By Steve Lodge, STA Member, STA OWS Coach and STA Brand Ambassador

I am, like so many of you, a water baby. Happiest whenever I am near, in or on the water. Preferably in it. However, when two knee replacements meant that I potentially couldn’t swim for up to six months I needed to find exercises to keep ‘swim fit’.

Dry land exercises have always been there but so many of them are repetitive and when they become boring, you stop doing them.

This is where the 6-6-6 Challenge worked for me. Devised by Paul Fowler (STA OWC)* and Laura Collins*, both serious swimmers, there are 6 exercises that you perform each for one minute and for 6 days of the week. Hence 6-6-6. A mixture of upper, abdominal and lower body exercises that can be modified to suit your ability.

Knowing that I was to have my right knee replaced at the end of December and the left one in the following March, I committed to these exercises for initially three weeks but in all honesty, enjoyed them so much that I continued to do variations of them right up until the day before my operation.

Typical exercises would be:

WEEK 1 –

• Torso Rotations, feet shoulder width apart
• Swiss Ball Leg Raise
• Plank with alternating leg raise
• Swiss Ball roll outs
• Superman
• Dead Bird. Alternating opposite arm and leg

WEEK 2 –

• Press Ups. Hot hands
• Superman
• Plank with finger taps, left, middle, right
• Side Plank, 30 seconds each way
• Swiss Ball Leg Raise
• Swiss Ball Plank

WEEK 3 –

• Bird Dog, alternate legs and arms
• Plank, alternate extended arms, shift from 3 point to 2 point
• Side Plank with rotation, use hand weights
• Swiss Ball Plank with alternate leg raise
• Superman
• Supine double arm and leg raise

At the end of week three I felt stronger, more toned and had lost 2kg in body fat. How better to be inspired when you can see and feel the results. What was even better, my speed in the pool had improved due to the stronger core and body rotation that I could now achieve.

In Week 4, I went off-piste and decided to modify the exercises and increase the time for each one. You don’t have to do this but from day one you had the option of modifying them to suit so why not. I introduced:-

• Plank, 2 mins
• Gekko Plank, 1 min 15
• Extended Plank, 1 min 15
• Swiss Ball Plank on arms, 1 min 15
• Swiss Ball Plank on legs, 1 min 15
• Wall Squat with ball squeeze between knees 1 min 30

Leading up to the day of my operation I was warned about the pain and strongly advised to listen to the physiotherapists and to strictly do the exercises that they prescribe. If I’m honest, if I had only done their exercises I wouldn’t have been ready or able to cope. Perhaps they have never met a swimmer before; we are a different breed.

They weren’t joking though about the pain. On the first two days it was easily a 10/10, even with a cocktail of codeine/cocodamol/paracetamol/aspirin. By day 7, I had ditched one of the crutches and by day 14, I had walked a mile. By day 20, I was climbing upstairs in a normal manner. By day 32, I had walked for 40 minutes with no walking aids and without a limp – pain free.

It’s not until week six, when you return to see the consultant, that you are cleared to swim again or drive. For both of these activities I can’t wait but there is the mental aspect yet to be considered. Do I train hard knowing that only a few weeks later I’ll be back under the knife or do I use my water time doing Aquafit. For this I’ll have to let you know in my follow up blog planned for June.

Six weeks out of the water, without exercising, will affect both muscle and bone density, so the importance of maintaining a fitness level cannot be stressed enough. Even before the stitches were removed, on day 16, I was doing calf raises and mini-squats against the kitchen island and from week four I was back to the 6-6-6 programme but modifying each one; after all, I still couldn’t kneel on my right knee.

With operation number two planned for early March, I have, as a precaution, postponed my swim challenge for this June (Weymouth to Old Harry’s Rocks) but set a new goal for 2027, when I’ll be 70, to complete a Round Jersey Relay.

Without my ‘swim-fitness’ programme, I don’t believe that my recovery from my knee replacement would have been as successful.

If you would like to start a swim fitness programme, whether you are training for an event or just to improve your health, you won’t go far wrong on the 6-6-6 regime.

• Laura Collins, Verdure Fitness, Unit 13, Roman Way, LN6 9UH
• Paul Fowler, 100% Swimming, www.100swim.uk