Swim Faster Stronger

This thread is an expansion of Ande's Swimming Faster Faster Tip 31: Get Strong. This is where I give advice on how to get stronger for the purpose of swimming faster. I'm an authority on this subject only in a limited sense. I'm not a swim coach or a strength coach. I made a lot of improvement in my swimming when I started lifting weights, and I've given advice to a few other people (swimmers and non-swimmers) on how to get started on strength training. I draw a lot on conventional strength training wisdom. That's general strength training, not strength training for swimming. In my opinion, and this is probably the most radical theme I'm going to stick with here, strength training advice for swimmers has always sucked. It is most often some kind of perverted and watered down version of the strength training that actual strong people do. A lot of buzzwords get added (e.g., "functional") and actual weight (i.e., iron) gets subtracted. My number one principle for strength training is this: it's not swimming! Don't mimic strokes, don't worry about skills. Just get stronger. The strength will transfer. Safety I'm starting with this at Jim Thornton's suggestion. Your first priority in the weight room is to avoid getting hurt. Joint pain This is just like swimming. The rule is: if it hurts, don't do it. Tendonitis comes on slowly, and when you feel it, you should stop doing whatever exercise causes it. There are also rehab/prehab exercises for strength and flexibility targeting any joint you can think of. Lower back Some lifts, particularly squats and deadlifts, require you to bend over at the waist. Do these in a mirror where you can see your side profile whenever possible, or have somebody watch your form. You need to keep your lower back slightly arched at all times, never flexed while supporting a significant weight. Some techniques to promote good form are: looking up, trying to point your chest to the ceiling, and trying to push your butt backward. Use whatever combination of these cues work for you, and check your form visually. Dropping weight Common sense. Overhead weights are dangerous. Don't drop heavy stuff on your head. When doing any exercise, ask yourself what would happen if you suddenly passed out and collapsed. Would the weight hit you? Would it choke you? I'm not saying to avoid exercises like that, but be careful. End your sets before you start feeling shaky. Use stops on a power rack. Ask somebody to spot you (unless you are doing squats and you aren't good friends already). Again, this should really be common sense. Muscle soreness Sorry, this is not an injury. I just put it here to make sure nobody mistakes it for one :) It's going to happen, and it's probably going to be far more intense than what you get from swimming. Exercise selection Exercise selection is all about variety. It's important to strengthen all of the muscles on the body, and you can do that by focusing on three basic movements: push, pull, and squat. Do these basic movements at different angles and positions to strengthen the entire body. Choosing different grips and equipment can also keep you from getting bored with weight training, and it can prevent joint injuries. Push In pushing, the elbows straighten and move away from the body. The two basic angles for pushing are forward and upward. Here's the barbell bench press, a forward pushing movement: YouTube - Instructional Fitness - Bench Press And here's the standing barbell shoulder press, an upward pushing movement: YouTube - Build Muscle: Barbell Shoulder Press And of course there are different angles and hybrids. For example, incline bench press is in between shoulder press and bench press. Also, any of these things can be done with dumbbells or other equipment. Pull Pulling means elbows bend and come toward the body. The two basic angles for pulling are downward and backward. Here's the dumbbell row, a backward pulling movement: YouTube - Instructional Fitness - One-arm Dumbbell Rows And here's a pull-up, which is not just a downward pulling movement, but the downward pulling movement that all beginning lifters must do, because of all of the different muscles it stresses: YouTube - dead-hang pull ups with 70lb kettlebell.AVI Squat The squatting movement is the basis for all lower body development. My favorite squatting movement is the barbell lunge, which puts less relative stress on the lower back by working one leg at a time: YouTube - Lunges 225 X 7 If you bend over without bending much at the knees, squatting turns into a deadlift variation. Here's the sumo deadlift: YouTube - How to Sumo Deadlift Load, volume, and frequency These are parameters you need to balance. Load means: how heavy is the weight? Or, more specifically: how much force are your muscles required to produce to move it? Volume means: how many repetitions do you do? How much total work are the muscles doing? Frequency means: how often does a particular muscle get worked? You can do a full-body workout three days a week, or maybe upper body two days a week and lower body one day. Or you can get even more specific. Bodybuilders like to have days like "chest", "arms", and "shoulders" over the course of a week. I know this sounds arbitrary, but we have to start somewhere. Here are my can't-fail load and volume parameters for newbies: 1. Do a full body workout two or three days a week, involving one push, one pull, and one squat. 2. Do between 2 and 6 sets per exercise, excluding easy/warm-up sets. 3. Do between 5 and 15 reps per set. 4. Don't take less than a full minute of rest between sets. Within that, knock yourself out. You'll eventually come to some kind of understanding of how you respond to different amounts of volume and load, and how much variety you want. In a bit I'll give you a specific program to start with, if that's too much choice for you. Failure and fatigue Fatigue means you start to shake or slow down. Failure means you are no longer able to lift the weight. In my opinion, these things are way overrated. It's fun to challenge yourself and see exactly how many reps you can do to failure, but if you are doing 30 reps of 135 pounds on some exercise, 3 sets of 10 is pretty much the same as 6 sets of 5. I often prefer to do the latter, although it might take slightly longer. It all depends on how much pain you want to be in. There are some minor strength benefits to failure in strength training, but it definitely doesn't have to happen on every set, or even in every workout. It's just another parameter that you can change depending on how you like it. Introduction plan This is a plan that follows my guidelines. It's very similar to what I did when I started lifting. The exercises in it are the ones I showed videos of above. If you have more questions about how to do them or set up for them, please ask. This workout is built on sets of 10 reps. Choose a very light weight to start, and slowly add weight, never more than 20 pounds at a time (or 10 pounds per dumbbell) until you can't complete 10 reps on your last set. Once you learn roughly how much weight you can do on a particular exercise, you can choose a good point to start ramping up from without wasting time. Workout A Assisted pull-up machine (Remember, more weight is easier on this.) Standing barbell shoulder press (Stop any set if you start to feel shaky. Don't go to failure on these!) Barbell alternating lunge (You can also do this holding dumbbells at your side. Pretty much the same.) Workout B One-arm dumbbell row (Switch arms between sets, and stop when either arm fails to get 10 reps.) Barbell bench press (Stop a bit short of failure, or get a spotter.) Sumo deadlift (Check your lower back form! The set is over when you lose perfect form.) Do Workout A, rest a few days, then do Workout B. Repeat. Take extra rest days if you feel like it. Feel free to substitute similar movements if you get bored or don't like the ones I prescribe. Questions? Ask me!