Has anyone used any of the strength training plans from this book by David Salo? I had planned to follow this starting in January, but when it came right down to it, the plans seemed nebulous and possibly a bit out of date compared to other plans I had available (non swim specific). So I went with another option for the time being.
Any thoughts, opinions?
Former Member
Wtf is this? Lifting weights never made anyone's muscles just stop working. .
I'm referring to lifting to failure--when your muscles can't complete a lift. I believe that is referred to as "lifting to failure". Of course my muscles could work. But not under the load at that time.
Why would you use a strength metric for overtraining instead of one that is more directly related to swim performance, such as performance on test sets or in-season meets? Or the ability to recover between hard efforts?
Because when you initially introduce lifting, you can get a performance hit in the water due to adaptation. A lot of swimmers would panic about pool performance indicators and quit, totally missing the point.
Gotta say, I LOVE this thread! I've never had wtf and wussiness and suck it up directed at me. It's a new experience and I kinda like it. It's refreshing compared to the "listen to your body" advice that I typically hear.
I'm trying to find out how intensely I can work before the gains are minimal or nonexistent.
From what I can tell, I don't think even Jazz lifts to complete failure; I think I remember him saying once that he stops a set when the speed/rate of his reps decrease below a certain amount.
Generally, yeah. I don't routinely do the big heavy lifts to failure. I think it's nice with lighter stuff and isolation.
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.
:applaud: Wow, Fort, way to go! And, I thought I was doing well being able to do just 3 chin ups- period! :lmao:
Just curious... How many push-ups do you do? I'm up to 42 in one minute.
Suck it up. If lifting is making you tired in mid season, who cares? It's mid season. Your focus meet is at the end of the season. Saying that lifting might be detrimental to swimming because it makes you tired the same/next day is like saying that swimming itself is detrimental to swimming because it makes you tired in the following minutes.
Jazz is a baby and doesn't always understand the 40+ crowd. But he has a point. You may have to dedicate some time and effort to building a good base of strength. I've been lifting consustently for some years so it probably wasn't too detrimental for me to cut back somewhat this season. You can try to strategically time your workouts around lifting too. I'll often try to schedule a hard workout the day before I lift. And I've always been able to pop off a good speed workout right after lifting. You'll have to use trial and error to find out what works best for you in terms of timing, duration and number of dryland workouts.
I do think, however, there is some real value in swimming very fast in practice in a relatively unfatigued state.
Elaine, I don't do push ups much as they tend to tweak my shoulder. But 42 is fantastic!
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.
Suck it up. If lifting is making you tired in mid season, who cares? It's mid season. Your focus meet is at the end of the season. Saying that lifting might be detrimental to swimming because it makes you tired the same/next day is like saying that swimming itself is detrimental to swimming because it makes you tired in the following minutes.
