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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Former Member
How strong are you now? From my personal experience, it makes a lot of sense that strength translates to speed, even if you don't swim. But I would think that you should now be at more of a plateau in your strength than in your swimming. That's why you need to spend the time on technique.
Right now you're out of shape, but if you keep working on it, you can adapt to a modest workload so 2,000 easy yards is longer a challenge. Those yards should mostly be body position and catch drills, with some sprint repeats. Also at the same time, maintain/gain in the weight room. However, while you're initially adapting to the swimming workload, your strength might suffer a little bit.
Something to keep in mind about swimming fitness is that if you physically can't do long easy swims, you actually don't have the aerobic fitness and skill to do a decent 50. I swim less yardage than pretty much anyone on this forum, but I can still do long easy swimming if I want to. These things go together.
How strong are you now? From my personal experience, it makes a lot of sense that strength translates to speed, even if you don't swim. But I would think that you should now be at more of a plateau in your strength than in your swimming. That's why you need to spend the time on technique.
Right now you're out of shape, but if you keep working on it, you can adapt to a modest workload so 2,000 easy yards is longer a challenge. Those yards should mostly be body position and catch drills, with some sprint repeats. Also at the same time, maintain/gain in the weight room. However, while you're initially adapting to the swimming workload, your strength might suffer a little bit.
Something to keep in mind about swimming fitness is that if you physically can't do long easy swims, you actually don't have the aerobic fitness and skill to do a decent 50. I swim less yardage than pretty much anyone on this forum, but I can still do long easy swimming if I want to. These things go together.
