Agility and speed
Water polo involves changing directions quickly, moving quickly in and out of the water, and turning quickly to escape the oppone’s defender; These features mean high agility that can be achieved with bodybuilding exercises for water polo. Your exercise program should be specific and targeted.
Injury preveion
Water polo is a challenging sport, and sometimes athletes in this field get injured. But a player who has strengthened the weak pois of his body is less at risk of injury.
That’s why water polo players do regular training that includes swimming training, strength and conditioning training, and ierval training.
Which muscles must be strengthened for water polo athletes?
Strengthening several differe muscle groups is necessary for success in water polo, and you should work the following muscles well in your water polo fitness program.
1. Lower body muscles
Legs are very importa in generating power for swimming and staying afloat. Strong leg muscles, including the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes, are the foundation of explosive movemes in water polo. Therefore, these muscles should be specially trained in the bodybuilding program for water polo.
- leg muscles
- Quadriceps muscles
- Hamstrings and hips
2. mid-body muscles
Having a strong mid-body is necessary to maiain stability and balance in the water, and it allows athletes to quickly regain corol and maiain their balance and change the direction of moveme after quick movemes in pursuit of the ball. In the mid-body area, you should focus on the following muscles:
- Abdominal oblique muscles
- Rectus abdominis muscles
- loin fillet
3. Shoulder muscles
The main work in water polo is done by the hands (that is, catching and throwing the ball); Therefore, strengthening the rotator cuff muscles around the shoulder joi is critical for stability and injury preveion. All of the following muscle groups must be well trained in water polo training sessions in order for the player to perform at their best.
- Rotator cuff muscles
- Deltoids
Bodybuilding exercises to increase conceration and speed of action in water polo
You may think that bodybuilding is only suitable for building muscle and physical strength, but this notion is not true! Bodybuilding and strength training have many positive effects on the athlete’s mind.
Training increases the strength of nerve and muscle coordination and the power of meal conceration in water polo players and makes the actions and reactions during the game become unconscious. The fact that the athlete spends less meal energy to make decisions during the game will even reduce his physical fatigue and the player can maiain his meal endurance during the match.
Also, let’s not forget that weight training releases happy hormones and endorphins that reduce stress and anxiety! This topic helps to focus meally and increase the speed of action of the player!
Regular exercise increases blood flow to the brain and neural flexibility, and improves cognitive functions such as decision-making and reaction time, which are vital for a sport like water polo.
But these are all about the positive effects of bodybuilding for water polo on the athlete’s mind, we must not forget that strengthening the mid-body muscles will help improve stability and conscious breathing, and the player will have the opportunity to spend energy instead of maiaining balance. slow down, focus more on the game and perform better.
Which exercises should I do now to increase my conceration?
The exercises we meion below can help you focus in the form of circular sets in the bodybuilding program for water polo; Because doing a challenging sport like water polo requires maiaining balance and conceration, nerve and muscle coordination and meal toughness.
- deadlift
- Romanian single leg deadlift
- plank
- Turkish Get Up
- Farmer moveme
- overhead squat
- Hitting the medicine ball
- Jump on the box
- Agility movemes
- Yoga strength exercises
Bodybuilding exercises to corol the ball with one hand
The skill of corolling the ball with one hand is one of the very key and importa skills of water polo, and a player who masters this skill will be ahead of everyone. It is true that this “skill” must be learned and practiced, but without strength and power, it cannot be implemeed and the ball will leave the player’s hand.
A water polo player needs to strengthen his forearm, shoulder and mid-body muscles. Below we iroduce you some exercises as an example of a bodybuilding program to strengthen these muscles.
- Walking with dumbbells in hand
- Wrist exercises with dumbbells
- dumbbell forearm
- Swedish swimming with fists
- Forearm with dumbbells
- Overhead shoulder press
- Iernal and external rotations of the shoulder
- Throwing a medicine ball
- Simple plank and sideways plank
- Russian turn
- crunch
Sample fitness program for water polo
As we said, water polo requires a high level of physical fitness, and a water polo athlete must work well on the strength and endurance of his mid-body, upper body and lower body muscles. In the following, we will iroduce you a sample fitness program for water polo.
| exercise | Number of sets and repetitions |
|---|---|
| Squat with barbell | 3 sets of 15 |
| Deadlift with barbell | 3 sets of 15 |
| One arm standing shoulder press | 3 sets of 15 |
| Hip trust on the medicine ball | 3 sets of 15 |
| Russian twist with dumbbells | 3 sets of 15 |
final word
Water polo is a challenging sport that requires high physical and meal strength. In order for the water polo athlete to be able to perform at his best on the field and be successful in catching and corolling the ball, he must specifically do strength training and bodybuilding.
Bodybuilding exercises will increase the strength, endurance and agility of the athletes and help them maiain their balance and conceration on the field. In this article, we talked about the importance of bodybuilding for water polo and we also preseed an example of a water polo bodybuilding program.
Resources: sportingbounce – usawaterpolo – sportivetricks
