique throughout a practice. (And of course, during a race!)
Age Group Swimmers and Core Training
Core training can be a little confusing for swimmers at times because it’s not immediately obvious how it helps us to swim faster.
And the way the core actually functions in the water to help control our technique and stroke is pretty interesting and a story for another time.
But for now, here are two studies with young swimmers doing core training and how it affected swimming performance.
The first, an intervention with 9-12 year old female swimmers had them do 20-minutes of core exercises before their daily swim workout. They did this little dryland workout five times per week, for eight weeks total (Gencer et al., 2018).
Exercises included some of the standards that make it into swimmers’ core training dryland workouts, including bridges, leg scissors, crunch variations, body extensions, and abdominal contractions.
At the end of the two months:
- 25m freestyle times improved
- So did 50m times
- Dryland tests improved, including running speed and push-up tests
The improvements between the control and core training group weren’t always statistically significant, but the core group consistently improved more.
Another study (Gul et al., 2020), this time with younger boys (10-13 years) did a progressive core training program 3x per week over eight weeks.
The core exercises were simple:
- Planks
- Side planks
- Bird dogs
- Reverse crunches
- Glute bridges
- V-sits
The duration of each exercise was gradually increased over the eight weeks to ensure that athletes kept improving (important). Compared to the control group, who only did swim training during the intervention, the core-training group improved:
- Trunk endurance
- Side plank endurance
- Hip flexor endurance
- 50m backstroke performance
Both groups improved—at that age, everyone improves—but the core training group improved faster.
The Best Core Exercises for Young Swimmers
Core training can be made to look overly complex, but the most important part is being able to resist movement.
This means static holds, proper breathing, and cueing movement. Athletes and coaches love to obsess over the latest equipment for core training—and they can have a role at the right time.
See also: Why Anti-Movement Core Training Matters for Swimmers
But the swimmer who can do a plank with a forceful exhalation, posterior pelvic tilt, and the shoulder blades tucked will outperform just about any complex core training exercise in the gym.
Simpler is better:
- Front plank – The ultimate anti-extension core exercise and the meat and potatoes of any core training program for swimmers.
- Side plank – Supports a straighter body position in the water and targets anti-lateral flexion.
- Pallof press – Long-axis strokes in the water (freestyle, backstroke) are primarily anti-rotation movements, and the Pallof press is the perfect exercise to work this.
- Glute bridge – Most youth athletes spend a lot of time sitting, and the glute bridge is awesome for waking up the back side, including the lower back. Progress to single leg versions to add an anti-rotation element.
- Superman hold – An essential exercise to activate the lower back. The low back takes a lot of punishment during undulation, so a properly functioning erector spinae is essential for swimmers.
These exercises teach young swimmers how to stabilize the spine, control the pelvis, and engage the muscles that help control body position—skills and characteristics that are essential for smooth swimming.
The Takeaway
Young swimmers are fun to coach because they are soaking up everything the pool has to offer. Technique, drills, dryland—they are learning and improving at an incredible rate.
The studies listed above don’t suggest that swimmers should ditch swim training in favor of spending time doing ab exercises on the pool deck.
But they do suggest that adding a little bit of intentional core training 2-3x per week can have measurable effects on performance in the pool.
Skip the fancy stuff, whether it’s weighted Russian twists (not good on the lumbar spine, anyway), unstable balance gadgets, or pounding out thousands of crunches.
Focus on quality movement, focus on stability, and better technique and swimming will naturally follow.
