Weight Training

Dominick, Actually I think you were getting the best workout with the different speed bags and double end bags. Boxers have long used core body strength, the only way to connect the power of the legs through the abdominals to the hands. At 5 feet 6 inches 125 lbs I know I would not want to tangle with you.:p And there is really no swimming body type. It does help to be 6 feet 6 inches but there are great swimmers at 4 feet 11 inches. Remember the "Old" days of medicine balls, well they are back. I guess 2500 yards is good for 70 years young, although you will never realize your swimming potential at any age with your present coach:D Tell me the real story on time in the gym. I bet there are some hot babes there. I know I lift more when there are some hotties arround. Just male ego working

Dominick I just have to ask, what are you doing in the gym for two hours? I have never spent over an hour and that is for upper and lower body. I do max reps, usually 12-14 on Nautilus machines at max pounds. I fill in with inclined leg press and other machines in the free weight room. But I try to go from exercise to execise in less than one minute. That extra hour in the gym to me is wasting an hour in my life I will never get back. If there are not a bunch of pansies sitting in machines between their pitiful multi-set low weight workouts, I can get in the gym and be done in 25 minutes! No messing arround, no wiping off sweat, just hard work. I am 55 now, close to 210, I need to loose a least 15 pounds to swim better. Mind you I do 2500 meters none stop free style all the way That is part of the problem. Sounds like you coach your self and you always swim without stopping. Also sounds like you have muscle beach type muscles and not swimming muscles. You will get much faster doing masters type workouts that add variety and interval training to your swimming. One of the forums here has workouts, you can print them out and swim them yourself. But you will never reach full potential as a swimmer without a real coach. Connie has a great coach who cares very much about his swimmers. But for her keeping swimming and making some small improvements in muscle strength will help her swimming.

Originally posted by breastroker Conniekat8, do you keep a log of your workouts? I would bet that your yardage is pretty high. Even the slow lanes get in 3000+ yards in an hour, the fast lanes get in 4500+. If you want to get faster, get in the gym as well as the pool. As little as 15% improvement in strength can make huge improvements in swimming times. There are certain small muscle groups that are indicators of how fast you can swim. You are really only as fast as your weakest muscles. Coach Wayne McCauley ASCA Level 5 Hi Wayne :) Yes, for about 75% of the days I keep the log of the workouts. I swim every day, out of those roughly 3 days are 3500-4000 Y workouts (takes me about an hour and 20 min to hour and a half), 2-3 days are 2800-3200Y workouts, takes me about an hour, and 1-2 recovery days, where I do 1500-2000Y of various stroke drilling. Couple times a week (When Coach Mark lets me - so I don't overtrain - I sneak in a second workout, and about one clinic a week) So I do between 7 and 11 workouts a week.. 20,000 to 25,000 yards a week (well, sometimes we get to swim in the LCM pool too). I'm pretty consistantly getting faster. At the moment I'm at :35 fot 50 free, and 1:20 for 100 SCY... My base 100 free is around 1:33. Just starting to learn other strokes. You probably need to know that I only started swimming middle of July, this last year - 2003. Never having swam before, unlike most people in Masters who had at one time or another swam as kids, highschool or college. Also very badly out of shape when I started, about 40 lb overweight, 33% body fat, resting pulse of around 80 and gasping for air at 140. My first meet was our Mission Viejo LCM zone meet, whopping 3 weeks after I started swimming. I made it through 50 free in about a minute, and 100 free in just over 2 minutes. So, when I started swimming for Coach Mark, I was pretty much a "tabula raza" Still have a looong ways to go. Tell you what, Mark's coaching is making a huge difference in my progress :) I'm slowly working in some dryland training, mainly stretching and "ProBodX" developed by Marv Marinovich. Lots of balance and small muscle strength exercises. these are the guys: www.sportslab.net/about.html and the ProBodX book that Marv co-authored. Anyways, I'm quite content with the progress I've made in last 6-7 months :D Still a long way to go before I get in a good shape, and learn proper strokes. But, I'm having lots of fun in the process. I'm digging the whole experinece, the team, the coach, and you SPMA and the USMS guys!

.wWayne. Yes Ido remember the medicne ball , especailly the 16 lb. Ball. But I was thought at a early age to have a good solid stomach, Cause even at alight body weight some guys canreally take your legs away with some withagood body attack. But I got to tell you Wayne , my swimming is actually my cardio. Also when I am in the gym I am allwork and no play. Now when I am resting between sets , yes there is some real nice babes . I guess that accounts for my extened rest between sets. And of course it is incentive to work out even harder. HA, HA,. Also your sense of humor is great. Dom