Does swimming "inform" muscle growth? A dryland/weights q.

Former Member
Former Member
Ok, so here's the thing. I know well and good by now that swimming does not really build substantial muscle mass. If there was any doubt, all you'd have to do is look at someone like Mark Spitz- an Olympic champion who clearly would have swam enough to see any of the benefits swimming had to offer: www.tierraunica.com/.../6a00e551962103883300e55419aa128834-800wi Compare that though to today's champions: 4.bp.blogspot.com/.../ryanlochte.jpg www.popstarsplus.com/.../MichaelPhelpsPicture.jpg Obviously huge by comparison. Now, the simple answer might be "weights. These guys do a lot more dryland than they did back in the day". But here's the thing- in all my years of lifting, I have never once seen anyone lifting beside me at the gym built like these guys. The people I see are jacked, sure, but proportioned very differently- and I've seen hundreds if not thousands of guys who were serious about weights! The only time I *did* see, in person, people who looked like the pics above were, no big surprise, the guys on the local college's swim team. So I contacted the coach and she was kind enough to send me their dryland routine- and guess what? Incline bench, deadlifts, flys, laterals, etc. etc. etc. In other words, the same identical program that countless weightlifters use every day. There was no magic formula to it. So this left me really confused. Swimming alone doesn't build this sort of physique. But weights alone don't do it either. Is their some sort of magic I'm missing here? Does something happen with the combination of the two that results in this type of build? Please chime in if you have a lot of dryland experience or, even more so, if you're actually built like this from doing these things! Thanks so much for your help, BB
Parents
  • I was more of a stick in High school but when I swam in college I look pretty close to Phelps. I took wieght lifting much more seriously in college than I did when I swam in high school. I started swimming again about a year ago and about a week before spring nationals one of my co-workers said that I didn't look like a swimmer and another correct him saying that I didn't 6 months ago but I do now. Honestly I don't think I'm anywhere close to what I looked like in college, but my upper body is much more defined than my lower body. My wieght program is the basic wieght training although lately I've been working in new dry land stuff I've read in a book that I recently gotten off of Amazon. Since I've got no desire to swim long course, I've been using this time as off-season and doing more running and cycling than swimming lately. I know this doesn't answer your question. My guess would be genitics since my son (teenager now) has the exact same build I had in High School.
Reply
  • I was more of a stick in High school but when I swam in college I look pretty close to Phelps. I took wieght lifting much more seriously in college than I did when I swam in high school. I started swimming again about a year ago and about a week before spring nationals one of my co-workers said that I didn't look like a swimmer and another correct him saying that I didn't 6 months ago but I do now. Honestly I don't think I'm anywhere close to what I looked like in college, but my upper body is much more defined than my lower body. My wieght program is the basic wieght training although lately I've been working in new dry land stuff I've read in a book that I recently gotten off of Amazon. Since I've got no desire to swim long course, I've been using this time as off-season and doing more running and cycling than swimming lately. I know this doesn't answer your question. My guess would be genitics since my son (teenager now) has the exact same build I had in High School.
Children
No Data