Swim Benches

Swim benches have been promoted as better, in some ways, than actually swimming in a pool. Their manufacturers promise they’ll perfect your stroke and allow you to get as good a “swim” workout at home as you could going to the pool, et cetera, et cetera. The fact is that these benches will make your arms stronger and give you a work-out of sorts, but I’m highly skeptical that they’ll improve your swimming. A body moving through water and a body lying on a bench behave in entirely different ways. The biomechanics (the way muscle groups interact) and the kinesthetics (your “muscle sense”) are dramatically different from bench to pool. Swim bench workouts train you best to do swim bench workouts. If you’re planning to enter swim bench competition, then by all means train on one. If you must have something at home to supplement your swimming, you can get a device that sells for about 5 percent of what the least expensive swim bench costs, yet will provide 90 percent of its benefit. It’s called a stretch cord.