It's often said swimming makes your shoulders wider, perhaps breaststroke and butterfly in particular? Are there any real swimmers here who can confirm this with their personal experience?
If true, what length of time and intensity of swimming did it take to result in such changes? I suspect this can happen only to competitive swimmers.
I've pondered this one myself and I'm not really sure what to make of it. In some ways I think of it as a chicken/egg problem. Are lots of swimmers predisposed to be big shouldered to begin with? Is seeing a team full of swimmers with wide shoulders & tiny waists similar to looking at a team of basketball players and marvelling at how playing hoops made them tall? I don't think swimming will change the geometry of your frame but will tend to make areas more or less muscular or tapered. But won't any sport that builds muscle make certain areas a bit bigger?
That said, when I got married right in the middle of college I had to buy a size 12 wedding gown (and this is a 1980 12 not a 2009 12 - those who know fashion sizing know there is a difference - a big one) to fit my shoulders and have the lower half tapered to fit my barely size 8 lower half. Before that day I had never worn a dress with sleeves beacuse I could never find one that fit. Did swimming do that? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that not swimming as much as I did then has caused my bottom half to now match my top half!
I think too that skinny waist + developed lats + well-developed shoulders = an illusion that makes the shoulders seem much bigger proportionally than they really are. I think it's the lats that give that big V look. I'm just remembering some tidbits from a life-drawing class that focused on body types that vary from "classic" proportions.
I've pondered this one myself and I'm not really sure what to make of it. In some ways I think of it as a chicken/egg problem. Are lots of swimmers predisposed to be big shouldered to begin with? Is seeing a team full of swimmers with wide shoulders & tiny waists similar to looking at a team of basketball players and marvelling at how playing hoops made them tall? I don't think swimming will change the geometry of your frame but will tend to make areas more or less muscular or tapered. But won't any sport that builds muscle make certain areas a bit bigger?
That said, when I got married right in the middle of college I had to buy a size 12 wedding gown (and this is a 1980 12 not a 2009 12 - those who know fashion sizing know there is a difference - a big one) to fit my shoulders and have the lower half tapered to fit my barely size 8 lower half. Before that day I had never worn a dress with sleeves beacuse I could never find one that fit. Did swimming do that? I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that not swimming as much as I did then has caused my bottom half to now match my top half!
I think too that skinny waist + developed lats + well-developed shoulders = an illusion that makes the shoulders seem much bigger proportionally than they really are. I think it's the lats that give that big V look. I'm just remembering some tidbits from a life-drawing class that focused on body types that vary from "classic" proportions.
