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 thought both sides were extremely well written.
Personally, I am more interested in what is the correct mix given a limited amount of time. Right now I am doing weights and Yoga once a week each and swimming three times. I just started the yoga and weights and I'm not sure if once a week is enough to get much if any benefit from weights. I'm fairly confident that if I substituted the other activities for more swim workouts my swimming performance would increase, but as it is I can sneak those activities in on my lunch hour and I can't with swimming.
If I could do 4 or 5 swim workouts and lift two or three times and do yoga that might be the best mix. Even then I wonder if one would actually be best off swimming 8 times. Maybe when my kids grow up or if I lose my job I can test that.
8 x a week would probably just result in injury.
A commentor on my blog made the following point, which I think is accurate:
"Reading through the girly man thread I think this is a point that is missed. I think some think of weights purely in the sense of just getting stronger. But a lot of what you do seems to be aimed at making you more athletic/agile. By that I mean, faster off the blocks, quicker and more powerful through the turns, tighter streamline, quicker turn over....
Personally I think that is where the biggest gains are made with weights, between the wall and the break out or the block and the break out."
This is definitely true. Sure, I do some pure lifting, but most of what I do is complex functional lifting where I'm working with weights, not just bench pressing or whatever. Yesterday, I did a "core" workout that hit the legs, core and shoulders with no heavy weights at all. There are many things that are superior to casually doing nautilus machines or just trying to "build muscle."
I thought both sides were extremely well written.
Personally, I am more interested in what is the correct mix given a limited amount of time. Right now I am doing weights and Yoga once a week each and swimming three times. I just started the yoga and weights and I'm not sure if once a week is enough to get much if any benefit from weights. I'm fairly confident that if I substituted the other activities for more swim workouts my swimming performance would increase, but as it is I can sneak those activities in on my lunch hour and I can't with swimming.
If I could do 4 or 5 swim workouts and lift two or three times and do yoga that might be the best mix. Even then I wonder if one would actually be best off swimming 8 times. Maybe when my kids grow up or if I lose my job I can test that.
8 x a week would probably just result in injury.
A commentor on my blog made the following point, which I think is accurate:
"Reading through the girly man thread I think this is a point that is missed. I think some think of weights purely in the sense of just getting stronger. But a lot of what you do seems to be aimed at making you more athletic/agile. By that I mean, faster off the blocks, quicker and more powerful through the turns, tighter streamline, quicker turn over....
Personally I think that is where the biggest gains are made with weights, between the wall and the break out or the block and the break out."
This is definitely true. Sure, I do some pure lifting, but most of what I do is complex functional lifting where I'm working with weights, not just bench pressing or whatever. Yesterday, I did a "core" workout that hit the legs, core and shoulders with no heavy weights at all. There are many things that are superior to casually doing nautilus machines or just trying to "build muscle."
