What the words actually mean
Three labels, one object. Dryland is the usual word on US, Canadian, and Australian squad pages. Land work or land training is what most British and Irish clubs print. S&C — strength and conditioning — is the more gym-shaped end of the same idea: a room, a coach or a qualified instructor, older groups. If the email says any of those, they mean training done out of the water that the club already put on the week.
Club reprints of the USA Swimming Parents Handbook glossary keep it modest: dryland is training done out of the water that aids swimming, usually stretching and calisthenics. Weight training sits in the same glossary as a form of dryland suggested only for older swimmers, with a warning that excessive loading in younger swimmers can injure growth plates. That is a parent dictionary, not a lift chart. I am not printing one.
On the poolside it looks ordinary: mats, bands, a sports hall after the swim, sometimes a gym for seniors. Younger squads often look like organised movement — holding a shape, not a weight room. Older squads may look like S&C. The coach decides which. You do not upgrade a ten-year-old’s mat work because a seventeen-year-old has a bar.
| You hear | Usually means | Not |
|---|---|---|
| Dryland | Out-of-water club session — US, Canada, Australia | A YouTube circuit you found |
| Land work / land training | The same object, British and Irish club English | Optional bonus if the pool ran long |
| S&C | The more gym-shaped version, often older groups | A bodybuilding plan, or a senior session copied down an age group |
| Pre- / post-pool | Short land work attached to the swim, not a second practice | A reason to add a third session at home |
Why the coach added it
Because swimming is a poor all-round sport: hours in a straight line, same shoulders, not much running or falling over in a useful way. Land work is how a club tries to give those bodies something else — a shape they can still hold when tired, shoulders that last a season, and a bit of athleticism that is not only a lap.
Keep the claims modest. Swim England’s regional parent workshops have said dryland is critical for young swimmers — pre- and post-pool, land training — and should be integral to the programme, not a bolt-on. That is a coaching stance, not a promise that mats mint a personal best. USA Swimming’s American Development Model puts dryland on the pathway at every stage: movement and posture for younger athletes, a more structured strength routine later. The ADM is a coach tool, not a kitchen printout.
When land work appears, it is usually because the coach thinks water alone is no longer enough for that group — not because last Saturday was slow, and not because a parent asked for “more strength.” Ask once what this group’s land work is for. Then stop coaching it.
A ten-year-old’s dryland can look like organised recess. A senior’s S&C can look like a gym. Both can be “dryland.” Copying the older room onto the younger child is how parents accidentally write a programme. The coach already has one.
Club work, not extra gym you invent
This is the sentence the balcony keeps missing. Dryland is not optional extra the parent invents at home. If it is on the timetable, it is part of practice. If it is not, do not fill the gap with a second club, a garage barbell, or a forum PDF. USA Swimming’s parent education is blunt on the water: you do not coach your child on the side. Land work is the same rule.
Swim England’s land-work-at-home notes — written for the Covid closure, not ordinary Tuesdays — still make the split: coaches stay inside the qualification they hold; parents confirm the space is safe; under-18s need a responsible adult nearby. That was a crisis exception. It is not a standing invitation to invent circuits because the pool “looked light.”
Supervision is part of the object. Swim Ireland requires a person on duty for pool and dry-land sessions; other NGBs put the same idea in welfare policy even when the phrase differs. If land work was cancelled because nobody was on duty, that is a safety fact — not a blank evening for you to fill. Shoes in the bag. They stay if that is the deal. You do not film the circuit, and this page does not sell powder.
Do not print a pull-up programme. Do not add a lunchtime gym because they “have energy.” Do not copy a college S&C video onto a twelve-year-old. Do not treat skipped dryland as a moral failing, then “make it up” with extra load at the weekend. Ask the coach. Log what happened. Stop there.
Log it beside the water
A swim watch is brilliant for metres. It will not tell you they skipped the mats. That is why dryland belongs in the same log as the main set — why swimmers should log training — and why the land line can stay as short as what to write after practice.
