Girly Man vs. Manly Girl: the Poll

I certainly have my opinion on the matter but I won't vote on who is more persuasive until I see the two essays (I don't have my magazine yet). I doubt that either one will convince me to change my training routine, which evolves over time but for the moment includes lifting. Alas, the only published literature thus far cited, Mr. Q's referenced study in 2009 Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, found that dryland did help the 400 m in their small population of Norwegian teenage girls, however, and I quote: The 50m (p = 0.11) and 100m (p = 0.12) performances did not significantly improve. I only had time to skim the article, but the sample sizes were quite small so these p-values are, at least, not anything to sneeze at. And did you notice the disclaimer that times that some swimmers did just after the study, if included, would have resulted in a significant difference? Any study that hinges on such things needs a better design (in this case, larger N would probably do it). The authors also note that the shorter distances were more greatly affected by technique (eg a blown turn). It is interesting, at least, that the 400m distance showed the strongest effect. Making people slower by telling them not to do things that obviously work? Using boring details from scientific literature to entirely miss the point that's so easy to grasp that nobody other than you even argues about it? Peer-reviewed blah blah blah. It doesn't matter. Show me a SINGLE PEER REVIEWED STUDY OMG that shows that eating five full-sized chocolate cakes every day makes people gain weight. Oh no! We may have to rely on basic common sense to figure out what happens. Playing devil's advocate... Common sense has its place but sometimes the world can be counter-intuitive. While I understand that the state of science sometimes lags behind "common sense," there appear to have been at least some attempts to investigate the correlation between dryland strength training and swimming performance. If the effect is as "obvious" and the correlation as strong as you suggest, then probably even those limited studies would have shown a consistent effect. It's funny, because you are often one of the first people to question what is accepted as rarely-challenged dogma in this sport. Why not this as well? (But I am saying this without having seriously researched this topic. Mostly I lift because at the moment I like it as cross-training; I also believe it helps my swimming but that is really secondary.)

I'm convinced specific weight resistance methods may improve overall joint health (strength, flexibility, longevity). At the same time though, too much development of muscle fiber, or wrong type of fiber, is respectfully less streamlined and efficient.

I certainly have my opinion on the matter but I won't vote on who is more persuasive until I see the two essays (I don't have my magazine yet). I doubt that either one will convince me to change my training routine, which evolves over time but for the moment includes lifting. There's no specific training routine suggested. I simply argue that weight training can make you faster and help prevent/reverse loss of muscle mass and bone due to aging. I've been doing fairly traditional strength training for 1 1/2 years, with some changes around the margin. And I've changed my routine fairly significantly since I drafted that short essay to include plyometrics. I certainly would never say that all my improvements (or Geek's or anyone else who lifts) are due exclusively to weights. I'm sure race pace training or technique corrections or SDK work can all yield improved times as well, and, in fact, contributed in part to time drops in my case. And I do agree with Geek on one key point: I like be be fit and in good overall shape. I think it likely helps my swimming, but, even if it didn't, I'd still persist in cross training. (That's why Jazz rags on me for being somewhat tempted by aspects of Cross Fit.) Swimming alone a zillion times a week would not further that goal IMHO. It seems difficult to create a lengthy well-designed, well-controlled study for swimmers who are in the middle of competing and growing older and stronger naturally. Maybe masters swimmers would be better test fodder.

