Ever since I joined a club with a pool I've stayed away from the treadmill. I did some search on a bodybuilding forum and read that swimming is not very effective in burning fat. I'd like to say it is, at least if done a certain way. So the real question is, what is the best way to swim freestyle and butterfly to get ripped?
Define ripped...
As far as building muscle mass goes, most of that takes place OUT of the water, with dryland training. Unless your stroke is really really inefficient, you're not going to be getting enough resistance in the water to build muscle mass.
Dr. G. John Mullen wrote an excellent post last week about swimmers and bodybuilding. But as he so eloquently put it, just because you wear a speedo doesn't mean you can swim.
www.swimmingscience.net/.../swimmers-vs-body-builders.html
Depends on what your goal is... the fastest swimmers are muscular, but they're generally not as jacked up as say, a football player or a boxer. To go fast you want to have a powerful power output (not necessarily super high strength, but you want "explosive" power to be able to maximally multiple times, every stroke for the duration of your race),
If you're looking to do bodybuilding, focus on dryland activities.
I would suggest poking around the forums of strength/conditioning coaches with an actual background in swimming. These include G. John Mullen of swimmingscience.net, Todd Sayce from saycoperformance, Allen Pike from Pike Athletics, and Chris Ritter of rittersp.com.
As far as fat burning goes, running is a more efficient way to burn fat, assuming you're going at the appropriate intensities and durations. Since swimming involves so many more muscles, oftentimes people sustain the intensity of exercises necessary to go into the aerobic fat burning zone. Also, your body moves the subcutaneous fat layer near your skin in the water to keep you warm. But if your joints can't put up with running for an extended period of time then biking is another good way to get your cardio going.
Decide what your prime goals are... you don't need to be visibly bulging with muscle to go fast, and unless your technique is solid being too muscly can be detrimental to your speed in the water.
diet
I think diet does have a lot to do with it (to state the obvious).
Studies have shown that swimming tends to encourage cravings for fat and carbs. If you can resist those cravings and eat sensibly, you will lose fat through a balanced training programme.
As has been said, you will not get huge muscles from swimming.
Well, my son is 18, lives on Krispy Kreme donuts and is a ***-stroker who avoids weights, does not run at all. And he is totally ripped, with an 8 pack. His butterfly is sub par, he barely breaks a minute on the 100m ***, but yes, he looks nice. Might just be genetics tho.
Well, my son is 18, lives on Krispy Kreme donuts and is a ***-stroker who avoids weights, does not run at all. And he is totally ripped, with an 8 pack. His butterfly is sub par, he barely breaks a minute on the 100m ***, but yes, he looks nice. Might just be genetics tho.
Ryan Lochte ate at McDonalds every day at Beijing and won a gold medal in the 200 backstroke, 2 bronzes in the IMs, and a gold in the 200 free relay. He did well in *spite* of eating an unbalanced diet (no veggies whole grains/ eating lots of high fat/sodium/simple carbs).
If "ripped" here means has lots of visible muscle mass, much of it is genetic. But muscle mass does not equal speed. And having an 8 pack doesn't mean having a strong core for swimming.... the rectus abdominus (what people usually think core means, just the abs) is great for flexing the spine forward but unless your back muscles/lats can balance your abs (because muscles work in groups because they can only contract in 1 direction, something has to bring the body part back to the original position),
That said, the metabolism of young people is dramatically different than that of adults... I'm sure many people remember their days of the pizza diet in college, and how those eating habits caught up with them in their 30s...
I think the 100 M breaststroke there is in yards or else he'd be one of the top 10 in the world, Kitajima won in 2008 with a 58 something.
lastly, regarding studies showing swimming increases desire for fat and carbs.... I'd love to see those studies. I bet many types of strenuous exercise increase hunger in general...
I'd like to see the OP clarify as to when they're saying "ripped", whether they're seeking to burn fat, increase muscle mass, and/or swim faster. 3 VERY different things.
Ooops, you're right it was 100yards not m - don't know how that got in there.
I totally agree with all you've said, I was just being sarcastic.
And Ryan does weights.
Ever since I joined a club with a pool I've stayed away from the treadmill. I did some search on a bodybuilding forum and read that swimming is not very effective in burning fat. I'd like to say it is, at least if done a certain way. So the real question is, what is the best way to swim freestyle and butterfly to get ripped?
You certainly can get ripped swimming....this type of ripped...
But not that type of ripped...
Swimming can help you 'get ripped' by shedding fat, adding muscle tone, and in my opinion improve overall muscle 'physique'. Sometimes I see huge, muscular ripped guys at the gym that obviously have giant muscles and are strong, but their chest/6 pack(many swimmers have 8) and overall muscle structure and shape is just funny looking to me. I don't know how to describe it, its like their muscles grew too big too fast or are out of proportion because of lack of variety of exercise or something I dont know but it makes me proud to be a swimmer!
