With a meet this weekend against UVA, the Penn State women's swimming team is finally coming to the end of it's three week break from competition.

Which also means a much-needed break from the team's schedule of versatile and strenuous practices.

Head coach John Hargis has his team doing a wide variety of "dryland" exercises almost every day of the week, along with daily practices in the water in order to make the swimmers become the best they can be.

"I've always said that the better athlete you are, the better swimmer you'll be," he said.

Hargis puts a different athletic emphasis on these exercises for each type of swimmer on the team; sprinters, middle distance or distance.

Sprinters have been focusing more on strength and quick movements, lifting in the weight room four days a week, as well as plyometric workouts, a form of power and speed training involving quick jumping and bounding, twice a week.

Senior co-captain and sprinter Lindsey DeForrest has seen a definite improvement in her swimming from the extra work.

The short workouts allow the swimmers to convert the training in the weight room, to the pool. Doing a lot of fast, short efforts have greatly improved muscle memory, Deforrest said.

Middle distance swimmers, on the other hand, have been focusing more on aerobic workouts and increasing agility.

Some of these workouts include climbing ropes, running with medicine balls, tumbling, jumping, hopping and push-ups, senior Daphne Skelos said.

The distance swimmers are doing a lot of cardiovascular workouts to maintain stamina. This also includes getting to the weight room two to three days a week.

"Working the whole body teaches it to stabilize itself," Hargis said. "We want to keep everything balanced."

Although each group is focusing on a different area, there is one part of the body that they're all working to keep strong.

"We have them all do a lot of core," Hargis said. "That's where we create power, within the core."

Lyndsey Smith, a senior and the Lions' other co-captain, enjoys these workouts. She's been making the most of her time out of the pool and recognizes the advantages it's given her. Not only is she getting stronger, but it's helping with technical details as well.

"Having a strong ab routine helps with flipturns, streamlines, stroke work and pretty much every other movement we make in the water," she said.

Obvious physical benefits aside, the Lions are also enjoying the different workouts for another reason: the change of pace.

Having three weeks off from competition, practice can begin to get a bit repetitive, which is all more the reason to do something different and keep the team motivated to get better, DeForrest said.

"I think that one of the best things we can do is do workouts out of the water," DeForrest said. "It changes it up and allows us to work on other muscles we need."

Michelle Myers, a 2008 honorable mention All-American and sprinter, agrees with DeForrest.

"It's really good to do something else than following the black line all the time," she said.

Although the work outside the pool during the Lions' long break from competition has been physically demanding, the team is catching on to Hargis' theory.

"We have to be coordinated," Myers said. "We're not just swimmers, but athletes too."