... The relationship between upper body strength and swimming performance over short distances has been verified previously (Hawley, Williams, Victory, & Handcock, 1992;Morrison, Peyrebrune, & Folland, 2005;Sharp, Troup, & Costill, 1982;Smith, Norris, & Hogg, 2000), and several methods have been used for their improvement out of the water (dry-land methods) as well as in the water (in-water methods) (Girold, Calmels, Maurin, Milhau, & Chatard, 2006;Girold, Maurin, Dugué, Chatard, & Millet, 2007). However, the effectiveness of the different training methods depends on the degree of their specificity regarding the competition movement (Canavan, Garrett, & Armstrong, 1996;Costill, Sharp, & Troup, 1980;Huijing, Hollander, & De Groot, 1983;Maglischo, 2003). With dry-land methods, it is difficult to simulate the movement pattern that occurs in swimming and thus the training effect may only partially be transferred to the competitive swimming performance (Toussaint & Beek, 1992;Toussaint & Vervoon, 1990). ...