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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(1) I need to be able to sprint a 50, not swim a 200.
(2) I haven't swam at ALL in 12 years.. if I start swimming even not much my endurance and swimming muscle memory will come back to where I won't be so pathetic to not be able to swim a 200
(3) Weightlifting produces benefits that translate to other sports that cannot be (at least not with any efficiency) produced elsewhere. This is the key issue. In general I agree with you if you want to get good at X, do X, but if X benefits from strength, weightlifting is proven to add strength better than anything else we have yet discovered, and that strength has proven to be translatable in just about any sport, including swimming.
(4) The body cannot make significant gains in strength while swimming a lot. That's the case for me at least, and I'm only 29 years old and was even the case when I was 17. It is definitely the case where I am strength wise. I do 25-30 pullups, when I swam and lifted at the same time and weighed 40lbs less I did about 12-13. My bench and just about every lift is nearly double what it was. Will it translate into speed in the pool? That is what I want to find out.
(5) I am already about as fast as I was at my peak having not swam in 12 years and ONLY done weight training. Is this what you would expect?
If this is truly the case, I can't imagine how swimming less than 2,000 yards a week is going to help your swimming, no matter how much weight lifting you do.
I am trying to be open minded here, but your experiment really strikes me as peculiar.
They say, for instance, that a huge part of sports is the mental aspect. Training for swimming by doing a lot of lifting and almost no actual swimming seems to me like training for basketball by playing a lot of bball video games and almost no actual on-the-court play.
To each his own! But if you like to compete, and don't really want to spend that much time in the pool, why not forget swimming altogether and compete in masters weightlifting tournaments?
In our little Y league here throughout the winter months, we have meets every couple weeks, and they include 25s! Maybe you could find similar meets and not have to swim at all? I will grant you that the 25 doesn't take too much swimming endurance!
Or, for that matter, time in the water.
(1) I need to be able to sprint a 50, not swim a 200.
(2) I haven't swam at ALL in 12 years.. if I start swimming even not much my endurance and swimming muscle memory will come back to where I won't be so pathetic to not be able to swim a 200
(3) Weightlifting produces benefits that translate to other sports that cannot be (at least not with any efficiency) produced elsewhere. This is the key issue. In general I agree with you if you want to get good at X, do X, but if X benefits from strength, weightlifting is proven to add strength better than anything else we have yet discovered, and that strength has proven to be translatable in just about any sport, including swimming.
(4) The body cannot make significant gains in strength while swimming a lot. That's the case for me at least, and I'm only 29 years old and was even the case when I was 17. It is definitely the case where I am strength wise. I do 25-30 pullups, when I swam and lifted at the same time and weighed 40lbs less I did about 12-13. My bench and just about every lift is nearly double what it was. Will it translate into speed in the pool? That is what I want to find out.
(5) I am already about as fast as I was at my peak having not swam in 12 years and ONLY done weight training. Is this what you would expect?
If this is truly the case, I can't imagine how swimming less than 2,000 yards a week is going to help your swimming, no matter how much weight lifting you do.
I am trying to be open minded here, but your experiment really strikes me as peculiar.
They say, for instance, that a huge part of sports is the mental aspect. Training for swimming by doing a lot of lifting and almost no actual swimming seems to me like training for basketball by playing a lot of bball video games and almost no actual on-the-court play.
To each his own! But if you like to compete, and don't really want to spend that much time in the pool, why not forget swimming altogether and compete in masters weightlifting tournaments?
In our little Y league here throughout the winter months, we have meets every couple weeks, and they include 25s! Maybe you could find similar meets and not have to swim at all? I will grant you that the 25 doesn't take too much swimming endurance!
Or, for that matter, time in the water.
