Dara Torres-Amazing

I would be very interested to learn what dry land and stretching exercises she is doing. The NY Times article featured a photo of DT on a plyo ball holding 5 or 10 pound plate weights in each hand. The pose implied she was swimming freestyle. I believe that the article stated that she does not lift weights (ala bench press or squats). That exercise was new to me. I tried to duplicate that photo exercise at my local gym yesterday - it's very hard to balance on the ball, rotate along the long axis and simulate freestyle arm swing. Swinging the weights imparted additional torque which made it hard to stay on the ball (pun intended). It felt as clumsy as other exercises that I try to do using plyo balls, planks, etc. I'm not sure that this exercise directly contributes to propulsive movements, but I think it is designed to train associate (e.g. core) muscles. And I'll assume that she is performing other "non-standard" weight bearing exercises in the 90 minutes of dry land training. I'm also very interested in the stretching exercises that she undergoes (reported at 60 minutes). Recently, I went to an NBA basketball game and could not believe how much range of motion the players had to undertake while warming up. After a short warmup (jogging, shooting), each player had his legs stretched by a trainer who appeared to use his body weight to pull and push each players leg while they were prone (stomach and back) past what would be a normal range. Our college basketball teams don't do anything close to what the pros were doing for stretching. DT's two stretch/massage trainers may be applying similar techniques to increase her range of motion and strength -esp where one has limited mechanical advantage. I think that learning new techniques would be helpful - or at least fun to try. And I agree with previous posters that training quality is more important when time is limited. Philipp

I would be very interested to learn what dry land and stretching exercises she is doing. The NY Times article featured a photo of DT on a plyo ball holding 5 or 10 pound plate weights in each hand. The pose implied she was swimming freestyle. I believe that the article stated that she does not lift weights (ala bench press or squats). That exercise was new to me. I tried to duplicate that photo exercise at my local gym yesterday - it's very hard to balance on the ball, rotate along the long axis and simulate freestyle arm swing. Swinging the weights imparted additional torque which made it hard to stay on the ball (pun intended). It felt as clumsy as other exercises that I try to do using plyo balls, planks, etc. I'm not sure that this exercise directly contributes to propulsive movements, but I think it is designed to train associate (e.g. core) muscles. And I'll assume that she is performing other "non-standard" weight bearing exercises in the 90 minutes of dry land training. I'm also very interested in the stretching exercises that she undergoes (reported at 60 minutes). Recently, I went to an NBA basketball game and could not believe how much range of motion the players had to undertake while warming up. After a short warmup (jogging, shooting), each player had his legs stretched by a trainer who appeared to use his body weight to pull and push each players leg while they were prone (stomach and back) past what would be a normal range. Our college basketball teams don't do anything close to what the pros were doing for stretching. DT's two stretch/massage trainers may be applying similar techniques to increase her range of motion and strength -esp where one has limited mechanical advantage. I think that learning new techniques would be helpful - or at least fun to try. And I agree with previous posters that training quality is more important when time is limited. Philipp