Does anyone know how strong the top swimmers are? Guys like M. Phelps or B. Hansen, how much can they lift with their legs, bench, lat pull, curl, tri ex, etc. I am making weight training a big part of my workouts, but I understand, at a certain point, adding more muscle or strength is not going to be of much benefit.
Interesting link -
www.gsv1.de/freq_speed.htm
I found this to be the most interesting study of the three (though maybe it was because it was the only one I could examine in detail). The only real relationship to strength is the fact that dryland training was not included in the experimental group, so the influence of strength training on performance was not directly addressed.
Certainly the concept of getting faster while increasing both stroke rate and distance-per-stroke over the course of an entire race is simple enough, and ultimately all training programs try to do this one way or another. Just not quite so explicitly. For example:
"It has previously been reported that elite swimmers have stroke frequency-velocity curves that are shifted up and to the right, greater distances per stroke, and higher stroke rates and velocities compared to less competitive swimmers. The stroke frequency-velocity relationship, when shifted up and to the right, has been shown to be associated with a reduced energy cost of swimming. High performance is related to higher stroke rates, greater distance per stroke and the ability to sustain these throughout the race. ... improving performance would necessitate a shift in the curve up and to the right. The data from the present study demonstrate that it is possible to shift the stroke frequency-velocity curve by as much as 10% per year, or 40% over four years. ... A significant shift in the stroke frequency-velocity curve for competitive velocities would not be expected in swimmers trained with long-distance. This later hypothesis needs to be tested on a population of swimmers engaged in a contemporary over-distance-based program."
The truth (or not) of that last statement seems kind of important to verify. It seems to me that the top swimmers that come out of over-distance training are able to achieve exactly this kind of shift with such training, that's why they become good. Maybe training that is more explicitly focused on stroke frequency/velocity would achieve the same or better improvement more easily. But it might require more technically-proficient coaches to achieve.
I do wish they had chosen faster swimmers for their study, the final sentence is a little weak:
"Because we have no evidence to suggest otherwise, it is likely that this novel, unconventional training may be equally suited to elite swimmers as well as the more average athlete."
I suppose they would have trouble getting top college swimmers to agree to be guinea pigs for 4 years. Still, it is a fairly old study (2000), why couldn't they interest some better swimmers based on the results of this work?
Then again, top swimmers have presumably enjoyed much success with their high school training programs (or they wouldn't be elites!) and it might be difficult to sell them on something radical.
The training had a lot of 25s in it...I hate 25s, though I understand their necessity. And the training/taper cycle is practically imprinted into my bones since I've been doing it for much of my life, it would be hard to think of doing something so different (though the study group did have a training cycle).
Here is more about Budd Termin:
www.teamtermin.com/coachtermin.shtml
There are a lot of holes in all these studies. For example, they will usually have one group lift and the control group will not lift. But then they have both groups the exact same swim workouts. That may make for a better research study - but is probably not the right way to account for swimmers being tired.
Also as Syd mentions - lifting will do very little if you don't transfer the strength into the water.
Interesting how strength was related to swimming power and not performance. I would have thought that if power increased so would performance.
Does this necessarily, conclusively, prove there is no link between increased strength and performance? Could it, perhaps, just mean that this particular group were not able to use this increased strength to their advantage?
If it was that easy, more swimmers would have better results with strength training. Strength training is VERY specific. Just because you get 20% stronger in lat pulldowns, does not mean you are going to drop 2/10 in your 50 time as many studies have shown.
Transferring it into the water usually means some sort of resistance work in the water. I use a parachute and it seems to work for me.
I dunno. Lifting seems to make me somewhat faster. :dunno:
What kind of "resistance" work can you do in the water aside from parachutes? Are you speaking of paddles, etc.?
There is a lot of conflicting evidence, opinions on heavy (Smith, Jazz) vs. light lifting (Dara), lifting for overall strength vs. swim specific lifting ...
That's an interesting 12 week plan, Greg.
Fort, there is a lot of conflicting evidence. I like to think of weight training as a form of cheating, and that guides how I do it. Anabolic steroids improve swimming performance by increasing muscle mass, most of us would agree. There's a great knowledge base about building muscle mass, with or without drugs, in bodybuilding. So at that point I ignore whatever swimmers think about strength training (it must be explosive, it must mimic swimming motions, it can't be too heavy, etc.) and pay attention to what the muscle experts think.
I'm faster than I would be if I thought of my weight training as just another thing that swimmers must do. It's outside the regular program. It's doping.
Anabolic steroids improve swimming performance by increasing muscle mass, most of us would agree.
Jazz -- that is not quite the case. There are steroids for muscle growth, but for swimmers that is not the key -- I know the East Germans used steroids to speed up recovery. They were able to pound away almost each and every day. The guys were no bigger than anybody else and later on, even the women were not that much different than the other countries. Recovery not muscle mass.
