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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The pool in my gym is 18 yards which is annoying but still useable nevertheless. It's not an issue of time, it's an issue of swimming as MUCH (yes as much) as possible WITHOUT compromising results from weight training. If I see I can swim more than 2000yards/week and still make gains in the weightroom I will swim more, but I suspect from experience that it is unlikely I could do more than that and make any progress in the gym at the same tmie.
I disagree with that, just because yardage is a poor indicator of training stress. You should be able to fill a swim workout with 2,000 yards of slow recovery and technique work, and do that six days a week (for 12,000 total) with little to no negative impact on strength. Slow swimming is like walking; I don't even count it.
Some of the technique work should be up-tempo, but it's not a problem if you control the volume and the intensity.
The pool in my gym is 18 yards which is annoying but still useable nevertheless. It's not an issue of time, it's an issue of swimming as MUCH (yes as much) as possible WITHOUT compromising results from weight training. If I see I can swim more than 2000yards/week and still make gains in the weightroom I will swim more, but I suspect from experience that it is unlikely I could do more than that and make any progress in the gym at the same tmie.
I disagree with that, just because yardage is a poor indicator of training stress. You should be able to fill a swim workout with 2,000 yards of slow recovery and technique work, and do that six days a week (for 12,000 total) with little to no negative impact on strength. Slow swimming is like walking; I don't even count it.
Some of the technique work should be up-tempo, but it's not a problem if you control the volume and the intensity.
