Can Swimming Get You 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.

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.