Background: Swimmers often participate in large volumes of training, some of it on dry land as strength training. The usage of strength training is however still debated among coaches. Many studies focus on the association between upper body strength and swimming performance in shorter distances. Fewer studies focus on associations between lower body strength and/or swimming performance in longer distances.

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate the strength of the correlation between swimming performance in two different distances (50 and 400 meters) and maximum strength in the upper and lower body measured with 3 repetition maximum test in the pull up and the squat, respectively.

Method: A number of 15 male subjects from the local swimming club participated in the study.The testing procedure was divided into two different occasions. All subjects began with the swimming test for 50 meters, followed by a 15 minute rest and finally the swimming test for 400 meters. Approximately four hours after the swimming tests the subjects performed the strength tests. A 3 repetition maximum test was performed for the squat and then the pull up. The correlation analysis was performed with Pearson correlation coefficient with the level of significance set at p ≤ 0.05.

Results: A moderate correlation was found between the maximum strength in squat and swimming performance in 50 meters (r = -0.5, p = 0.057) and 400 meters (r = -0.4, p = 0.14). No correlation was found between maximum strength in pull up and swimming performance in 50 meters (r = -0.15, p = 0.59) or 400 meters (r = -0.03, p = 0.93).

Conclusion: Moderate correlations were found between lower body strength and swimming performance in both sprint and longer distances, while there were not any similar correlations for the upper body. Future studies with similar method should focus on including a higher number of subjects and only concluding subjects within the same competitive stroke since these were weaknesses in the current study.