Yoga vs. weights ..what is best for swimming?

I say yoga because you can do it at home and depending on the poses, you'll get different benefits. That's why I do bodyweight exercises: you can do it at home and depending on the exercise you also get different benefits.

I have two pools, one 5 minutes away and the second pool is 10 minutes away. I pay $31.00 a month which is good for either pool. I can do laps any time from 6:30 am til 10:00 pm and they always have laps available. I would prefer again to swim, swim, swim.

slacker Ummm.... no. :wave:

I like yoga with fruit on the bottom!

I may sound terribly unenlightened, but... isn't swimming lifting weights? Grabbing chunks of water and dragging them underneath you... displacing large quantities of water with your legs... sounds like weight lifting to me.

I have recently taken up Yoga. I am 55 and felt that I was getting very stiff (not that I was ever particularly flexible). I had been swimming and lifting weights for years but I feel that I have to make a change. I lifted for the pleasure not because it helped my swimming. Speaking for myself, I felt there was very little cross over between getting stronger in the weight room and swimming faster. On the other hand, my improved flexibility has given me improved ROM and that is definitely beneficial for my swimming. Also, I have found yoga HARD. Besides the flexibility, there is a surprising strength element involved. I also supplement with kettlebell and bw exercises but I have greatly reduced my strength training in favor of yoga practice. I am doing 20 minute circuits a few times a week that emphasize strength-endurance.

I may sound terribly unenlightened, but... isn't swimming lifting weights? Grabbing chunks of water and dragging them underneath you... displacing large quantities of water with your legs... sounds like weight lifting to me. No. You displace something during any activity, air, water, iron, etc so that isn't a great way to think about it. The goal of lifting weights and swimming are different but hopefully lifting weights compliments your swimming. If the break swimming and lifting into two comparable components, mass and velocity, swimming you are concerned with increasing velocity with constant mass (your body) and lifting you are concerned with increasing mass (the weights) with constant velocity (rep speed). Swimming faster is the key, not gaining weight while swimming the same speed. Inversely, lifting more mass is the key since lifting 10lbs really really fast is not the same thing as lifting 400lbs really really slow.

My athletes use weight training to increase strength and explosive power. By increasing strength, they can also increase endurance. If you have to use every motor unit to pull your arm through the water at the desired speed to swim fast, you'll tire quickly. But if you can improve your strength to the point where you only need to use a portion of the motor units, you can alternate motor units and thereby improve your strength endurance. All swimmers need strength, explosive power and endurance in the arm depressors, arm medial rotators, elbow extensors (mainly triceps), wrist flexors, leg and ankle extensors (for turns and starts), abdominals and back (for fixation of the hips) and the arm elevator muscles (deltoids). Breaststrokers also need to emphasize work on leg adductors. Swimmers must keep their elbows high on the pull, and therefore need strong arm rotator (medial) muscles. These are often the most neglected muscles for swimmers. But it is essential to strengthen the rotator cuff muscles by doing this arm rotator exercise: - Lie on back, elbows on the floor - Grasp barbell, hands just wider than shoulders, with bar just behind head, elbows bent. - Keeping elbows bent, bring bar forward, not up, in semicircular motion until forearms are vertical to floor. Since explosive power is so important to swimmers, we use a biokinetic swim bench that permits variable resistance and has acceleration programmed into it so the swimmer simulates the acceleration pattern of champion swimmers. I believe it improves explosive power because we do much of our exercising on the device at fast speed. My swimmers also do stretching exercises for the ankles and shoulders, and use an isokinetic leaper (60-120 jumps in sets of 30-- keep back straight to avoid injury -- 3-5 days a week) to improve jumping ability for starts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ By James E. "Doc" Consilman, Ph.D, Coach Indiana University (6 NCAA titles, 23 Big Ten Conference titles); Coach Olympic Men's Swim Team 1964, 1976. Author of Science of Swimming and The complete Book of Swimming. Note: This article (including authors' credentials) was written in 1986 for Bill Pearl, author of Getting Stronger - Weight Training for Men and Women. It can be found at page 149 of this outdated masterpiece. I have no idea about Doc's current thoughts on this topic as of today. It may have changed over time, like several things.

I have doing running and exercising; ie butt, crunches, leg lifts, pull ups,push ups, ect. for 2 years now and 3 weeks ago I had to take 2 weeks off due the flu. :bed: Ever since I stopped doing all that and stopped MAKING myself do that, I feel so much better, emotionally and physically. I, however, think that yoga is the best thing for anyone. I am a massage therapist and yoga keeps your body from getting stiff. I need to find an interval workout where I can feel good after exercise and do it outside. I don't have a gym membership, nor do I want one. Working out outside is very relaxing for me. Any suggestions would be great. I still swim, swim, swim, though! :)

Massage Therapy and sleep. It lets me work harder and more consistantly at swimming, weights and running.