Swimming after liftin'

I never enjoyed it much in college either. And that was lifting before of after practice...one of them will pay the price. I took the weight lifting classes either at 8am or 2pm in college, because it was either directly after morning practice, or right before afternoon practice. But... The 2nd activity always paid the price. If I lifted first, then swam, my weights were good, but swimming was tough. I couldn't agree more. Back in college I would always try to schedule weight lighting/dryland sessions on weekdays where we only did singles, or after saturday morning practice. If it was a day of the week with a double swim session scheduled I would try my hardest to avoid weights or any type of dryland. Right now I only go to the gym on the days that I do not swim.

Two of the three days/wk I swim I lift first - a moderate workout of about 35-40 min. I don't really do it to improve swimming, just for general fitness. It does make me more tired in the pool, but after a decent warm up, I recover somewhat. Odd thing is that the days I don't lift, I don't swim much better. Doing moderate weights seems to rev me up a bit and makes my body more ready to work. So there's an up side to lifting first (if you don't go gangbusters), along with the obvious downside.

I think it simply comes down to priorities and your daily energy levels. I'm a power lifter who swam competitively for 8 years as a kid and recently has come back to the sport after 20 years. If I'm eating properly, the order I do my workouts in matters very little. I might be fatigued at the start of the workout, but once I loosen up I'm good to go. The workout I did the previous day has an immense influence on how I feel, however. If I did a heavy pull workout yesterday (lots of upper back, lat, and biceps involvement), I'm going to be hurting in the pool today. Likewise, lots of yards today will affect my leg day tomorrow. Overhead pressing will fry the muscles of my rotator cuff for a few days. Also consider the effects of CNS fatigue. Heavy deadlifts or squats today can have a detrimental effect on your pool workout tomorrow and can leave you wondering why. I think swimmers who lift are uniquely susceptible to this given the long hours and huge amount of work done in the pool. This is just my observation though, I can't trot out any studies to back me up. For those who want to weight train (versus messing around in the gym) and swim, I would recommend bumping up your protein. From my own experience, I know runners/swimmers/bikers tend to be carb hounds and underestimate the amount of protein required for weight lifting. My 2/100.

At my age (52), I would use a short swim workout after a hard weight workout out more as a means to "losen up" than as an additional aerobic session on top of an anearobic session. Weights are great for speed work and help your taper when you stop them. But they also crush you in the water if done hard and regular. If you losen up a bit after weights in the water you might feel a little better the next day or two. I'm usually tight and tired the 2nd day after weights. I seldom do weight and swim on the same day anymore. If you are younger and have the motivation and time..... then go for it. Hammer out another hour after your weight routine.

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! This pretty sums it up for me. I do weights (not purely for strength) because they are part of a balanced approach to fitness and health. To a certain extent I don't care if they help me swim faster or not. However, I know that they help me, because I can pop to the gym for 35-40 minutes a few times a week, while I can't fit in three more 60 minute plus swim training sessions. As a masters swimmer, swimming fits around life, rather than the other way around. On that basis, I'd prefer to split weights and swimming, but forced to choose I'd do weights first. On another note, I've just installed TRX (suspension trainer) in my basement and am starting to experiment with that. I suspect that I will continue to do weights, but add in more frequent, short TRX sessions for core work and for more variety in general.