Do you want to swim faster and stronger doing the freestyle? Of course you do and doing strength training for swimming to strengthen your body is one of the steps you need to take.
Swimming lots of laps and doing intervals is important but so is doing some strength training.
Give yourself that extra edge by improving your overall fitness level.
If your legs start to give out on you what happens? Your lower body may start to sink and create more drag.
Your whole body needs to be up high in the water and straight.
Getting your legs stronger will help prevent early fatigue and solve this problem.
Even your upper body can take its toll on you.
If your arms and shoulders are getting tired your body rotation may get out of sync and your breathing may be erratic.
Your whole body position may be affected in some way and you will not be swimming as smooth as you should.
What exercises should you use to help your strength? For the best overall workout squats can not be beat.
Your legs and torso will benefit from this great exercise.
Think about pushing off the wall when you make a turn, the squat would really help your strength level here.
Go up and down the pool holding onto a kickboard using your legs only, you will feel the burn.
This will strengthen and increase endurance.
For the upper body you need to strengthen the shoulder and arms.
Using exercises such as pull downs, pull ups, curls and dips are some of the exercises you can be using.
You may do your strength training during the off season and back off when competing.
Whatever route you take to get stronger, will only help you in the long run so do not neglect this.