Many military diving and rescue swimming training programs include a wide variety of pool skills. One of the most overlooked and frankly ignored by students is treading. Because treading is easy, right? Wrong! Here is a question from a recruit preparing for a military diving program in the future, who is curious about how to add in treading workouts:
Stew, do you have any recommendations on how much I should be treading before Navy Dive School? I can swim well, but I struggle to tread water without my hands. It is much easier for me to sink than float. Thanks, Joseph.
Joseph, it is smart that you recognize treading is something you need to work on regularly. When you are negatively buoyant (sinker), treading water is extra effort and requires both technique and conditioning to keep you afloat for longer without using your hands. Most tread tests in Navy Special Warfare/Special Operations will require treading without hands. Here is what we do:
Add Treading to Warmup/Cooldowns
Warm up with a 10-minute tread without using your hands (as much as possible). No grabbing the edge of the pool, but when you start to sink, use your arms to keep you on the surface. But once you have recovered, take away the arms again. You can either start or end your workout with this 10-minute treadmill warmup or cooldown.
Add Treading to Your Swim Workout as Rest
Resting with treading is easier said than done, but when you can build up to it as an active rest exercise, you are getting into the type of swimming conditioning needed to excel in these pool skills. We will typically do 100- to 200-meter swim sets, and for the rest, tread for 1 minute with (or without) hands. A good swimming workout is roughly 1,500 meters 2,000 meters of distance per workout (with or without fins), so depending on your sets, you can get 5-10 minutes of treading time accumulated in the workout alone.
A classic workout is the 50/50. For 10-15 sets:
- Swim 50 meters of freestyle
- Swim 50 meters of critical swim speed (CSS)
Rest between sets with a 1-minute tread, float or bottom bounce to mix in more pool skills you will need to improve during your preparation phase. Not only will you need to master treading, but you will also need to learn the drownproofing skills. Mix those into the workout “rest” sets as well.
How Much to Tread
So, to answer your question, we swim five times per week for roughly 50-60 minutes, for a total of 10 minutes per workout of treading. In five days, you will have accumulated 50 minutes of treading.
Learning treading technique is just as important as getting into treading shape. Make sure it is part of your cardio training. If you are negatively buoyant, treading will be difficult. If you are positively buoyant, you are not treading, but floating. Bobbing up/down from the bottom will be more challenging for the positively buoyant candidate. So, challenges exist for all body types.
Treading Technique
Here are a few videos and articles from the Military.com Fitness Section to help you learn how to tread and how to add in flexibility and mobility to enhance the treading range of motion with every kick:
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