Chris, you are, as always, a voice of reason in a world of bellicosity! I honestly don't intend anything I've posted here or anywhere else to actually influence anybody's opinon on anything! Really! I just find the world, as you put it, increasingly counterintuitive--with more and more elements of the Conventional Wisdom failing to survive critical scrutiny. Remember, for example, when: Having sex within two years of a big competition was a recipe for sapping all your energy and aggression and would doom your chances? Guzzling endless ounces of bottled water was essential to cognitive, muscular, emotional, and virtually every other aspect of human health? Cigarettes were good for your digestion? Bounce stretching your knees before a long run was the key to preventing running injuries? Vitamin E and folic acid would prevent heart attacks? Imagining little white blood cell "warriors" gobbling up cancer cells would cure you of the disease? Back surgery works? The sun revolves around the Earth? The key to sprinting fast was swimming 15,000 meters a day? Infectious diseases were so well understood that only second rate researchers should consider pursuing this for a career? The earth is 10,000 years old? As far as the Q-cited study goes, I do find it at least a little intriguing, and I would love to think that my recently adopted Nautilus visits might have even a marginally beneficial impact on my own 400 m. swimming performance. However, I won't be terribly surprised if it doesn't make much difference one way or the other. One thing I did wonder about with such a small sample group of swimmers, most of them in the 14-17 year old range, is the possibility of a placebo effect. Imagine you are a teenager, and you have been lifting heavy weights for a while, and you are facing a time trial in an event that involves a reasonable amount of gumption to do well in. You can be in a bad mood and still blast out a 50. But I am convinced that psychological factors, especially motivation and expectation, matter more in something where you need to sustain a painful effort for a reasonably long period of time. So you have Teenager #1 who knows he or she has been lifting, subscribes to Jazz Hands conventional wisdom certainty that this must have helped somehow, and they take off on the race figuring they have a real ace in the hole. Compare this to Teenager #2, in the control group, who knows that he or she has not added this magical adjunctive workout measure. When they take off on the race, they may well lack that kind of cocky drive that comes from feeling you do, indeed, have an ace in the hole. This is not to denigrate the fact that Teenager #1 improves and Teenager #2 doesn't. But to declare that muscular changes are the absolute reason for this is just not supported by the study. It could be, as they say, all in the muscleheaded head. In which case, it really shouldn't matter what kind of dryland training you do, as long as you believe it will help you. Hence the popularity of ever more exotic techniques, from BOSU balls to plyometrics, where the self-deluding cognoscenti believe they have an inner secret to swimming improvement not generally available to their competitors. Dara and mashing, perchance? The more extreme the placebo intervention, the greater its effect. Sham heart surgery, for example, was extremely effective as students of 1950s mammarial artery ligation procedures learned!

By the way, Jim, your entire argument is a depressingly by-the-book version of this: en.wikipedia.org/.../Argument_from_ignorance Not to be confused with: The argument from personal incredulity, also known as argument from personal belief or argument from personal conviction, refers to an assertion that because one personally finds a premise unlikely or unbelievable, the premise can be assumed to be false, or alternatively that another preferred but unproven premise is true instead. Right, upright citizen of Lameton?

That one hurts. I feel your pain. I'm not exactly used to being called conventional either, especially wrt my training. I'd be curious as to how many "elite" (we'll let John Smith define this) masters swimmers don't do any drylands besides Jimby (who is a recent convert).

Why does it always have to revolve around elites...:snore: I mean it's bad enough having to live with the fact that the water feels purer after they've been in there...:cake: True, and good point, but I did suggest masters swimmers in general would be good fodder for testing. Come one and come all. Undertake a serious dryland program and see if it helps improve your times. Half assed efforts don't count. I am just betting that fast people lift weights/do other drylands. Another anecdote: A sometimes training mate, who does happen to be quite speedy, recently decided not to lift weights for 4 months. After seeing his times, he changed his mind and went back to the weight room. And, under John Smith's definition of "elite," I am not. Yet weight lifting helped me, I'm very sure, with or without the Costill stamp of approval.

NB: Errrr, Les if you're not elite...I'm going to quit because you make my kind of average look like crap... :D Just making fun of his stupid definition of "elite" vs. the rest of us who were "too serious" and "didn't get it" that was widely pilloried in another thread. I think you were boycotting the forum at that juncture and missed it. What a loss.

For what it's worth, if you go to Google Scholar and type in David Costill, you will be amazed at the number of studies he has worked on over this career. All joking aside, he is one of the most respected exercise scientists in the world, and his contributions are really legendary. He's also had some No. 1 USMS times, for what it's worth. scholar.google.com/scholar I don't want my lack of popularity in this particular thread to anyway denigrate his significant accomplishments, for which I truly believe we all should be grateful.

You heard it here from an Olympic legend! "Weight lifting makes your ass fat!" Gary Sr.'s words, not mine! One other note from our erstwhile swim babe, Kristina CremePuff Ulveling, who no longer has an account on the USMS forums (and hence probably knows nothing about my lesion and my endless vlogging about it. Note to self: make sure to keep it that way.) Anyhow, here's what Kristina wrote me on Facebook about her personal experiences with weight lifting and swimming. She didn't give me explicit permission to post this, but since she's not a thread-meister anymore, she'll never know! Jim-- Just as a side note on my personal experience - Best swim season ever - almost zero weights/ dryland; swimming only Now - I can do 4x10 pull ups easily and I do significant weights/ dryland (for me and compared to what I did before); less swimming; am cut to the extent that I am asked "do I power lift" or "are you a body builder" (yuck) and I am pretty damn slow in the pool now.:kiss1: Love you with all my heart, Kristina (Okay, so I added the salutation and emoticon. It's not like it couldn't happen. Maybe when she meets me after I've been lifting for a while...Note to self #2: don't let her see my ass.)