FOOTY TEAMS SWIM, WHY DON’T YOU?
Why add swimming into your footy training? Well, a lot of the big footy teams like Collingwood and Richmond are putting on the Speedo’s and doing it in Pre-season to boost their cardio fitness, after a game for recovery and also for rehabilitation from injury.
AFL Grand Final winners’ Physical Performance Manager Peter Burge says “All Richmond Football Club players do a form of cross-training as part of their general conditioning program. Swimming is used as a general conditioning tool with sessions prescribed to challenge the player’s cardiovascular fitness.”
“We also use the 25m lap pool for post-training and match recovery. The players perform active movements such as walking, jogging, lunging and swimming freestyle as part of an active recovery process. The reason for using a swimming pool is the reduced body weight in the case of weight-bearing drills and swimming being non-weight bearing. This allows movement with minimal load on the body whilst flushing waste products and general mobilisation after a hard training session or game.”
And swimming is also perfect if you are recovering from injury; Peter says:
“Players who are injured or who are limited to non-weight bearing conditioning use swimming as a part of their rehabilitation programs. They do this as a way of building cardiovascular fitness and general conditioning through swimming. Some players will use water running as part of their conditioning program also to build their fitness base before returning to running on the training track.”

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – SEPTEMBER 30: during the 2017 Toyota AFL Grand Final match between the Adelaide Crows and the Richmond Tigers at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on September 30, 2017 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Scott Barbour/AFL Media)
Just 30 minutes of steady swimming can burn between 200 and 350 calories and in water is the equivalent of approximately an hour’s non-water exercise.
So swimming could be that one thing extra you do this season to take your game to the next level.
Get the Speedo’s on and get #speedofit
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