The Jazz Hands training log, an alternative swimming experience
Former Member
Whenever I mention something about how I train, somebody flips out and asks for clarification. "Jazz Hands," they say, "do you really bathe in ox blood before workouts?" Or, "Jazz Hands, how many grams of testosterone do you inject weekly?" I hope to answer these questions and many more in my training log. I'll be covering water workouts and weight workouts, and I'll answer questions about both, as well as questions about my nutrition and supplementation.
I hope my alternative swimming experience will give other swimmers ideas for their own training, and expand everyone's idea of just what kind of preparation a swimmer needs to go fast.
I typically list weights this way: weight x reps. I list swimming sets this way: reps x distance. They are kind of the reverse of one another, but each one is the standard for each particular activity.
I'll start with some recent workouts.
Evening weights
Saturday December 8, 2007
School mostly finished for me on Friday, so I decided to celebrate with some sumo deadlifts.
Warmed up with 135, 205, 275, 345.
Attempted 415, felt good and fast but something went wrong. I lost control of the bar and it swung and hit me in the right shin, leaving a big red rectangle.
Finished up deadlifts with a bunch of singles at 345, and a few more at 365.
Did a set of alternating negatives on the calf machine with 140.
Evening weights
Sunday December 9, 2007
Started with 90x4 on dips. I try to do dips as deep as possible.
Did several sets of 185 on bent-over barbell rows. Didn't count reps. I mostly focused on form: back flat and parallel to the ground, no jerking and swaying. My form improved with each set.
Finished with 90x5 on dips, a new personal best. My brother watched and said I went really deep on all of the reps.
Morning swim
Monday December 10, 2007
Started with 4x25 sprint flutter kick on my back, with several minutes rest. Went 19, 18, 16, 16.
Did a couple 25s sprint free, my mind was wandering though. I was thinking about how Paul Smith says I can't do a good 100. Why not start it today? Back in the day, I used to do a 100 fly from a push every week or so just to see if I could keep up my endurance while I was swimming mostly 25s. If I remember correctly, I did about a 57 at my best. Pretty cool considering my best time in competition (high school) was a 58.
So, 100 fly! I breathed every stroke, and finished in 59. The first 50 felt really good, but I died just about as bad as I ever had on the last 25. It felt like I was actually going backwards. My friend in the other lane watched me and said I split 26 at halfway. Twenty-six to 33 is not good, and I felt like I was going to throw up for the next half hour. I hope to improve on that a lot in the coming weeks.
Former Member
Did you not want to swim on a college team? or does the school you go to not have a team?
We have a masters team. I am on it. Nobody recruited me when I was in high school.
Former Member
Far too much is being made of this warmup issue.
Former Member
Evening weights
Tuesday December 11, 2007
Jonathan Miller swears that a combination of heavy lifting and endurance lifting has given him a boost in the last 15 meters of his races. That sounds like exactly the kind of thing I need, so I tried to incorporate his idea into my upper body workout today.
I started off with 115x35 on lat pulldowns, then 40x30 (that's 40 pounds for 30 reps) on dumbbell bench press.
It turns out that these high rep sets worked very well as a warm up for my heavy lifts of the day. I did 95x7 on dumbbell bench, and on lat pulldowns I did 205x5, 220x5, 235x5.
I had the time and energy for a couple more endurance sets after that, 40x30 again on dumbbell bench and 100x40 on pulldowns. I think I will continue doing sets like these at least as a warm-up. I may want to decrease the weight I'm using, and I don't think I really want to count reps. It would be much more fun to just do it by feel.
Overall, a very good day in the gym. Thanks, Jonathan.
Former Member
Hey Jazz,
That's great that you're willing to try... but... if you're going to do the same muscle groups in one work-out (ideally opposing days) Try doing the high reps second... It's better if the blood-glucose is already diminished so that you maximize the lactate production. I've found this to be an excellent way to make use of your time... If time was no object I could give you a really great program... However, I usually do Heavy first, then light-weight high-rep second... It burns, but it's great...
The key is to fail on the 35-40 rep... perhaps even try 45-60 reps (go lighter weight) I mean, push through the burn, teach your body to flush the lactate under pressure... The last 15 meters will not be a problem, and the water will "feel" very light...
(After a few weeks/months, at first you'll be sore and swimming will be hard, but once you adapt.... ahhhh... )
One work-out is great... but do this for at least 6 months before making a judgement...
Oh, and I recommend this core program.... (notice the roll bar, perfect for swimming)
forums.usms.org/showpost.php
By the way, Alison Shepard was 30 when she won the 2002 Commonwealth Games in the 50 free, by a body length, doing this program...
Former Member
The point of my last post was that you should not discount the contribution of the conventional training you did for many years (in a sense you are extremely well tapered), nor should you ignore the fact that your results for a 50 may not apply to other (longer) events. As you age, which all of us on this forum have done (fortunately!), your current approach may need to be modified if you plan to stick with Masters swimming. Or maybe not.
Former Member
Funkyfish, I was waiting to hear your thoughts. I think you probably have more weight training experience than anyone here. How much are you squatting in your picture?
I actually just started doing box squats last Thursday. I used to always do full squats, but they were hurting my knees. I used a bench, which was probably a couple inches above parallel, and I got up to 275. On Friday I practiced squatting with the bar to different heights of boxes I put together with plates on a step platform. That setup was a lot deeper than the bench, and I think I'll use it for my next squat day. I can't get very wide, though. It's just not comfortable.
Former Member
Ahhhh to have a 21 year old body again.....
For some reason my wife won't let me.
Former Member
Me too.
Heck I warmed up for my 200BR by turing up with 20 minutes to spare and swimming a bit to loosen off and then stretching. I then sat as much as possible until the start...it was a hard BR200...damn timeline was different to the posted one! Makes good memories though hehehe
Former Member
Heck I warmed up for my 200BR by turing up with 20 minutes to spare and swimming a bit to loosen off and then stretching. I then sat as much as possible until the start...it was a hard BR200...damn timeline was different to the posted one! Makes good memories though hehehe
Stud, your event was longer than most of JazzHands practices!