Tarzan Workout With Video

History
The term originates from Johnny Weissmuller playing Tarzan in the movies of the 1920’s. He was one of the World’s best swimmers who swam with his head out of the water. Johnny was considered the “Cadillac of swimmers” during his era. Sam Freas, who coached at LSU had a lot of success using Tarzan and dryland in the 1980’s.

Who does this benefit ?
This is for everyone who wants to develop speed and power in their swimming at any age. This is a great drill to spike heart rate in short spurts if you don’t have lots of time to work out.

Why do you need Tarzan?
This drill develops speed by forcing the swimmer to maintain a controlled small and fast kick. The kick must be behind the hips in order not to increase drag and fast! Keep the hips square, head still and out of the water while focusing on equal rotation of the
shoulders. The arm stroke needs to be shorter to work on speed. This is a drill and used for speed and power so don’t worry about efficient long strokes.

Correct form is priority!

When do you add Tarzan to your workout ?
Always fit Tarzan into your workouts, even if you do a few 25’s or 12.5’s at the end of a long distance oriented practice. You want to avoid retraining your fast twitch muscles to slow by swimming at the same pace which is usually slower than any race pace at meets. The more sprint oriented you are the more you need to work this in. If you need any help deciding how to use Tarzan or other sprint sets please email Brad@fasterswimming.com ..

There are various ways to do Tarzan so please check out the
videos. This is detailed in our 23 week daily swimming and dryland seasonal book.