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?
It is too bad you aren't an identical twin.
You could train the 1200 yards per week/heavy dry land & lifting approach.
And your twin could take the more conventional approach.
It is, furthermore, too bad that you aren't an identical twin in a pool of several 100 identical twin pairs that would agree to try this experiment!
Keep us posted on your progress. My gut intuition tells me that it is too hard to simulate swimming muscles precisely enough in the gym to optimize performance in the water, but I could well be wrong.
My larger question is this: do you like swimming? If so, why not do more of it? If not, what is the point?
It is too bad you aren't an identical twin.
You could train the 1200 yards per week/heavy dry land & lifting approach.
And your twin could take the more conventional approach.
It is, furthermore, too bad that you aren't an identical twin in a pool of several 100 identical twin pairs that would agree to try this experiment!
Keep us posted on your progress. My gut intuition tells me that it is too hard to simulate swimming muscles precisely enough in the gym to optimize performance in the water, but I could well be wrong.
My larger question is this: do you like swimming? If so, why not do more of it? If not, what is the point?
