So I got the swimming bug again after the World Championships so I decided yesterday to do a swim meet without having swam at all in 12 years. It was more fun than I expected and I swam about as fast as I was when I stopped swimming (at age 17).
What changed since then? (1) I have no cardio (i.e. died on 35-40m of the 50m LCMs I swam) and (2) 40 extra pounds of muscle with not a lot of extra fat.
I have always been of the view that strength/weight training is vastly underutilized in sports in general and am going to put it to the test in swimming.
My training will consist of only technique training, sprints, kick and very very little yardage (like ~1200 yards a WEEK).
I figure that will be enough to get my cardio to where I can sprint a 50 without dying and I figure all you need for a sprint is to be able to go all out for the whole race, with the remaining factors being power and technique which don't require much yardage I don't think.
Anyone ever try it?
Parents
Former Member
No. But TANSTAAFL.
I didn't include the dryland portion in the above ... that would be by far the biggest portion of the effort. The idea w/minimizing the swimming to the bare minimum is that too much swimming interferes with ability to gain strength/power/explosiveness. Since I swam age-group etc. I don't think I will need that much to make improvements in technique etc. Obviously this wouldn't make sense for someone who is just starting out who needs the time to ingrain the proper technique into their muscle memory etc.
And hey, for all I know it will fail! As or increasing chances of injury, the swimming part will clearly contribute less risk of injury than swimming more yardage that is just simple math. Lifting weights is of course a risk, but not sure how you figure this type of combination exposes me to any more than the usual risk of injury when exercising/lifting/swimming.
No. But TANSTAAFL.
I didn't include the dryland portion in the above ... that would be by far the biggest portion of the effort. The idea w/minimizing the swimming to the bare minimum is that too much swimming interferes with ability to gain strength/power/explosiveness. Since I swam age-group etc. I don't think I will need that much to make improvements in technique etc. Obviously this wouldn't make sense for someone who is just starting out who needs the time to ingrain the proper technique into their muscle memory etc.
And hey, for all I know it will fail! As or increasing chances of injury, the swimming part will clearly contribute less risk of injury than swimming more yardage that is just simple math. Lifting weights is of course a risk, but not sure how you figure this type of combination exposes me to any more than the usual risk of injury when exercising/lifting/swimming.
