My great friend, the charming ignoramus Leslie "the Fortess" Livingston, and I recently had the opportunity to bandy about a debate topic in the November issue of Swimmer magazine.
Leslie has asked me to create a poll to see which of us had the more persuasive arguments vis a vis the usefulness of weight lifting to behoove swimming performance.
I tried to talk Leslie out of such a poll, because I wasn't sure her delicate albeit manly temperament could take the likely beat down she would get, vote wise.
After all, her teenage daughter had already proclaimed, in uncertain terms, that she was best off pleading Nolo contendere here (see en.wikipedia.org/.../Nolo_contendere if your legal skills are as atrophied as Leslie's). In her daughter's own words, "He totally owned you, Mom! Like totally! It was so awesome! He's so totally funny, and you are so totally uptight, Mom! I mean, it was like so totally embarrassing how much he owned you! Please tell me I'm adopted! Please tell me Jim Thornton is my real mother!"
Unfortunately, this kind of advanced rhetorical argument on my part fell on deaf ears, just as my advanced rhetorical argument--in which actual studies were cited!--also fell on deaf ears. Evidently, the dear girl has overdone the neck thickening machine, and in the process, mastoid muscle processes seem to have overgrown her ear canals!
I know that not everyone has received their copy of Swimmer yet. Rumor has it that those of us who live in the higher class zip codes get the extra virgin pressed copies, with the rest of you having to wait to the ink starts getting stale.
You will get your copies one day, I assure you! Just as you will get your H1N1 swine flu vaccines dosages when me and my friends at Goldman have had our third inoculations!
But I am getting a bit off the track here.
If you've read our Inane Point (Leslie) - Brilliant Counterpoint (Jim) *** for tat debate, Leslie asks that you vote in this poll for the person you think was RHETORICALLY superior.
Note: this does not mean which of us was right.
Hell, I have already conceded Leslie was right, and have begun weight lifting myself thrice weekly!
I am one bulked up monstrosity of a girly man at this point, and I don't plan to stop till you can bounce quarters off my moobs.
So. Forget all aspects of actual rational correctness here, and certainly forget all aspects of who is more popular.
And vote with your pitiless inner rhetoritician calling the shots.
Leslie, I warned you: Nolo contendere was the smart plea. But no, you just wouldn't hear of it!
I don't pretend to have the answers, but to me these seem to be the important questions.
Ah, here's where we differ.
I do pretend to have the answers!
The basic maguffin, as I see it, boils down to the specificity of muscle training. It's well established that running, for example, does not do much for swimming performance or vice versa--beyond, perhaps, a little bit of general cardiovascular resilience.
You can be a superb marathoner, in other words, and still become quickly exhausted swimming a 500 yard swim--a fact many of us have seen firsthand when triathletes come to swim practice for the first time and assume their great land shape will transfer immediately to the water.
So the point is that only by training the muscles actually recruited and specifically used in a sport are you going to get faster in that sport.
The question becomes: Can weight training do this for swimming muscles? Intuitively, the answer seems like a no-brainer. You use your deltoids and pecs in swimming, for instance, so surely training these with weights should help.
But there is a difference between muscles on the gross level and muscles on the specific fiber level.
Those who believe weight training does NOT help swimming performance suggest it is difficult, if not impossible, to precisely stimulate and train specific swimming muscles on dry land. Maybe with a VASA trainer, which recreates swimming motions. But pumping barbells this way or that? Not likely.
Those, on the other hand, who believe weight training does help are convinced that the gross muscular development from lifting taps all the effected muscles--i.e., the micro muscles used in swimming, plus their neighbors that probably don't play a role. In this view, weights are like the proverbial tide that lifts all ships. Get generally stronger, and the HMS Swimming Performance will necessarily power even more quickly through the water.
Either way, it is not at all obvious which belief is correct. If you concede that running, or playing golf, or doing gymnastics aren't likely to make you a faster swimmer, you must also acknowledge the possibility that pumping iron might not either.
For many land sports, there is strong evidence that lifting helps. For swimming, the data is extremely equivocal at best. To me, this is what is so fascinating about the whole debate: the suggestion that there may indeed be something unique to swimming--a non-weight bearing sport that is extremely technique dependent and which depends at least as much on cutting drag as it does on increasing propulsion.
The best way to answer this in the population at large are well-designed studies.
But on an individual level, perhaps Jazz Hands is correct. If lifting works for you, who am I to say you're delusional?
But you are, Leslie. Absolutely stark raving mad! But in a very adorable way, I must say.
I don't pretend to have the answers, but to me these seem to be the important questions.
Ah, here's where we differ.
I do pretend to have the answers!
The basic maguffin, as I see it, boils down to the specificity of muscle training. It's well established that running, for example, does not do much for swimming performance or vice versa--beyond, perhaps, a little bit of general cardiovascular resilience.
You can be a superb marathoner, in other words, and still become quickly exhausted swimming a 500 yard swim--a fact many of us have seen firsthand when triathletes come to swim practice for the first time and assume their great land shape will transfer immediately to the water.
So the point is that only by training the muscles actually recruited and specifically used in a sport are you going to get faster in that sport.
The question becomes: Can weight training do this for swimming muscles? Intuitively, the answer seems like a no-brainer. You use your deltoids and pecs in swimming, for instance, so surely training these with weights should help.
But there is a difference between muscles on the gross level and muscles on the specific fiber level.
Those who believe weight training does NOT help swimming performance suggest it is difficult, if not impossible, to precisely stimulate and train specific swimming muscles on dry land. Maybe with a VASA trainer, which recreates swimming motions. But pumping barbells this way or that? Not likely.
Those, on the other hand, who believe weight training does help are convinced that the gross muscular development from lifting taps all the effected muscles--i.e., the micro muscles used in swimming, plus their neighbors that probably don't play a role. In this view, weights are like the proverbial tide that lifts all ships. Get generally stronger, and the HMS Swimming Performance will necessarily power even more quickly through the water.
Either way, it is not at all obvious which belief is correct. If you concede that running, or playing golf, or doing gymnastics aren't likely to make you a faster swimmer, you must also acknowledge the possibility that pumping iron might not either.
For many land sports, there is strong evidence that lifting helps. For swimming, the data is extremely equivocal at best. To me, this is what is so fascinating about the whole debate: the suggestion that there may indeed be something unique to swimming--a non-weight bearing sport that is extremely technique dependent and which depends at least as much on cutting drag as it does on increasing propulsion.
The best way to answer this in the population at large are well-designed studies.
But on an individual level, perhaps Jazz Hands is correct. If lifting works for you, who am I to say you're delusional?
But you are, Leslie. Absolutely stark raving mad! But in a very adorable way, I must say.
