How do you increase hand strength for long swims?
A recurring issue for me is that my fingers get tired in race swims from Olympic distance and up. I can't seem to replicate the feeling in my training swims even if I'm going over 4000 yards in the pool; it only happens when I race. Basically, my fingers get tired during a race from focusing on the catch and I find myself having to flex them during the swim. After an IM my hands will eve be sore the next day. So how do you train to improve your hand strength to hold the catch better?
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a) spend time out of water practicing relaxing my hands and making them flat. Good thing to do on the train, or in meetings.
b) dryland exercises for the arms, from my new favorite swim book in the entire universe, Sheila Taormina's Swim Speed Secrets.
http://sheilat.com/books.php
Ooooh, shiny pictures! Must...resist...urge...to...spend...money...
This book may have just been what I needed to hear about swimming -- but it is the best $14 I have spent on a training tool ever. I can't believe how many swimming lessons and masters sessions I've attended without "getting" the basics of swimming described in this book.
@ Paul - since it's your hands, it's probably cramping or excessive use (fatigue) of the interosseous muscles - the ones betwen the bones in your hand which help the fingers squeeze together. I suspect you are unconsciously working hard to keep your fingers locked together. I may be all wet (pun intended) and Robin C can correct me if I am, but I think the better way to swim is with a relaxed hand, fingers slightly apart, not locked together.
If this is the case, you don't need stronger hands, you need to get some relaxation cues going during your races. Considering your past experience with anxiety in the water, you may need to do some in water mental prep work - a swim set of, say, 8 x 50 descending where all you do is think about how loose your fingers are. By the time you get to the really hard, fast 50s @ the end, you should be checking if you are squeezing those fingers together, and loosen them if you are.
---Ann.
I think Al is probably on the money with this one. Tension in swimming is often expressed in the hands, and focusing on keeping them relaxed but engaged is the key. You want the fingers slightly spread, but not too wide. The hand should never cup the water or have the fingers held tightly together. On the recovery (out of the water) part of the stroke, the hand should be so relaxed it's practically limp. As it prepares to stab into the water, it should "engage", which means come into the proper position, and smoothly enter the water with neither thumb nor pinky pointing down. It should enter at a slight downward angle and extend fully into the glide.
As far as wetsuit swimming and arms/hands getting sore, I think this may be more of a function of not engaging the core enough while swimming in a wetsuit. A lot of triathletes don't kick much in a wetsuit. Without the proper kick (with good timing), it's much harder to engage the core. If you don't fully engage your core, you are swimming with your arms. In a wetsuit where the neoprene actively resists the arms, they will fatigue faster.
I thought about this a LOT on Saturday as I swam an hour+ with my Masters swimmers in the lake. Guys who can smoke me in the lap lanes (averaging 1:05 - 1:10 to my 1:20) are left in the dust when we put the wetsuits on. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why I'm so much faster in a wetsuit. I came up with three conclusions:
1) I kick more in a wetsuit. YES, you heard that right! Most triathletes and open water swimmers kick less. But watch the fast (:48 - :53) Ironman swimmers and they typically have a strong 6-beat kick going, not a barely-there 2-beat. The kick drives the torso, and you can rely less on your arms. A lot of the guys I swim with are big strong fellas and I think they swim more with their arms. When they face the resistance of the wetsuit, this is a detriment.
2) I completely relax my arms on the recovery, making them almost limp. The neoprene of the wetsuit, which has just been hauled backwards, now releases its energy with forward propulsion. My arms almost slingshot forward, my hand practically slams into the water like a shot. My stroke sounds very different to me from my pool stroke, where I concentrate on smooth hand entry. In the open water my hand entry is loud and strong. Swimmers who do not have a nice relaxed arm on the recovery are fighting the wetsuit there as well.
3) I swim straight, don't sight very often, and when I do my head is extremely low in the water.
So the takeaway from my hour of thinking about this is that in the pool, you can learn to kick effectively and use the kick to drive torso rotation, and you can focus on having a relaxed hand entry with a good hand position. Curing other ills like crossover allows you to sight less often in the open water. All of these things will add up to greater speed and far less fatigue when swimming in a wetsuit.
OK - I was an occupational therapist with a focus on hand therapy in a past life, and Al is right (obviously... WSM and all... ;-) You're likely fatiguing your interosseous/lumbrical muscles by repeatedly flexing them when you catch. This flexion happens when you keep your fingers straight, locked together (as Al said) and bend the first knuckle at the base of the fingers (the MCP joint). There are tendon gliding exercises that specifically work these muscles. Here's a link to the most basic tendon glides - the second position is the "table top position," and is the position that is likely fatiguing your hands (although I doubt you're flexing THAT much - but the repetition alone is more than enough to fatigue those small intrinsic muscles):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J8zSKvbjBA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJsU2bed6FM I prefer to stretch them slightly differently - put the fingers of one hand in the "claw position" (the first position on the first video I linked above) and interlace the fingers from the other hand between them while they are still in the claw position. Then gently stretch the clawed fingers back (basically hyperextending the MCP joint at the base of the fingers). Interlacing the fingers from the other hand helps separate the fingers and give a deeper stretch. This is a GREAT stretch for tired hands - hope I was able to explain it in a way that makes sense!
There's a great way to stretch these muscles - this is the only useful link I could find:
Ultimately, probably best to focus on the relaxed hand entry as others have mentioned - it's not likely, but you could end up with carpal tunnel issues if you're already experiencing discomfort...
@ Ansom - I agree with Beth...Swim Secrets was money well spent. I've been to a swim camp every year until 2012. The best money I've spent this year is on the Catch MasterClass DVD by Swim Smooth and this book. In the past year, I have improved to the point that I am now one of the top swimmers in my age group...which isn't saying much because most were like me with zero swim background. The problem is that the delta between me and THE top swimmer can be huge when that person is a former Div 1 All-American swimmer. I hate those guys, but keep trying to narrow the gap to a more manageable deficit.