Building up swimming endurance and stamina is vital to swimming well. Whether you’re a pro or just swim for fun, doing so without tiring is important – especially when swimming in open waters.  Better endurance makes it possible to swim further and faster over an extended period of time, helping to reap more of the many benefits swimming has to offer 

Learn how to increase your swimming endurance and stamina to swim for longer periods of time without tiring easily!

1) Start with a Slow and Consistent Routine

Slow and steady definitely wins the race when it comes to building up stamina and swimming endurance. Devise a steady routine to practice and as you get better, keep adapting your routine by making it more challenging.

With each session, you’ll want to set a new goal to push your body towards better performance. For example, from week to week, you might set a goal to swim a further distance or swim for a longer period of time without stopping. The important thing to remember is to make these changes gradually to avoid burnout or disappointment.

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2) Breathing Exercises

Breathing exercises are vital to improving swimming endurance. These exercises train your lungs and increase their capacity and strength, which enables more efficient breathing.

Breathing exercises help you find the right breathing rhythm as you swim too. In turn, this provides your muscles with more oxygen with each breath. This optimization prevents you from tiring quickly, allowing you to swim farther, faster.

What does efficient breathing look like? Your inhales are larger, meaning you don’t need to inhale often. This allows you to go several strokes before you feel the need to inhale again.

3) Cross Training

Training out of the water is as important as training in the water because dry-land training allows you to target specific muscles in unique ways you might not be able to in the water. In addition to swimming several times a week, consider complementing your routine with a variety of other physical activities.

Cross training is an effective way to build up muscular strength and endurance as it targets your arms, legs, core, and back and shoulder muscles. Other forms of exercise to include are

  • weightlifting
  • yoga
  • squats & other bodyweight exercises 
  • cardio like running or cycling
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4) Stroke Improvement

The more you refine your technique, the more you’ll improve your efficiency in the water. Efficiency in water means you’re conserving energy, working less to go farther, so your endurance increases. Consider having a swimming lesson with an expert instructor or coach that can help you fine-tune your positioning, breathing, kick, and stroke technique.

Improving stroke efficiency, in turn, increases your speed in the water. Developing elements like stroke length and frequency allow you to travel across the lane faster. Enabling you to swim more laps in a shorter amount of time.

5) Drills

Swimming drills have been created with the express purpose of isolating specific swim skills to improve their technique. Drills help you perfect the technique through repetition, which allows you to swim for longer without getting fatigued. Various drills exist depending on what you’re looking to target, but here’s a list of drills to help you build swimming endurance and refine your swimming technique.

At the end of the day, building swimming endurance and stamina is all about practice, perseverance, and patience! No one runs a marathon the first time they put on a pair of running shoes, and swimming is no different. Suit up and show up consistently to your practice, and you’ll be swimming laps for hours on end in no time!