Jazz -- that is not quite the case. There are steroids for muscle growth, but for swimmers that is not the key -- I know the East Germans used steroids to speed up recovery. They were able to pound away almost each and every day. The guys were no bigger than anybody else and later on, even the women were not that much different than the other countries. Recovery not muscle mass.
I totally agree that steroids help athletes recover faster, but that is due to their ability to maintain muscle mass in the face of huge amounts of training. Those taking steroids are in an anabolic state more of the time than your average Joe. Therefore, steroids allow swimmers to retain more of the muscle they gain in the offseason while swimming a ridiculous amount of yards during the in season part of training.
USA Swimmings 2000 Olympic Trials Project
Link to the study www.usaswimming.org/.../DesktopDefault.aspx
Under Implications – Performance implications vs. time spent doing dryland for distance swimmers and sprinters are described. Numbers 2, 3, and 4
We took a multidisciplinary approach to identifying characteristics and skills of Olympic Trials qualifiers by assessing psychological, biomechanical, training, and anthropometric characteristics. While the variables we measured do not provide a complete picture of successful swimmers, it is a step towards understanding characteristics related to success. The specific characteristics we assessed included:
Background information: gender, age, experience in swimming, performance history, training history
Psychology: sport motivation; goal orientation; social support, mental preparation
Anthropometrics: limb lengths and girths, height and sitting height, weight, and vertical jump
Race Analysis: swimming velocity, stroke rate, distance per stroke. Let’s look at the process we took in assessing our Olympic Trials Qualifiers:
In mid-April, 500 athletes were randomly selected from the USA Swimming database of athletes who had qualified for Olympic Trials.
The 500 selected athletes were sent a letter soliciting their participation and a packet of forms to complete. The personal coach of each athlete was also sent a letter explaining the project and asking him/her to remind the athlete to complete the forms.
Follow-up postcards were sent to the athletes approximately three weeks after the initial mailing.
Because some athletes were unable to take anthropometric measures, the USA Swimming sport science staff set up a testing site at the Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. Athletes who fell into this category were sent letters reminding them to stop by the testing room to complete the measures.
All data was entered into an Excel database for statistical analyses.Of the 500 randomly selected athletes, one hundred and forty-four agreed to participate in the project by returning the packet of forms (representing a 29% return rate).
Implications
Based on background information there are following conclusions of relevance for coaches and athletes.
The average age started swimming is 6.5 year for females and males. There are non-significant differences between swim strokes for females as well for males. The average age started swimming round year has small differences between events. Male distance swimmers have a statistically lower starting age when compared to sprinters. It shows that sprinters can begin their long-term training later than distance swimmers.
Sprinters and distance swimmers have similar average weekly dryland hours and number of workouts per week. But distance swimmers have significantly higher weekly swimming workload volume and number of hours spent swimming than sprinters. It means that distance swimmers swim higher workload volume in workouts than sprinters, as expected. Females and males Olympic Trial qualifiers have similar swimming and dryland workload volume. There are no significant differences in workload parameters between females and males. But male freestyle sprinters have significantly higher dryland workload volume than female freestyle sprinters.
Female sprinters as well as male sprinters and distance swimmers have tendency to increase dryland workload volume with age. But it doesn’t seem to have an influence on performance progression since there is a negative relationship between improvement and dryland hours per week for sprinters as well as distance swimmers. Therefore athletes should increase dryland workload carefully with age, especially distance swimmers. Coaches and athletes should make a decision about increase of dryland workload based on evaluation of relation between dryland workload and performance progression. In some cases, higher strength on dryland can lead to the reduction of performance because of higher drag in water. Thus, this data suggests that sprinters should work not only on dryland but also on transition from dryland to the water (swimming with resistance, surgical tubing, paddles etc.), which is especially important for the older swimmers.
As data show the later swimmers started long-term training (age started swimming and age started swimming year round) the more they tend to work on dryland. However, it seems that dryland workload volume isn’t related to performance improvement for distance swimmers as well as for sprinters. Therefore, swimmers should pay more attention to the swimming workload instead of dryland workload.
There was a significant relationship between improvement and the age the athlete started swimming year round. This data suggests that the later swimmer begins long-term training the greater we find the rate in performance progression to be.
Last year improvement has no relation with average of weekly swimming yardage for sprinters. It suggests that sprinters should pay more attention to quality of work instead of quantity. For distance swimmers, especially females, last year improvement has positive relation with average of weekly swimming yardage. Therefore, based on the distance swimmers’ data from this study, the greater workload volume the higher improvement in performance.
The age started swimming and round year swimming has negative relationship with weekly yardage in sprinters, while these parameters have positive relationship in distance swimmers. Hence, if sprinters started to swim earlier they tend to adapt to the higher workload volume and need to swim more for higher performance. If distance swimmers started to swim earlier they tend to swim lower workload volume.Respectfully submitted - Budd
