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.
Training background
I've been a year-round competitive swimmer since I was 7. I did the standard USS club swimming workouts, with a lot of TI-like drills and fairly high yardage. I did high school swimming, which was very intense and fun. In college I've mostly been training on my own, with various methods and various levels of success. I started lifting in March 2006, when I was about 165 pounds, and I dropped a ton of time in the 50 after that.
Don't you miss swimming? I guess the novel approach has worked to date for you and it's indeed nice to have a breakthrough, but do you really want to affirmatively limit yourself to only 200 yards a practice? Would it really hurt your 50 to swim a few more laps in the pool? Don't you want to do any other strokes? Don't you think doing drills or working on DPS or kicking would help too?
I will fight Paul Smith to the death over who is a bigger slacker, but I do need a bit more than 200 yards to train effectively. But then i swim and compete in all four strokes.
By the way...I didn't say you would never be abl to swim a fast 100...I said given your current training program your speed in that distance was what i expected...and you proved it in your 50/100 fly swims as well...no aerobic base, and I'm guessing very limited flexibiity = 9 second differntial in your two 50's.
You said that I couldn't do it with a focus on weight training. I say that weight training is always going to be a major part of my life, and I'm going to do a fast 100. Not today, but after training for it.
You're wrong to say that anything has been proved yet. I'm quite encouraged that my time was under a minute. I've been swimming fast every day recently, and I think my speed and endurance are both better than they have been before. But I haven't been doing 100s, and I think I will have to practice at that distance to really get good at it.
Meanwhile, you will need to practice your subtraction skills. The difference between 50s was seven seconds, not nine.
Tanaka, et al. (1993) studied 24 experienced swimmers during 14 weeks of their competitive season. The swimmers were divided into two groups of 12 swimmers and matched for stroke specialities and performance. The two groups performed all swim training sessions together for the duration of the season, but in addition to the pool training, one group performed resistance training three days a week, on alternate days for eight weeks. The resistance training program was intended to simulate the muscles employed in front crawl swimming and utilized weight lifting machines as well as free weights. Swimmers performed three sets of 8-12 repetitions of the following exercises: lat pull downs, elbow extensions, bent arm flys, dips and chin ups. In order to maximize the resistance training effect, weights were progressively increased over the duration of the training period. Then both groups tapered for approximately two weeks prior to their major competition. The most important finding: resistance training did not improve sprint swim performance, despite the fact that those swimmers who combined resistance and swim training increased their strength by 25-35%. The extra strength gained from the resistance training program did not result in improved stroke mechanics. Their conclusion: "the lack of positive transfer between dry-land strength gains and swimming propulsive force may be due to the specificity of training."
Source: www.sportsci.org/.../resistance.html
I think this is a cool study because it supports something I've been saying. Weight training is not a short-term solution for swimming speed. You can't just lift weights for 14 weeks and expect strength to carryover to swimming, especially with a heavy swimming schedule on top of it. The added strength those swimmers got in the weight room was mostly due to skill adaptation. They got better at doing their weight exercises, but they didn't increase muscle size enough to see a true strength transfer to swimming.
JH,
For your water workouts do you ever do any kind of warmup or do you just get in and go?
Lately I've been diving in and doing one or two easy 25s before I start sprinting. Sometimes I like to do something longer. I find a long easy swim to be very relaxing sometimes.
You'll notice that my first sprints are a little bit slower than the other ones. That's how I warm up, I guess. I've never had an injury in the pool from a lack of warming up, so I'm not worried about that. I just sometimes have to get used to the speed of the workout to perform my best.
On really good days I have all my speed right away. This is what I aim for in a taper. I found out at Nationals this past spring (where I briefly met you) that I could get a big adrenaline psych up that substituted well for a warm up. I didn't warm up at all on race days at that meet. I just went to the pool, jumped around while listening to rap music, and stepped up for my races.
Not trying to be negative here but other than your own anecdotal experience, what is this other than you simply telling us about your workout? Do you have some credentials to offer? Your 50 times are ok but it seems you have a lot more weights than swimming in your routine. I've lifted a lot of weight and gone fast and I've been fat and lazy and gone fast. Anyone can gut out a 50 or 100. I don't get the point of this thread, to be honest.
A lot of other threads get derailed by this discussion. It would be nice to have it in one place. You may not be interested in what I do, but I frequently get asked questions about it on this forum, simply because of how different it is.
Basically, you seem to me like one of those swimmers who doesn't respect sprinters. I don't think this thread is for you.
It doesn't matter if it's 7 or 9 seconds, that's bad either way. And, you don't get better at 100s by swimming 100s only. I think this training routine or whatever it is called is flimsy and vague. I could go to the gym, lift a bunch of weights and run to the pool and knock out a fast 50, doesn't mean I know what I'm doing. Maybe I'll start a blog - "worthless swimming and how I do it."
This is just extremely rude. I devote a lot of my time to my particular method of training. And a lot of effort, too. I have results to show for it, including a big recent time drop in my focus event.
I'm going to guess you're not the sort who has ever had to lie down on the edge of the pool for ten minutes after a swim to prevent vomiting, but I frequently find myself in that position. In fact, that's how I got ready for work today.
Swimming is a big part of my life. I do it differently than you do, and you want to call it worthless?
No, I respect swimmers that bring the heat, like Fort or Smith, those with top 10 and a long history of fast swimming. I don't care if you sprint or cruise, makes no difference to me.
If vomiting or the feeling of vomit is how you judge your workout, then I think I'm ok with taking advice from other swimmers. Good luck with your vomit workouts.
Paul posted the rankings. I'm number 5. And I didn't try to throw up. That's why I had to end my workout. It's a way of illustrating that there's a lot more to what I did this morning than could be explained by the phrase, "200 yards."
I'm going to guess you're not the sort who has ever had to lie down on the edge of the pool for ten minutes after a swim to prevent vomiting...
No, but I've seen him do it after eating too many fried Twinkies.
Oops. I see on your first post that you just did a 100 fly for time. Let us NOT recommend this approach to the 30+ or 40+ crowd, even if we are sprinters. I wouldn't even consider doing fly without a good warm up and some fly drills first. Ouch. Sounds of shoulder ripping. I definitely think there's better ways to train fly then just get in and let er rip. Although timing yourself is a good discipline.
Your #5 according to a friend in the pool...not touchpads at a meet.
And you threw up because you are grossly out of shape aerobically and are wasting a ton of energy thrashing through your swims...IMHO
But like I said...21.5 is a solid time and if you swam for me you'd be faster sooner and have enough of a base to go what a 21.5 sprinter should in the 100 (46+)...but you would have to give upthe bodybuilding/WWE gig and spend a LOT more time swimming...
:duel:
No, that's me. Brian Goldman. Notice how the age and location match up.
Regarding being in shape or out of shape, I think a lot of that depends on the specific skill being tested. I'm in great shape for a 50, but I haven't done a 100 in a long time. I have to adapt to that particular distance.
All of this seems so contrary to what I think of when swimming comes to mind but I am interested in seeing just what progress is made.
It's going to be legendary.
