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Will dry-land drills make you a better swimmer?

You get to the pool twice a week, maybe three times. On the other days you wonder: will dry-land drills make you a better swimmer? Ask around and you get two kinds of advice. One is a list of shoulder exercises with a resistance band. The other is a set of drills that copy the stroke on land: lying on a bench and pulling a cable, or standing and pulling a band in a stroke shape.

Here is what the studies found. Strength work on land does make swimmers a little faster. No study shows that copying the stroke on land teaches it.

01

Strength on land makes you a little faster.

A 2022 review pulled together 27 studies of strength training in competitive swimmers, on land and in the water. Most programmes ran for about eight weeks, on top of normal swimming. On average, swimmers got 2 to 3 percent faster over short distances. That is a real gain, but a small one.

It did not matter much what kind of strength work they did. Heavy lifting, general strength and trunk work all landed in the same range. Land exercises that copied the swimming movement did about as well as ordinary ones, though only four studies tested them, and an earlier review leaned the other way. The question is not settled. In one study of 21 swimmers, barbell work on land made swimmers as much faster over 50 metres as sprinting against elastic tubes in the water.

The clearest payoff is off the block. Among 11 international sprinters, the ones with the strongest squat and the highest jump were fastest to 15 metres. That is a link, not proof, but in small trials jump training also improved starts.

Not every study found a gain. In a 1993 study, college swimmers who added eight weeks of weights that copied the front crawl got no faster than teammates who only swam. Most of the studies are small, short, and done with young competitive sprinters. Almost none looked at adults swimming longer distances, though one study of 20 swimmers found a faster 400 metres after 11 weeks of two extra strength and interval sessions a week. Their 50 and 100 metres did not change.

In every study, land work was added to swimming. No study tested it in place of swimming.

02

Copying the stroke on land does not teach the stroke.

A good stroke is long. You reach forward as far as your shoulder goes, the muscles down the side of your back lengthen, your upper back and hips turn, and you hold your trunk straight so your hips do not sink.

A swim bench cannot copy that. A 2026 study compared the stroke on a bench with the stroke in the water. On the bench the stroke was shorter and narrower, and the shoulders rolled about 35 degrees. In the water they rolled about 95.

What a bench also lacks is the water itself. In the water you feel it within a second when your hand slips or your hips drop, and that feeling is how you correct the stroke. We found no study showing that stroke drills on land teach technique. Swim drills belong in the pool or in open water, where each one lets you feel one part of the stroke at a time.

Stroke-shaped exercises can still build pulling strength. In one study, young swimmers on a swim-specific arm machine got faster than swimmers doing ordinary weights, about 4 percent against 3. Both groups got faster, and the study had no group that only swam.

03

Mobility keeps your shoulders healthy.

Swimmers' shoulders get sore. In a year-long study of 74 swimmers, 38 percent had shoulder pain that got in the way of training. Swimmers with too little shoulder rotation were more likely to get hurt, and so were swimmers with too much. A larger study of 201 young swimmers found that overhead reach and tiring muscles at the back of the shoulder both predicted pain.

So range and endurance in the shoulder matter. But no study we found shows that mobility work makes you faster. In a 2025 trial, eight weeks of exercise for rounded shoulders improved posture, range and pain, and swim times stayed the same. Mobility earns its place by keeping you in the water.

04

What to do on land instead.

The studies point to general strength, with the whole body working together, and they found it does about as well as exercises that copy the stroke. In a Turkish get-up and an overhead carry, you hold a weight above your head and keep the rest of you steady under it. A swing teaches your hips to lead, so your back stops doing their job.

Then keep your range. Long hours at a desk or on a bike round your shoulders forward and stiffen your upper back. Yoga keeps your shoulders and upper back moving through their full range, with control, and a swimmer needs that range too.

Learn the stroke in the water, with drills at the start of your easy swims. Why training one part of you at a time barely changes how you move is in Why stretching your hamstrings will not loosen them.

Sources

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