This is from one of my favorite current swimming exprets, Brent Rushhall of San Diego State University.
www-rohan.sdsu.edu/.../table.htm
Parker, J. (1989). Wiping your swimmers out. Swimming Technique, May-July, 10-16.
The process of the destruction of muscle (rhabdomyolysis) is commonly found in runners, particularly after completing a marathon. There is little evidence that rhabdomyolysis causes performance decrement. Creatine kinase (CK) is an enzyme found in muscle cells which catalyzes the formation of phosphocreatine from creatine and ATP. It is not normally found in the blood in large quantities unless muscle cells have been damaged. Increased CK activity is a marker for excessive strain.
In one day, an elite swimmer burns more calories than a runner in a marathon. Since many swimmers train at least 3-5 hours a day six days per week, a great strain is placed on their bodies. Muscle degeneration could result from consistent exercise at elevated intensities. Muscle problems can exist with degeneration and inflammation occurring while discomfort is tolerable (low pain). Overuse injury syndrome is frequently seen in "swimmer's shoulder" (a pathology of the rotator cuff) and "breaststroker's knee" (injury to the medial colateral ligament and/or medial patellar facet due to the highly unusual action in the breaststroke kick). Possible other causes are protein and iron deficiencies, the oxidative capacity of muscle cells, and glycogen stores. Psychological conditions result in "burn-out."
Implication. The threat of overtraining can be reduced without it affecting the performance of the athlete. Yardage can be reduced and the training stimulus changed to interval work of greater quality and less volume.
". overtrained runners do not lose their conditioning, but they may demonstrate a deterioration in running form. . . .overtraining may cause some local muscular fatigue through selective glycogen depletion, forcing runners to alter their mechanics to achieve the same pace."(p. 198)
Lot more interesting stuff at:
www-rohan.sdsu.edu/.../table.htm
Connie,you order it from him on line . First you get a CD-ROM and then you get updates online. Go to coachsci.sdsu.edu/.../index.htm
Zirconium,no weights won"t help rhabdomyolysis.It is a breakdown of muscles from trauma(including the trauma of extreme overuse.I have never heard of it being a problem for swimmers before and I'm not clear from this abstract if indeed it is. Has any one ever heard of it in swimmers?
I've only been trying to read stuff from his website on and off for the past year or two. There's so much material there!
Where is his journal published? I haven't caught on to that yet, but would like to. I like that he is experimenting and seems like cooperating with other sciences.
Would a complement in weight training help to minimize the muscle loss?
That is what I read in the books about weight training. It said that people loses muscle with age. Only weight training can slow / prevent this muscle loss.
There have been several theads about weight lifting. Again,it depends on what you want to accomplish athletically how you should do weights. Weight machines can be tricky and it would be best to go over your goals with a trainer and get recommendations. That said,if your goal is to compete at distances 200 and less you need to work on power. Power is most easily increased by high weight/low rep lifting. Without supervision and instruction that is an easy way to get hurt,but it is nearly essential for sprinting to do some high resistance exercises.
Here's the way I feel about overtraining, simplified. Overtraining is physical overburn, not psychological. Overtraining can occur on any single session from training too hard or too long - either too much for the "condition level" of the person or just too much work at the wrong time (the wrong time for any number of reasons). Overtraining also can occur at any time when the accumulated affects of physical activity become too much for the body to recover normally. When one overtrains, "everything" breaks down. The longer the period that contributed to the overtraining, the far longer the period required to get back to normal. The longer the intense period that lead to the overtraining, the more massive the breakdown can be. The older one becomes, the easier it is to overtrain. It's all about knowing (guessing really) how intense you can be and much time you need to recover. The indication of overtraining is first detectable more by loss of aerobic capacity than it is by muscle strength. Well, that's my highly unscientific view.
Note: I think you misunterstood to suggest that Zirconium said "weights [] help rhabdomyolysis". I agree with what Zirconium said.
I'm no expert, but what I'm hearing a lot is that high reps, lower weights are more beneficial to swimming then heavy lifting. Also, you'd probably want to do a weight workout including balancing (balance balls and similar).
The important part for swimming is to strenghten smaller muscles too, which you don't often get out of lifting, especially if you go to the gym and use weught machines that isolate the larger muscles.
At the minimum, use free weights.
my favorite type of dryland is this: http://www.probodx.com/
(of course, I don't do it nearly as much as i should, I tend to do it for a while, then blow it off for a while... which is certainly not the right approach)
As for muscle loss, I think is has a lot of factors. Most of it is related to the fact taht a large number of people at age 50 aren't nearly as active then at 20, and physical activity, especially of a lot of resistance (or weight) can build muscle at almost any age. Lack of it results in muscle loss. Yea, there's some muscle loss related only to age, and not inactivity. I was reading an article put out by university of Florida just yesterday that with same level of activity at age 70 one would be 20% weaker then at age 20. at age of 80, this would go up to 50% weaker.
There are other aging factors that in most cases make it near impossible to maintain the same activity level at 70 as at 20...
Also, muscle loss due to aging is reversible to a degree by increased activity.
Here's an article similar to what I read yesterday:
www.unm.edu/.../sarcopenia.html
And here's an anecdotal story or you... A dear friend of mine, at the age of 20, and 6'1" frame weighed 140 pounds soaking wet with a rock in his pocket as he likes to describe it, and not very athletic.
He is 61 now, 220 pounds of solid muscle, I'd say at most 10% body fat and capable of bench pressing over 300 pounds.
If he was 20 and the same regimen, perhaps he'd be lifting 350...
Bottom line is, age related muscle loss is not someting to be alarmed about in your 40's. Just don't stop moderate exercise.
What gets to most of us as we gwt older are little chronic conditions like bad back, arthritis, chronic injuries, and body's need for a longer recovery as we get older, often a different lifestyle too, all of which makes it harder to keep the same exercise regiment when compared to our 20's.
I did notice that the link to the article you posted talks a lot about competetive weight lifting. Their information is probably very good, but it might be a bit too slanted towards the concerns of a competetive lifter, and not be AS useful for someone looking to keep physically healthy without being highly comopetetive.
Anyway, that's the way I look at it, from the common sense point of view. Like I said, I'm no expert.
Here are some links that shed some light on this.
This one is from the british swim coaches site. There are a number of good articles here. The one at the bottom of the list is about "recovery based training", a different philosophy on adaptation. www.bscta.com/.../0,10853,5090-165497-182715-nav-list,00.html
There is also lots of simplified info on the site: www.moregold.com.au
This article is on recognising the effects of overtraining: www.moregold.com.au/default.asp
If this link does not work you will have to register and then find it in articles/sport science/rest recovery and restoration.
Overtraining describes a general work overload that leads to sustained worsening of performance. A period of rest is needed for recovery.
Over-reaching is wwhere you are exhausted from one or more sessions or days and where an easier set the next session will allow you to recover. Regular over-reaching is neccessary for improvement in the long term.
Originally posted by Zirconium
Would a complement in weight training help to minimize the muscle loss?
That is what I read in the books about weight training. It said that people loses muscle with age. Only weight training can slow / prevent this muscle loss. Weight training if done wrong can cause muscle breakdown the same as over training while swimming. I could be wrong but I am a believer in if it hurts don't do it.
