Athlete Spotlight: Wesleyan Swimming Commit Erez Erkal
This week’s VSP spotlight shines on Erez Erkal! Erez is a senior swimmer at The Masters School & swims for Badgers Swim Club. Erez joined us at Velocity last June in prep for his summer & upcoming senior year swim seasons. Since then, Erez has committed to swim at Wesleyan University next fall & has completely improved his physical capacity in & out of the water. His consistency & dedication has yielded fantastic results. So…
Let’s dive into it!
Goals:
As a high level competitive swimmer, Erez was looking to obviously improve his times & performance in the pool. With faster times & better performance his goal was to impress college coaches & receive an offer to swim at the college level.
Our plan was to attack these goals holistically & increase his strength & power in the necessary ways to decrease his times in the pool.
Let’s see the results!
Strength:
Swimming is a full body kinetic chain movement. Simple meaning… you use your upper & lower simultaneously & in unison when completing the movement.
When testing upper body strength & force output we use the following tests:
- Push Ups
- 90/90 ISO hold
- ISO push test
- ISO pull test
When testing lower body strength & force output we use the following tests:
- ISO belt squat
- ISO mid thigh pull
So let’s see how he improved:
- Push Ups: 31 -> 46 (+48.39% Increase)
- 90/90 ISO hold: 80->93 (+16.25% Increase)
- ISO push test: 52->75 (Right) 53->61 (Left) (+44.23% & +15.09% Increase)
- ISO pull test: 43->78 (Right) 35->66 (Left) (+81.4% & +88.57% Increase)
- ISO belt squat: 185->328 (+77.84% Increase)
- ISO mid thigh pull: 176->296 (+68.18% Increase)
So clearly, strength & force output improved but what about his power output?
Power
When testing power output we use the following tests:
- Vertical Jump (Height)
- RSI (Reactive Strength Index)
- Broad Jump
- Triple Jump
So let’s see how he improved:
- Vertical Jump (Height): 20.5 -> 26.1 (+27.80% Increase)
- RSI (Reactive Strength Index): 32.27 -> 53.16 (+74.13% Increase)
- Broad Jump: 83 -> 102 (+22.89% Increase)
- Triple Jump: 263 -> 292 (+11.03% Increase)
Short answer, Yes. Erez’s power along with his strength & force output most definitely improved.
Next Steps
As we mentioned before, Erez’s improvements in the weight room directly improved his performance in the pool. This resulted in a college commitment to Wesleyan University where he will be swimming next fall.
Next steps for Erez will be getting his body ready to compete at the college level.
Our summer college group sessions at VSP do just that. They are built to emulate the vibe & process of a college level weight room. Strength, speed, & power development are our priority. All while keeping an individualized process for each & every sport, athlete, & college program.
We are super proud of Erez’s progress & cant wait to see him carry this over into the start of his college career.
Written by:
Jake Lebovitch – Assistant Director of Performance & Content Manager