You do not need every exercise. You need whether it happened, and how it sat. “Did land work, shoulders tired, water still fine” is a record. A novel of the circuit is a programme you will abandon by February. If they stopped early, write that. If they skipped, write skipped.
| Field | Enough | Skip |
|---|---|---|
| Did they do it? | Yes / skipped / stopped early | A speech about attitude |
| What it was | Club land work, or S&C, or pre-pool — one label | Every movement in order |
| Feel | Fine / heavy legs / sharp (then stop — see below) | A form essay |
| Beside | The same day’s water, so the week is one picture | A separate gym diary nobody opens |
Parents of younger swimmers can ask in the car. By early teens the swimmer should own the line. A land log someone else fills in does not change behaviour. The point is one week you can see: water, land, sleep, whether they showed up.
Log dryland beside the water so the week is one picture. A skipped mat session that never gets written becomes a mystery Tuesday in March.
Skipping is a log fact, not a character flaw
They will skip. Illness. A late pickup. Exams. A growth-spurt evening where the floor feels a long way down. Write skipped. Do not write lazy. Attendance is the metric swimmers inflate on the water; land work is the one parents moralise. Both are just ticks.
One skip is a Tuesday. A pattern is a conversation with the coach: “land work made two of the last six.” That may be load, sleep, school, or a session that does not fit this body right now. The coach can change the plan. A car-park lecture cannot. If they sat out because something hurt, that is the injury paragraph below — not a character reference, and not a gap to fill with extra gym on Saturday. Do not “make up” a skip with a homemade session. That stacks load the coach cannot see.
Do not add extra gym in championship week
Championship week is when this goes wrong most often. Volume in the water comes down. They look fresh. Parents hear “they’re resting” and invent a first gym block or “they’ve got energy, let’s use it.” That rest was paid for in the hard months. Spending it on novelty land work is how you arrive tired and underdone at the same time. The dictionary for that week is what a swim taper is — not a PDF of extra core.
If the coach still has land work on the timetable, that is theirs. If they dropped it, do not replace it. Club reprints of USA Swimming’s parent note on taper say the quiet part: the parent job is not to add pressure or extra work. Land work counts as extra work if you are the one who added it.
“Is land work still on this week, or is this the unload?” is a fair question. “I found a circuit for them to do at home because practice was short” is not. The coach owns the shape. You own sleep, food they already know, and the log.
Growth-spurt awkwardness shows on land too
When a child is in a steep stretch, the stroke has to be relearned on new levers — growth spurts and slower swim times. The land version is quieter and just as easy to panic. Coordination wobbles. A shape they held last season feels foreign. Someone in the gallery decides they need “more strength.”
Usually they do not. Muscle and tendon catch up later than bone. Piling gym on a body that is still rewriting the map is a poor balcony prescription. The USA Swimming parent glossary’s caution on excessive weight training and growth plates is the modest version: older swimmers, coach-led, not a kitchen upgrade. Sleep, food, patience, and the club’s existing land work beat a new programme you found because the 100 free added time. Log the awkwardness as feel: “uncoordinated, growing again.” “They’re weak, we need weights” is a programme. You are not writing one.
Sore is not the same as injured
This is not medical advice. Ordinary muscle ache a day after a new land session — the used-something-new kind — is common. It usually eases. They can often still swim. Tell the coach if it is a lot. Do not stretch a sharp joint because a forum said mobility fixes everything.
Stop, tell the coach, and see a GP or a qualified physio when it is sharp, sudden, one-sided in a joint, swollen, waking them at night, or changing how they swim. A shoulder that drops the catch is not a toughness test. Sit the land work out. Write it in the log. Do not buy a supplement to “help recovery,” and do not add extra gym to strengthen the sore bit. Sharp pain is information. The coach and a clinician get it first.
This page is the dictionary: what the words mean, why the club added the session, how to log it, when to stop. It is not sets, not loads, and not a reason to open a second gym diary. The coach already has the programme.
