July of 08 I swam in a meet, did fairly well, so I thought I would go in the gym and workout 2 days and swim 3 days. One year later my times were almost the same within 100's of a second. What would you suggest to make my times better for an up coming National in 2 months?
Thanks for any advise.
Barbara
In my opinion, a swimmer will only get faster if training time is spent in the water. This isn't down playing the importance of "dry-land training", but it is only going to take you so far.
I would recommend upping your weekly swims to at least 5 days per week - either keeping the 2 weight/land workouts or cutting them out. If faster swimming is the only goal, I would say just worry about being in the water as many days per week as possible.
What are you doing in the pool and what are you doing in the gym.If you are doing mostly cardio stuff you will get in better condition but not faster.To swim a fast 100 you need to be doing sprint work and higher weight/lower rep weights.
If you are not swimming faster in practice now when compared to a year ago, then there really is no reason you would be swimming faster in meets.
If you are a distance person, you need to work to lower your repeat base time. If you are doing 10x100s on 1:30, shot for 10x100s on 1:25.
If you are a sprinter, you need to work on lowering your times on any fast, and you need to be doing something fast every practice if you are only swimming 3x/week. Keep track of your 25, 50, 100 and 200 sprint times, and make sure you are trying to beat your previous times.
I am a BIG proponent that lifting increases strength increases speed in the pool. But, if you don't every apply that new found strength in the pool, it doesn't matter. If you never push yourself in practice, but are getting stronger in the gym, you really are just making it easier to maintain you speed in the pool, you aren't applying you strength to making yourself faster.
Focus on pool work before drylands.
Thank you so much for the good advise, I am in the water 5 days now and not in the gym, but I am trying to do a little at home in the evenings like core exercise. I am a sprinter and I'm trying to keep track of my times. Next week I will dig deep. I went to a swim meet once and on their shirts they had a big CRAB and it said DIG Deep my husband tells that to me often. I am new to this Forum, but it has already been a big help with the response that I have had.
Thanks Again
