Swimming after liftin'

For the most part I follow the Chowmi/Fort construct and prefer to swim after I lift. If it is a hard lift (1 X a week for me) I’ll just go 500-1,000 easy after wards till I feel ok in the water and have my stroke somewhat back to normal. There are times (especially early in taper) when I’ll lift fairly easy, but still explosive, immediately prior to a speed workout. This works well for me. I also usually do one moderate lift a week and can manage a good hard workout one to three hours later. I want to weigh in a bit on the comments of whether or not to lift at all as a supplement to swimming. First, I wouldn’t rely too heavily on previous studies. Many are grossly flawed. I participated in one during the early 1990’s at the OTC. Very scientific design with highly credentialed investigators. It involved swimming in the flume to exhaustion, numerous blood draws, all expiration gases collected, a strict 24 hour diet and 4 freaking muscle biopsies! And I could tell shortly into this torture that the collection of data was messed up, that protocols were being adjusted on the fly and communication among investigators was poor. I did not trust the eventual conclusions. I love to read studies on performance physiology, but with a very skeptical eye. Second, it is a mistake to ignore the huge amount of anecdotal evidence that has demonstrated the improvement that resistance training has enable in many sports. Sure, the design isn’t very scientific, but the longitudinal experiences of the same individual counts for plenty. Personally, I’ve got 35 years of my own detailed data to analyze and I believe it is more telling than studies lasting 6 weeks. BTW, I'm pretty sure Dave Costill does supplemental dryland training and is still setting masters swim records in his 70's. Third, I feel supplemental resistance training out of the water, especially for masters swimmers, will benefit both their swimming and help them age successfully in living day-to-day. Not only is your muscle mass decreasing as you age but your neural transmissions become compromised. Correctly designed dryland training (along with intense swimming) can greatly forestall these eventualities. I feel that as you age, maintaining strength through resistance training is as, or more, important than cardiovascular training. Spoken like a true sprinter!

For the most part I follow the Chowmi/Fort construct and prefer to swim after I lift. If it is a hard lift (1 X a week for me) I’ll just go 500-1,000 easy after wards till I feel ok in the water and have my stroke somewhat back to normal. There are times (especially early in taper) when I’ll lift fairly easy, but still explosive, immediately prior to a speed workout. This works well for me. I also usually do one moderate lift a week and can manage a good hard workout one to three hours later. I want to weigh in a bit on the comments of whether or not to lift at all as a supplement to swimming. First, I wouldn’t rely too heavily on previous studies. Many are grossly flawed. I participated in one during the early 1990’s at the OTC. Very scientific design with highly credentialed investigators. It involved swimming in the flume to exhaustion, numerous blood draws, all expiration gases collected, a strict 24 hour diet and 4 freaking muscle biopsies! And I could tell shortly into this torture that the collection of data was messed up, that protocols were being adjusted on the fly and communication among investigators was poor. I did not trust the eventual conclusions. I love to read studies on performance physiology, but with a very skeptical eye. Second, it is a mistake to ignore the huge amount of anecdotal evidence that has demonstrated the improvement that resistance training has enable in many sports. Sure, the design isn’t very scientific, but the longitudinal experiences of the same individual counts for plenty. Personally, I’ve got 35 years of my own detailed data to analyze and I believe it is more telling than studies lasting 6 weeks. BTW, I'm pretty sure Dave Costill does supplemental dryland training and is still setting masters swim records in his 70's. Third, I feel supplemental resistance training out of the water, especially for masters swimmers, will benefit both their swimming and help them age successfully in living day-to-day. Not only is your muscle mass decreasing as you age but your neural transmissions become compromised. Correctly designed dryland training (along with intense swimming) can greatly forestall these eventualities. I feel that as you age, maintaining strength through resistance training is as, or more, important than cardiovascular training. Spoken like a true sprinter!