Swimming after liftin'

Resistance training does produce changes in strength exercise performance and in the physiology of the muscles. However, its effects are specific to the training exercises and do not transfer positively to the sport for which they are "intended." Some of the reasons for failure of land-based training are: the resistance activities do not mimic the movement path or action speed of swimming; muscular actions in the exercises are in coordinated patterns that have no commonality with crawlstroke swimming; and the distributions of forces in land-training exercises are different to those of swimming. This is a myth. Strength training with compound movements (squats, deadlifts, pull ups, clean and jerk, etc) will always transfer to sports. Almost all athletes in pretty much every sport are doing weight training and benefiting A LOT from it. It's just swimming that's stuck with this retrograde notion that strength training must come from exercises that are exactly like what you do in the water. The authors warned that land-based resistance training exercises may alter stroke mechanics. Source: coachsci.sdsu.edu/.../tanaka.htm What? How exactly? Costill attributes the lack of specificity in the land training to the lack of transfer. He stated: "You can gain strength by swimming. If you want to overload the muscle then do sprint swimming." No, you can't. To gain strength you need resistance. Water does not provide enough resistance to develop max strength, period. Those studies are also quite laughable, for reasons that gaash already explained. Lochte, Phelps and all serious swimmers are doing it. You should too. Ryan Lochte Training Secrets - YouTube Ryan Lochte Training - YouTube Ryan Lochte Power Circuit 2 G-Fit Jeah! - YouTube

Quoted: Force production is a fickle thing in the water. You push the water, the water pushes back, up to a certain point. If you push too hard, the water "caves" (it's called cavitation" and you "slip" in the water. This is when "bubbles" show up, and coaches tell you you have a poor "catch"! (As in, you're not grabbing the water because you pushed too hard!) Chris Ritter went over a detailed plan for structuring the order of dryland and swimming. theswimmerscircle.com/.../ Regarding cords, you shouldn't be doing them primarily for strength. They are for shoulder stability, as in recruiting the little guys who wouldn't otherwise be engaged. So I do them every day, they're never done to fatigue (because fatigue is not the point! It's not for endurance... fatigue is catabolic, rest is anabolic!) Weights can't replaced swimming as far as getting faster goes. But you can get stronger in the pool by doing all out work/adding resistance. Functional strength is built by doing the movements you want stronger, not by isolating components and doing them separately and slower. I think reading the original post by SwimBRCT goes to his points, AND I think many are thinking in terms of absolutes when really there is a wide array of swimming circumstances and human conditions involved. First think about an analogy of a boat, motor and propeller. The propeller pushes water backwards and that makes the boat go forward. Your arm and hand do the same (ignore lift). To make the boat go faster, one increases the throttle, the engine increases in speed and the tranny then makes the propeller spin faster. The speed increases as the prop spins faster until it reaches the maximum engine speed (RPM). The boat is not going faster because the propeller is pushing the water harder, but because it's turning faster and pushing water at a higher rate. If one wants the propeller to push harder, one has to increase the diameter or reshape it to be more efficient at the desired size and RPM. One can keep putting bigger and bigger engines on the boat, but if using the same propeller at the same speed, the bigger hp won't make the boat go any faster. That is, if the propeller is 8" diameter, spinning at the max engine speed of 1200 RPM, and a 20 hp engine is needed to make this happen, replacing the engine with 1,000 hp engine will not make the boat go any faster (probably would go slower due to the extra weight). Conversely, if it requires 20 hp engine to turn the propeller at a speed of 1200 RPM and the engine is only 10hp, the engine would either operate below max RPMs or burn up and the boat won't reach or sustain the desired velocity. You can buy more speed for your boat by getting a motor with more hp and bigger dia. propeller. However, for humans we're stuck with what we're born with as far as the propeller goes - you grow and the dia. becomes fixed for each individual. My propeller at 5'-9" ht. doen't have the same potential as a person at 6'-9" turning at the same RPM and mechanics. (But, the hp required to drive that bigger propeller will be greater at the same RPMs and propeller mechanics.) You can also buy more speed for a boat by purchasing a propeller with a better more efficient design. There are 8" propellers that are designed for power to bite faster and yank a skier out of the water, and 8" propellers designed to operate efficently at slow RPMs for say fishing. The mechanics of the propeller's design govern its ability to create boat velocity at a given rotational speed. With better design, the propeller may need less hp and produce more boat velocity at the same rotational speed. It is conceivable that some swimmers have more than enough hp (strength), and would benefit most from improving their propeller's mechanics (stroke technique). That is, if you are very strong already, you might be adding a 100 hp engine to a propeller that only needs 20 hp to spiin at the required RPMs. In this case working on a better propeller makes more sense and would be more likely to produce resuts. There are probably some elite swimmers that conceivably aren't going to beneift (the way most of us would) from piling on more yards and swimming technique work. It's also conceivable that most of us need BOTH, that is improved propellers to gain more speed or to use less energy AND more hp (we're under-powered) or strength. So, does it make more sense to accomplish both of these in the pool where you can work on technique and strength or on dryland where you really can only work on strength? With dryland you know what you are (or aren't) doing. The workout is in-your-face and direct. In the pool it's easier to swim through a set especailly when working alone or if distracted by other stuff in your life. With dryland you can focus on your own specific muscle needs - work to balance weaknesses, stabilze shoulders, or on a too fat core. Dryland may be more efficient to get after specific difficiencies. Read the article by Ritter that Swim BRCT posted above regarding which comes first - the swimming or the lifting. I'm also wondering why Ritter found that it matters? Most of the books ive read lately on runnig, biking and swimming point our the dangers of over trainging and under-estimating recovery needs. I don't think too many masters swimmers are in danger of over-swimming, because we don't have the time. It is probably easier, however, to go over board with the weights at times for me. Pretty fascinating thread over all. Thanks. :bed:

