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!
Former Member
Weight training has been a crucial component throughout my masters career (with the usual adjustments made for taper periods etc) but I have always had to evade the trap of getting too wrapped up in strength gains in my weights to the detriment of my energy levels available to pursue an intense and technically focused swim workout.
Jim, I think you should run some in-depth and rigorous studies of the whole swimming/weights relationship deep in the Amazon jungle amongst tribes uncorrupted by this debate; possibly bring a raft of tech suits with you to set up other parallel studies that would be awaited breathlessly in these forums- I'm sure Outside magazine would pickup a few thousand words from you on your adventures accompanying your scientific endeavors. You could take D2 with you to lecture the natives on moral absolutism...
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.
What is important is to focus on exercises that relate to swimming and not to train like a body builder. You aren't trying to bulk up so doing a higher number of reps with a lower amount of weight is important.
Arthur,
I disagree with your generalization that higher reps at lower weight are better than lower reps at higher weight.
If you believe that Lezak's plan is good, you don't actually believe higher rep, lower weight is the best way to train either. The power lifting phase should not be low weight and is not high rep.
Clearly Leslie made the better argument.
But this issue of Swimmer magazine was perhaps the worst one I have received in five years. Almost nothing worth reading.
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."
No, you are not lifting weights when you swim through water, you are swimming through water. Your argument is akin to saying walking is the same thing as lifting weights, since you are over coming air resistance and gravity.
Air resistance and gravity can't hold a candle to water resistance. It's like comparing the speed of light to one of our rockets.
As for the necessity stuff... well, when people tell me I'm not serious because I don't lift, well, that's why I tend to bring up points like how I know my muscle mass has increased since I started swimming (and I haven't lifted a single weight) and the photo of Phelps' thighs. I brought up the point about the photo because I detect an undercurrent of necessity-based thinking and when a user comes along and agrees with my mailman that I'm not serious when I know I'm serious, it confirms my suspicions.
edit: btw, I actually voted Leslie on the poll, but there are points that Jim raises here in the thread that I agree very strongly with and I was referring to those in my previous post. Should've made a distinction earlier, instead of saying "the subject", lol.
I happen to agree with the Pennsylvanian on this subject. Oh, yes, I do. As a matter of fact, earlier today, my mailman and I were discussing my swimming at length and I later found myself profoundly irritated that he thought I wasn't serious about improvement because I told him I don't lift weights. The nerve of the man!
Besides a romantic fancy for being a purist, aren't I lifting weighs when I'm in the water, moving my hands underneath me? If I want to lift more, I move 'em faster. Less, slower. Same applies for kicking. I want to kick faster, then I move those thighs up and down with more frequency- that's lifting and pushing my body weight through the water. There's a photo of Phelps with six gold medals around his chest, and the Acropolis in the background, and if you look at this thighs... they're HUGE! So this was before the weight room, since he didn't start lifting until after Athens.
On the other hand, I agree with Leslie on a different issue- dolphin kicks and their importance. Mr. Thornton recently opined that I should do a single kick off the wall. HA! Yeah, right, sorry, Jim.
Besides a romantic fancy for being a purist
Sorry, but I am the purist. I am trying to get faster and like speed.
Dolphin kicking is fantastic. But it usually works better with a strong core and legs.
