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?
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Jazz Hands basically does what you posit. He has a blog on the forum you can check out. He dropped good time when he started lifting seriously a couple year ago. And he's very fast now in the 50s on the regimen you suggest.
I am a low yardage person myself and drylands are critical to my sprinting, but I am not as extreme. And there things I like to work on in the pool. How can you work on three things -- sprints, kicking and technique (all critical) -- in 1200 yards per week?
Are you talking about long course or short course 50s? For long course, I would say you need some sprint endurance work. But have at it and have fun!
The more I think about it I probably need around 1800-2000 yards/week. I hope that I will build endurance for both short and long course 50s.. the meet I did yesterday were long course 50s and I died with about 10-15m left. This is after not swimming in a pool for about 12 years so I think even on low yardage I will build up the sprint endurance I need for a 50 of either form.
Jazz Hands basically does what you posit. He has a blog on the forum you can check out. He dropped good time when he started lifting seriously a couple year ago. And he's very fast now in the 50s on the regimen you suggest.
I am a low yardage person myself and drylands are critical to my sprinting, but I am not as extreme. And there things I like to work on in the pool. How can you work on three things -- sprints, kicking and technique (all critical) -- in 1200 yards per week?
Are you talking about long course or short course 50s? For long course, I would say you need some sprint endurance work. But have at it and have fun!
The more I think about it I probably need around 1800-2000 yards/week. I hope that I will build endurance for both short and long course 50s.. the meet I did yesterday were long course 50s and I died with about 10-15m left. This is after not swimming in a pool for about 12 years so I think even on low yardage I will build up the sprint endurance I need for a 50 of either form.
