Does swimming "inform" muscle growth? A dryland/weights q.
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.jpgwww.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
Former Member
Wow are you a hypocrite. First you blast me for going about my goals the wrong way, claiming you know the way, because you were able to get some guy from X to Y using your own advice.
When I ask you to show me the guy who supposedly went from X to Y using your system, I'm yet again an idiot and going about things wrong, and your example is "merely an anecdote".
So which is it? You know the way, or your way only produces anecdotes?
Let me put this out there for all to hear (though at this point it seems like there are maybe 4 people total in this conversation).
Show me, with resultant pics, a routine that increases one's upper back, shoulders, and chest without simultaneously building oversized tris, bis, neck, and traps. That is the goal. pwolf, you want measurable action? 2-4" more on the chest, similar amount on shoulders (circumference), without serious gain to arm or neck measurements.
The pics I've provided were the target goal, which show exactly this.
Give me a routine, I don't care if the only water it involves is the sweat produced.
But give me something with evidence. Pics. Maybe something you did, maybe something you recommended to someone else. Don't dismiss your experience as "anecdotal" when it's inconvenient and you're pressed for proof.
To date, the only consistently built people I've seen along these lines have been swimmers. That's why I'm here. If I'm 100% wrong and this is not the way, show me the right way and back it up with something for me to see.
Wow are you a hypocrite. First you blast me for going about my goals the wrong way, claiming you know the way, because you were able to get some guy from X to Y using your own advice.
When I ask you to show me the guy who supposedly went from X to Y using your system, I'm yet again an idiot and going about things wrong, and your example is "merely an anecdote".
So which is it? You know the way, or your way only produces anecdotes?
Let me put this out there for all to hear (though at this point it seems like there are maybe 4 people total in this conversation).
Show me, with resultant pics, a routine that increases one's upper back, shoulders, and chest without simultaneously building oversized tris, bis, neck, and traps. That is the goal. pwolf, you want measurable action? 2-4" more on the chest, similar amount on shoulders (circumference), without serious gain to arm or neck measurements.
The pics I've provided were the target goal, which show exactly this.
Give me a routine, I don't care if the only water it involves is the sweat produced.
But give me something with evidence. Pics. Maybe something you did, maybe something you recommended to someone else. Don't dismiss your experience as "anecdotal" when it's inconvenient and you're pressed for proof.
To date, the only consistently built people I've seen along these lines have been swimmers. That's why I'm here. If I'm 100% wrong and this is not the way, show me the right way and back it up with something for me to see.
