What would you consider as the most important reason to include kicking in your workouts?
Also, what do you see as the main difference and purpose between the exercises kicking with a board and kicking without a board?
My sprint times have dropped dramatically with strength training. I can leg press 400 pounds and deadlift and squat fairly nicely. And the latter two exercises are great for strengthening the core. I have compared my times with half assed weight lifting and more serious strength lifting and they are quite different. YMMV. That said, I don't do swim specific weight training or any stretch cord type training. I do a mix of things.
It's difficult commenting on loads in machines since different machines are well, different. Especially a device like the leg press which comes in various shapes and angles. Also the weight is not exact due to the rods, pulleys etc.
A better indicator would be a squat (breaking parallel) or a conventional, Sumo or trap bar deadlift measured as a % of your bw. I am close to 200% (double my bw) on the Sumo DL. I have not noticed any effect on my swimming. With that said, if weight training would have an effect then it definitely would be on the very short 50m. sprints.
However, perhaps your times have improved because your technique has improved.
Right now I have moved from heavy low rep lifting to experimenting with circuit training emphasizing little rest between exercises. I feel that this has helped my conditioning greatly - both muscular and c/v.
My sprint times have dropped dramatically with strength training. I can leg press 400 pounds and deadlift and squat fairly nicely. And the latter two exercises are great for strengthening the core. I have compared my times with half assed weight lifting and more serious strength lifting and they are quite different. YMMV. That said, I don't do swim specific weight training or any stretch cord type training. I do a mix of things.
It's difficult commenting on loads in machines since different machines are well, different. Especially a device like the leg press which comes in various shapes and angles. Also the weight is not exact due to the rods, pulleys etc.
A better indicator would be a squat (breaking parallel) or a conventional, Sumo or trap bar deadlift measured as a % of your bw. I am close to 200% (double my bw) on the Sumo DL. I have not noticed any effect on my swimming. With that said, if weight training would have an effect then it definitely would be on the very short 50m. sprints.
However, perhaps your times have improved because your technique has improved.
Right now I have moved from heavy low rep lifting to experimenting with circuit training emphasizing little rest between exercises. I feel that this has helped my conditioning greatly - both muscular and c/v.
