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
Former Member
Brent Rushhall is my friend and sometime guru. We do not always think alike, but the knowledge from his CD and web site is amoung the best out there. The slow motion videos and strokes disected into every tenth of a second combined with his analysis are great for coaches and swimmers.
San Diego State University is one of the few places in the world where you can get degree and become a great swim coach.
Connie, I disagree some what on your statement of high reps and low weights being best. I will always prefer being able to do 10 reps on the superpullover at 240 pounds rather than 40 reps at 120 pounds.
There are a couple of basic tenants for swimming and weights:
1) Always vary the workout, the body adapts too well, you must vary the workout for the best results.
2) You absolutely need some days of extremely hard workouts, at maximum speed or maximum weights. But always follow with easy recovery days. Maximum efforts can take the muscles as long as 72 hours to recover, unless you use streoids or HGH.
3) Weights and swimming must be done perfectly and with specificity. You will never see in any of my writings a recomendation for the old Bench Press. There is no correlation with swimming, while the superpullover is the breaststroke pulldown.
Connie, thanks for starting a great thread.
Found the article. The misc.fitness.weights FAQ, Section IV
weightlifting and health:
www.trygve.com/mfw_faq.html
Can you please give it a glance and let me know your opinion?
I am a man, 42, self-learn swimming, never had done any competition. I am far from overtraining in swimming. Nevertheless, I started adding some modest weight exercises since a month. The initial purpose was to pursue the strenghtening of my shoulder muscles that I started a few months ago to cure my shoulder tendonitis.
In all documentations I read about weight trainings, the authors advise to work on the whole body to keep harmony and balance. That is how I started to work other muscles than my shoulders.
I swim + doing weights only for fitness. I am not looking into becoming a performance freak nor a monster bodybuiler. If you know of a proper way of mixing swimming and dryland exercises, I would greatly appreciate any recommendation.
Originally posted by geochuck
I still like my potato sack lifts for a true exercise. That an be found here forums.usms.org/showthread.php
You made me sweat with your potato sacks story until I reach the last sentence :-)
I have read so many theories on weight training and everyone has a different idea. There is nothing that replaces good swimming technique, good swimming workouts, and guts. All of the weight stuff is just if you have time to do it. A swimmer needs long supple muscles and heavy weights do not help here. The wrong kind of reps are not needed. Nothing replaces swimming technique to be a good swimmer. You can lift to your heart out it won't make any difference.
I sometimes think from reading these posts on weight lifting that it is more important to women than men. Without weight lifting, I don't think I would be able to swim. Keeping all the big and little muscles strong in my shoulders have enabled me to handle the swimming work load. Something Connie said hit home about those little muscles. Since I have some rotator cuff issues from playing ball, and have had them for a long, long time, long before I swam, I have always done the little exercises the PT gave me all those years ago, and it helps.
Lifting also keeps my weight under control. Swimming is great exercise, great calorie burner, and yes, if I want to be a better swimmer, I have to swim, but weight training is important. I would bet most college programs have their swimmers on some form of weight training and dryland training.
Originally posted by breastroker
Connie, I disagree some what on your statement of high reps and low weights being best. I will always prefer being able to do 10 reps on the superpullover at 240 pounds rather than 40 reps at 120 pounds.
I guess that too would depend on what someone is trying to builg up to. I can see reasons for both.
I probably should have mentioned in my last post that I was thinking from a perspective from a relative beginner, which I think Zirconium might be. My guess would be that his smaller swimming muscles and tendons aren't as developed as in someone who has been swimming forever. He probably needs to balance out to start with, before proceeding to build more large muscle.
For someone like you, having swam most of your life, you probably don't have to let your smaller muscles grow into the swimming shape, you're probably after more sprinting power, in which case, you're right, higher weight would be helpful with that.
There are couple of things that I'm considerting while thinking about this:
Having read tons of Rushall's stuff over last few days, I keep remembering his writings state that he doesn't really recommend higher weights. Of course, higher weight might be very subjective to the individuals, their training goals and their physiology. I have to go digging to find a link to that text.
The other is purely anecdotal. In my case, having done some other sports, and some gym working out over the years, my larger muscles are sligthly disproportionately stronger then my smaller muscles. What happens to me in sprints is that I have enough power to strain the rotator cuff's smaller parts, and get hurt. What happens then instead of continuing to train, I have to lay off for few weeks, and on the long run actually lose out.
I went to see a friend of mine, who specializes in athletic strength training for various sports, and that was exactly his assesment. That I have plenty of power in the bigger muscles for now, but the little ones (muscles and tendons) need a lot of work just to be able to support the bigger ones without the injury. It shows in some free weight and balance ball exercises. I can move a lot more weight then I can move without wobbling. He wants me to not use any higher weight then what I can move without a wobble, or with a slight wobble and still maintaining proper form, and higher reps.
Part of his commentary was that he sees that pretty often with people new to various sports. They often have the bigger muscles, but not the 'infrastructure' to support them.
So with someone relatively new to swimming I'd be really hesitant recommending higher weight, untill after the the core strenghth and stability is assesed.
Another thought on the whole thing, which I'm not sure how it relates to the weights, look at the accomplished swimmers physiques, they more closely resemble gymnasts then body builders.
Zirconium, if I were you, I'd invest in a few appointments with a knowledgeable personal trainer to see if and where you might have weak links, and work on those first. What you want is balanced development for the sport you want to participate in. Swimming is very technique intensive, in a medium which doesn't allow you to fix or isolate any movements, so overall balanced body development and core strength is pretty important.
Originally posted by dorothyrde
I sometimes think from reading these posts on weight lifting that it is more important to women than men. .....
Don't us 'wimminz' genetically have weaker upper bodies? Lot of swimming is upper body.
It would only make sense we need to work a tad harder to make them stronger then average?
Snicker, I guess so, but tell the men I outlift at band competitions when we are moving the pit instruments. Course they are very sedentary folks, just out to help.