In just about EVERY sport, the time spent in the weight room has gone up while the time spent "doing the sport" has gone down among the elite. I'll take the 30+yrs of anecdotal evidence and improvements across just about all sports including swimming over one or two studies anyday. There's probably a tipping point where the extra strength isn't worth it versus the extra added weight, but I doubt most people whose main activity is swimming get there without any lifting. The studies that I saw swimBRCT quoting where done in the 90's...some relevance still I'm sure but the fact is all distances 500 and under are now so "power" driven that its hard for me to believe that supplemental weight training has not played a part (I won't dare to bring up WHICH exercises so as to not hijack this thread! :)). Even looking at some of the worlds best like Phelps and Lochte added very powerful dry land training to their workload post-college and have both shown incredible improvements late in their careers. For old farts like most of us on this forum I honestly think that delaying/reducing muscle loss through the aging process by weight training has as much to do with success as actually getting "stronger" (except in the case of masters swimmers who did not compete in college and partake in weight training who see significant gains by introducing it later in life for the first time). Another interesting perspective: www.collegeswimming.com/.../

Even though performance will drop off considerably immediately following weights, one can still work on technique and drills.

Swim then lift (7): Swimosaur, jaadams1, ElaineK, knelson, nkfrench, aztimm, Allen Stark Lift then swim (8): The Fortress, gaash, dadis, slow, Chris Stevenson, ande, _steve_ (?), androvski It's about even. Sorry if I miscounted or misrepresented someone's preference! Just to be clear, my own preference is to split up the workouts, usually swimming in the AM and lifting after work (or sometimes at lunch). But I think the OP's original premise was, if you HAD to combine them for scheduling reasons, which would you do? In that case, lift then swim is my preference, probably because I have found that I can sometimes (but not always) fight thru the effects of the weights and still post some pretty good times, while after a hard swim workout I don't feel I can muster the intensity needed to make lifting worthwhile. Just my $0.02 of course, I don't know that there is a universally correct answer.

Swim then lift (9): Swimosaur, jaadams1, ElaineK, knelson, nkfrench, aztimm, Allen Stark, That Guy, Paul Smith Lift then swim (8): The Fortress, gaash, dadis, slow, Chris Stevenson, ande, _steve_, androvski @Chris Stevenson: I read the original question the same way and share your reasoning. Since I am on vacation, today I had the luxury of swimming in the morning and lifting weights in the late-afternoon. But that type of schedule is going to be impossible 95% of the time. If I were going to start a poll re: lifting weights, what would be a good format? Do you do any strength training out of the pool? No, not for me Yes, rarely (~once per week or less) Yes, sometimes (two or three times a week) Yes, regularly (four or five times a week) Yes, often (six or seven times a week) Hmmm, not quite right... :shakeshead: Need to phrase it better!

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!

I am a deployed US Army soldier and travel through-out the middle east. In certain areas I actually have access to a pool. When I am there I have started to mix both muscle development and swimming. I have time for a 3000 yd workout usually about 50-55 minutes during my lunch break. Then after shift I will hit the gym by running 3 miles on the treadmill (thank goodness for ipods) and then I will take the p90x exercises for a muscle group and do moderate weight but hig reps for muscle endurance. So today I will swim then in the evening I will run and immediately work chest by doing a lot of different push-ups and use dumb-bells on a flat and incline bench. I try to incorporate p90x and cardio for my dry-land workout. I am back homei n the US in May then gonna really focus on the worlds in '13.

Short answer to put me in one camp or the other: Lift then swim. Main reasons: 1. Can't stand drippy wet hair!! 2. Lift "seriously" when I lift; so therefore, I would have "nothing left" for a swim practice. If I lifted afterwards, i'd just be rushing through the motions to hurry up and get in the shower. 3. Usually swim a very easy 1000 to 1500 max afterwards to loosen up and set up for the next time I swim, not as an actual swim practice. This is also very limited by time available. I almost never have the time for a 2 hour workout, so an extra 15 minutes is about all I have left anyway. Totally cuts into my exfoliating day, and so for a few weeks i'm a flaky version of myself. I think a lot of the answers posted depend on your schedule as well as the type of lift/dryland and the type of swimming you do, and that is very different from one poster to another.

If I were going to start a poll re: lifting weights, what would be a good format? Do you do any strength training out of the pool? No, not for me Yes, rarely (~once per week or less) Yes, sometimes (two or three times a week) Yes, regularly (four or five times a week) Yes, often (six or seven times a week) My advice: drop the descriptors and just ask how many times one lifts weights each week: 0-1 2-3 4-5 6-7 (Up to you whether to include other forms of strength training.)