Total Conditioning for Swimming?

I. Received this book for Christmas and used it to get started with a strength conditioning program. I thought the DVD was marginally useful, but i felt the exercises offered a good start for a dryland program to compliment swimming, especially since I'd never attempted one before and didn't know where to start. Since then I've kept a few of the exercises and dropped others based on my own body's response, further reading and advice from my chiropractor and husband. I find that I'm still working on tailoring my dryland conditioning as I get more familiar with my own strengths and limitations, but this book was a good place to start for me anyway.

Jswim, thanks! I guess I keep thinking if I look long enough, I will come up with the perfect strength program that pushes me, is short with compound lifts, and doesn't leave me trashed for swimming. I've been doing "The New Rules of Lifting for Women" and LOVED it, but it is strenuous and you're really NOT supposed to be doing other serious training along with it. I always felt like I was on the verge of collapse from too much training during that. I did like the results when I rested and recovered though. ARGHH!

Yeah I'm still learning how to not over-do it as well, but still gain strength... it's not an easy one to figure out. Good luck!

I. Received this book for Christmas and used it to get started with a strength conditioning program. I thought the DVD was marginally useful, but i felt the exercises offered a good start for a dryland program to compliment swimming, especially since I'd never attempted one before and didn't know where to start. Since then I've kept a few of the exercises and dropped others based on my own body's response, further reading and advice from my chiropractor and husband. I find that I'm still working on tailoring my dryland conditioning as I get more familiar with my own strengths and limitations, but this book was a good place to start for me anyway. I've been using it, like jswim, as a general guide for picking and choosing. Also use the blogs and Swimming Anatomy. I think Salo intended to provide overall direction/guidance from his experiences and lots of options to let you then figure out what and how to personalize. I refer to it frequently and reread chapters and setions and then make adjustments. Each time i pick it up seems like i learn a little more. It isn't really a cookbook or coach, but the trial and error is ok with me.

would you mind sharing how much/how often you are swimming a week and how often you do drylands/strength work? I guess the essence of my thread is that I'm really trying to put together the nuts and bolts of how to maximize my swim time but also do strength training without being trashed physically. Whenever I stop lifting and swim rested I am so much faster and energetic. yet I really want to build my strength. plus, for my age (43) and gender I know I really need to do weight bearing exercise. Cause I swim every day. No running or other such nonsense! My recollection of his book is that it seemed designed for high school kids who weren't really lifting weights yet. Some of the exercises in the book -- good mornings, squats, back extensions -- are fantastic, IF you use actual weight. I'm not really impressed with stretch cords. Lifting will indeed kill a swim workout or at least make you feel terrible during it, especially heavy upper body lifting. This season, I've been sticking to lifting 2x a week (haven't done any upper body due to elbow issues) and have felt great in the water. I previously had sometimes tried to do a third dryland workout, probably too much (at age 50). I swim 5x a week with 3 speed/lactate workouts.

I have his Complete Conditioning for Swimming (don't know if it is really the same book). I've used it to complement the weight program I put together based on what my college coach had me do. I was looking more for injury prevention exercises and core training and it was a good book to build with. I also liked that it had a sample training section based on the Master's calendar that I tweeked based on this year's events and then I also came up with yardage goals as well. Basically the book has five phases, Preliminary, Training, Competition, Championship and Active Rest. In Prelim and Active rest it's more maintence and I usually drop the yardage and do wieghts/dry land 1-2 a week. In Training I have high yardage and Weights/Dryland 3 days a week. In Competition, I drop the yardage a little and keep weights and dryland to 3 a week. In Championship, this is really your tapper, so no weights, the dryland is only injury prevention and slowly dropping yardage. It seemed to work well for the SCM season and we'll see how I do at Nationals in a couple weeks.

I was hoping you would chime in because your schedule seems to be what I go for as well. I'm regretfully cutting weights back to 2x/week because I was just running myself into the ground. The upper body strengthening is frustrating to me because yeah, it trashes the swimming but I really do want to build my maximum strength more, and fill in with swimming for endurance strength. I hope that makes sense.:blush: It does to me. I also want to work upper body in an "opposite" way to what swimming does. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just did lower body work and some injury prevention stuff and pushups for upper body and left it at that.:) ARGH!! If I can't swim fast I want to at least LOOK intimidating on the pool deck!:applaud: I have been swimming much faster in practice this season with 2x in the gym, and have swum faster in my two in season meets. Though I will occasionally sneak in another quick core workout, which doesn't take it out of me nearly the way weights do. I am a kick intensive swimmer, so the lower body weighs (and plyos) are key for me. However, strong lats are important for every stroke. So if I'm only doing one upper body exercise, it would probably be late pull downs or rows. I have no proof for this whatsoever, but I think my shoulders are healthier when I'm doing some upper body back work. The injury prevention exercises don't seem quite enough. Even though I haven't been doing much upper body work, I still look "jacked" to quote someone at my last meet. It's probably all the power work in the pool. Shoulders like the Hulk. If you want dryland ideas, check the blogs of Jazz Hands and Funky Fish. They both are extremely knowledgable about lifting. Or mine, though I'm a bit more idiosyncratic than them. I also take a recovery work every 4 weeks or so where I don't lift at all. I try to have this coincide with a meet.

Fortress, here's a question--can you do a full chin up/pull up? I'm getting close but I'm not there quite yet. The work to build that strength really trashes my upper body. But I'd like to be at a point where chin ups are something I do regularly. In sets.:) Yes. In the past, I have even done sets of 3 x 10 chin ups at the gym. Haven't done any pull ups or chins at all in months because of the elbows.

would you mind sharing how much/how often you are swimming a week and how often you do drylands/strength work? I guess the essence of my thread is that I'm really trying to put together the nuts and bolts of how to maximize my swim time but also do strength training without being trashed physically. Whenever I stop lifting and swim rested I am so much faster and energetic. yet I really want to build my strength. plus, for my age (43) and gender I know I really need to do weight bearing exercise. Cause I swim every day. No running or other such nonsense!

My recollection of his book is that it seemed designed for high school kids who weren't really lifting weights yet. Some of the exercises in the book -- good mornings, squats, back extensions -- are fantastic, IF you use actual weight. I'm not really impressed with stretch cords. Lifting will indeed kill a swim workout or at least make you feel terrible during it, especially heavy upper body lifting. This season, I've been sticking to lifting 2x a week (haven't done any upper body due to elbow issues) and have felt great in the water. I previously had sometimes tried to do a third dryland workout, probably too much (at age 50). I swim 5x a week with 3 speed/lactate workouts. I was hoping you would chime in because your schedule seems to be what I go for as well. I'm regretfully cutting weights back to 2x/week because I was just running myself into the ground. The upper body strengthening is frustrating to me because yeah, it trashes the swimming but I really do want to build my maximum strength more, and fill in with swimming for endurance strength. I hope that makes sense.:blush: It does to me. I also want to work upper body in an "opposite" way to what swimming does. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I just did lower body work and some injury prevention stuff and pushups for upper body and left it at that.:) ARGH!! If I can't swim fast I want to at least LOOK intimidating on the pool deck!:applaud: