Hi all!
In this thread: forums.usms.org/showthread.php
...there are a lot of different opinions on how to lift weights in combination with swimming. The opinions are all spread out in between other comments and quotes so I thought I would start a separate thread about this topic as I think it might be of value for everyone to get it sorted out how and why you should lift weights in combination with swimming. If you know of another thread with exactly this topic pls let me know and i will add this comment in that thread instead.
My strong belief so far is the following (not at all stating that this is the truth, but it is the best theory I have heard so far):
You lift weights to become stronger
If you are stronger you need less % of your total capability to travel at the same speed you did before you bacame stronger.
This will lead to that you can swim at the same speed for a longer period of time OR simply do the same distance as before, but faster
This means that both sprinters and distance swimmers benefit from becoming stronger.
You don't want to build muscle mass, since that creates drag. However, for most of us this is not a problem because if you train on a regular basis in the gym, 3-4 times a week in a very focused way you might add on 0,5-1,0 kg/year....if you are under the age of 30. Above this age you tend to add on much less if anything at all.:cane:
You become stronger by lifting heavy weights. High reps does not make you stronger, it increases your endurance capabilies. Endurance you typically practice in the pool. I therefore focus on sets of 3-6 reps with heavy weights. The next week I focus on fast movements (beacasue heavy lifting is often a rather slow movement), reducing the weights to 60-70% of max to practice fast movements under pressure (like swimming, but to the extreme). The week after that is for high reps letting the muscles rest a bit but dont let them rest completely....then I start all over again.
I typically focus on basic exercises like: squats, dead lifts, bench presses, chins and a variety of stomach and lower back exercisesVery interested to hear your opinions of the above and also your own experiences.
/Per
Good articles. I have gotten into yoga this year, and although a real newbie can definately see strength and flexibility improvements, especially in the core. I have tried Pilates, and as of yet, it does not appeal. Perhaps I have not found the right instructor yet, so I have not scratched that off my plans of things to try.
Jazz Hands, I would not discount what the older, experienced members of the forum have found. They have been training a long time, and have already tried and discarded many things. I still believe that training is individualized. What works for one, may not work for another.
Funny how I'm discovering something at a young age that you apparently never discovered in your many years of training.
Actually for the record when I entered UCSB as a walk on in 1977 I was 6' 5" and weight a whooping 185lbs, had only swam 3 years in high school and never lifted a weight in my life....
In college I got introduced to doubles, weight lifting and yoga and although I ate 6-8x a day and thousands of calories could not put weight on...funny how things have changed with the advent of legal (and illegal) supplements...would have been interesting having access to creatine, protein powder, Glutamine, etc. etc....which by the way Jazz care to share any more details on your "nutrition"....30lbs in a year is not extreme...especially for someone only doing weight training...but anyone adding in a decent level of aerobic exercise would have a hard time with that...22 years old or not!
In my case now at 48 the challenge is to lose 30lbs...tough to do when you have an appetite for Del Frisco's and fine (and cheap) red wine and beer! :drink:
Chris....knock off the feel good-nice guy/Tony Robbins stuff and throw out some hand grenades will ya!! :blah:
Chuckle...I'm supposed to take advice from a bitter, washed out SPRINTER? Please...:cane:
Finally, lifting does not have to be a big time commitment. You can put together a good full-body program with three lifts that takes no more than half an hour. If you do it twice a week you will make excellent progress.
Jazz would it be okay to share your exact lifting programme with us. I am at a loss for what to do not having ever worked out in a gym before.
I thought I would start off with Coach T's programme. I am still googling things like 'Triceps extension', 'Military press', etc. I have no idea what they mean. But it would be great to see what you do and compare your routine. Most of the bodybuilding sites on the Internet are not for swimming at all. It would be much better to follow a programme designed for an actual swimmer who has had good results. And for that matter, seeing as the thread is about weight lifting, anybody else want to post their routine. It could lead to an interesting discussion on the inclusion or exclusion of certain exercises, etc.
Syd
Jazz would it be okay to share your exact lifting programme with us. I am at a loss for what to do not having ever worked out in a gym before.
I thought I would start off with Coach T's programme. I am still googling things like 'Triceps extension', 'Military press', etc. I have no idea what they mean. But it would be great to see what you do and compare your routine. Most of the bodybuilding sites on the Internet are not for swimming at all. It would be much better to follow a programme designed for an actual swimmer who has had good results. And for that matter, seeing as the thread is about weight lifting, anybody else want to post their routine. It could lead to an interesting discussion on the inclusion or exclusion of certain exercises, etc.
Syd
Hi, Syd. You can see my exact routine in my training log thread. I've just started it, but it should become clear fairly soon what my basic outline is. I've already had one person ask me to help him with a lifting routine on this forum, and I gave him a version of my favorite beginner template. It's not perfect, and only myself, my brother, and his best friend have been using it so far. We have had good results. Hopefully if more people try it, I can make positive changes.
The template is to do three workouts a week. In each workout you do at least three lifts: one upper body pushing motion, one upper body pulling motion, and one lower body motion like a squat or a deadlift. The goal is to slowly and gradually increase strength in the exercises you choose.
Different motions emphasize different muscles, so you would do well to learn about strength training anatomy and apply it in order to get a balanced workout routine. ExRx is a good site for that, and they also have demonstrations of popular exercises. If you look at that ExRx front page, you'll see two columns. In general, I think the Muscles column on the left will give you the most reliable and universal information. The Exercises column on the right has good information, but it can be incomplete or misleading sometimes, especially with regards to which muscles are being emphasized on which lifts.
Here's what I mean by applying information about muscle groups. This is important for selecting leg exercises. The deadlift (with a regular barbell) is a very hip dominant motion. It involves the hamstrings and glutes to much greater extent than the quads. It's also a good exercise for the upper trapezius, which generally won't be used much in the upper body pushing and pulling lifts. The squat is different. You don't really use upper body muscle at all except for abs and lower back, and the quads are much more involved. Depending on how you squat, the hamstrings might not be emphasized as much as in a deadlift.
There are plenty of examples of that. Basically, when you choose an angle of motion or a certain way of holding the bar, you are choosing to emphasize certain muscle groups. Because of this, you have to take a certain amount of care in developing a balanced program.
For swimming, I think a good starting point for the three exercises is as follows:
Chin-ups
Dips
Trap bar deadlift
Your gym might not have a trap bar. In that case, you could alternate squats and deadlifts on different workouts, or maybe do one set of each.
With regards to sets and reps, do what you are comfortable with. I often find that sometimes my first set of an exercise is a bit sluggish, and I do better in my second one. After that, I'm done. But you may choose to do only one set of an exercise, especially if it's a difficult one, or several sets. In general, the more sets you do, the less each added set will add to what you get from that workout.
Use an amount of weight that is heavy, but that you feel comfortable handling. In general, this should mean between 4 and 12 reps. It's okay to mix up the number of reps you do between sets and workouts.
Weight can be changed in chin-ups and dips by using an assist machine or a dip belt.
Syd, I hope this will all be helpful. If you have any questions, you can send me a private message.
I don't doubt that adding 30 pounds of muscle will make you swim faster. It worked for the East Germans and the Chinese. But I think it would be very difficult for a Masters swimmer to do so legally (without steroids).
Don't care.
Funny how I'm discovering something at a young age that you apparently never discovered in your many years of training.
Oh, when I was 22, it was a very good year...
Great topic!
As each day passes swimmers will be breaking new ground where bigger, taller and stronger athletes, will make a world record swimmer, who doesn't train in a regimented / goal oriented weight program, an extinct breed. Muscles adapt to stress and must be constantly taxed and stressed in different ways to grow. Muscles shrink almost twice as fast as they can grow. As we grow older our muscles begin to lose elasticity and lessen the production of different chemicals like enzymes (Co-Enzyme Q10 being one of many) and hormones ( testosterone for men) - there are many more. At the approximate age of 25 our muscles also begin to shrink unless we do something to stop or hinder the process. Your muscles will adapt and conform to the amount of stress (resistance) you put on it. If you lift heavy weights it will recruit more fibers that break during stressful training and within three to four days, rebuild themselves into a stronger unit (much like the point of a broken bone that develops a callus that makes the point of the break stronger). If you lift a light weight a lot of repetitions (until failure) your muscles will develop a tolerance to the specific time on that failure. Your body can also develop a tolerance or adaptation to the effects of lactate build-up. Lactic acid is a byproduct of muscles as they exercise and while you can't stop it's production, your body can tolerate and learn how to remove it more efficiently.
With all this being said, everyone should understand that their are basic and fundament physiological principals on a micro and macro level that are difficult to dispute. And they are:
1. The stress you put on your body will force it to adapt to that stress.
2. Specificity of training (how you stress your body) will determine how your body adapts to the stress (sprint more in training and you'll be a better sprinter with everything else being equal).
3. Muscles that are stronger can push water faster but if that speed reduces the drag coefficient (the ability to hold water) that speed becomes counter-productive.
4. Kicking and pulling are propulsive mechanisms and when they become more efficient swimming speed increases both are important but pulling creates much more propulsion.
5. Core strength is a "catch phrase" for muscles that rotate, bend and keep your body straight. Without the symmetrical develop of all the muscle groups, a strong core is only as good as the muscles that surround them.
6. A comprehensive system can be created from a base of many different training practices. Yoga and weight training (for example) do different things and both are important as they develop different and important fitness characteristics (muscles that can't stretch aren't very effective).
So, if you're not getting the results your looking for or hitting the times you'd like, you aren't training smart enough or simply don't have the time, genetic predisposition, work-ethic, stoke mechanics, or pain tolerance to do it. Come-on people, develop realistic goals and look at the limiting factors just mentioned and get where you truly want to go. Don't worry - Be happy! Good luck, Coach T.
I really think the bottom line is there's more than one way to train that's effective. You can swim fast by never lifting a weight, you can swim fast by lifting weights a lot. If you're doing something that seems to be providing results for you then stick with it.
That is the line that this thread has been waiting for. :wave:
Excellent post by Coach T. on training elements and specificity.
Paul, I think you misunderstand a few things.
First of all, I don't train for the 100, nor have I competed in it in the last three years. I posted the 49.2 in high school, when I was lifting (with absolutely no idea what I was doing) three morning a week before school and swimming high yardage every afternoon. Perhaps we could call that a character building experience. I'm not going to do it again.
I don't doubt that if I did spend a season focusing on the 100 or the 200, my strength base from my last two years of training would match up quite well with my aerobic base from earlier years, and I would put up a personal best. I almost want to do it this year just to prove you wrong.
Also, lifting weights is beneficial for everyone, regardless of how old they are or what events they do, or even if they swim at all. Heavy lifting is simply the most time-effective method for building all-around strength. You might think that yoga makes people strong, but in terms of time commitment, heavy lifting is probably a thousand times more efficient for that purpose.
As hormone levels decline with age, muscle is harder and harder to hold on to. People lose muscle, the muscle isn't there to burn energy anymore, they get fat. Much later on, they become so weak they can't even move around effectively. It's all related, and the number one way to fight it is with a proper full-body weight training program with the goal of increased muscle mass.
Finally, lifting does not have to be a big time commitment. You can put together a good full-body program with three lifts that takes no more than half an hour. If you do it twice a week you will make excellent progress. Who couldn't fit that into a swimming program? As I discussed earlier with Kirk, mega yardage will decrease the likelihood of mega muscle gain. But regardless of other factors, adding a training element that is focused on muscle gain can only be beneficial for swimming performance and for long term health.
