Though my form still needs a lot of work, I am considering starting strength training in the near future, since I have read about how it can help swimming speed, form, etc.
However, I am still struggling with the idea of why strength training is needed. Lets assume that lifting a certain weight in a certain way improves a core muscle, which will help steady my posture (?).
Now assuming I don't weight lift, but instead try to hold the proper posture (high elbow, etc.) for a long period of time, and gradually increase the time I do that over weeks and months, won't those muscle(s) automatically improve?
It seems to me that intuitively the proper muscles would gradually get stronger in order to adjust to the frequent usage - that way the exact muscles I need would get stronger, instead of having to train a large array of muscles that have a relation to swimming.
What am I missing?
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Former Member
If I abstained from drylands to await a perfectly well controlled study on the topic that passed the Jazz Hands & Jimby scrutiny, I'd be in a retirement home.
Your comment brings up a great point. If we waited for science to prove training methods we would be 20 years behind the curve. The bottom line is that for every research study that proves something we have another one that contradicts it. So really, at the end of the day science proves very little and it proves it to late. All we can really do is train our athletes or ourselves off of our own experience and base our theories off the research that exists and the education we have.
If I abstained from drylands to await a perfectly well controlled study on the topic that passed the Jazz Hands & Jimby scrutiny, I'd be in a retirement home.
Your comment brings up a great point. If we waited for science to prove training methods we would be 20 years behind the curve. The bottom line is that for every research study that proves something we have another one that contradicts it. So really, at the end of the day science proves very little and it proves it to late. All we can really do is train our athletes or ourselves off of our own experience and base our theories off the research that exists and the education we have.
