A sprint experiment

Mr. Gaash, Since you appear to be relatively new to the forums, you may not have seen some of our former debates on just how much benefit weight lifting provides to swimmers. On one side of the debate, you have Leslie 'The Fortress' Livingston, JazzHands, and pretty much anybody who enjoys weight lifting. On the other side of the debate, you have me and Science. I have yet to see any peer-reviewed journal article that shows convincingly (or even suggests possibly) that weight lifting helps swimming performance. There is endless anecdotal evidence in support of this element of intuitive "Old Wives Tale" conjecture; there is, alas, precious little if any replicated study suggesting it is true. Mickey made the point that there is lots of overtraining in swimming. In the elite ranks, this is probably true...to a degree. But look at Phelps. When he got his 8 gold medals, he was swimming prodigious amounts of yardage, 6--and often 7--days a week, sometimes doing doubles. There are some masters who do prodigious amounts of yards now, relatively speaking. The following folks have all swum at least 750 miles so far this year (Don has topped 1,000 miles): 05/25 Don Tatzin M59 OAK 07/01 Carl D Olson M58 ADMS 07/26 Jean M Carlson F49 SBM 08/03 Shirley A Loftus-Charley F60 VMST 08/09 Darcy H LaFountain F56 FLAQ 08/10 Harriet M Wall F69 MICHThe only one of the above I have met in person is Shirley, and she is an awesome open water swimmer. I do not think you will see too many all out sprinters atop the Go the Distance stat list. My point is that overtraining is a phenomenon you see in college and elite athletes, but very rarely in masters. At the risk of being incendiary, we had an older fellow on our team not too long ago who was very impressed with Popov's method of training, which the teammate claimed consisted almost entirely of slow motion swimming that focused on perfect technique. So this is what he would do--every practice, the entire time, swimming like some kind of manatee trying out for the lead in Swan Lake! I concluded the guy was just lazy as hell. He didn't want to work hard in the pool, not that he was in any way obligated to do so. But he wanted to preserve the illusion that he was swimming "the smart way" to optimize his performance. Again, it is absolutely your right to swim as little as possible while training to become a faster swimmer! I don't know why this notion brings out a touch of feistiness in me, but for some reason it does! I have met JazzHands. I have seenJazzHands smoke in the water. Even more impressive, I have met JazzHands' smoking hot girlfriend. Ditto for Leslie. She is an absolutely amazing swimmer who spends an awful lot of time out of the water doing various dry land exercises. However, she also practices something most of us don't practice nearly enough: SDK. She has become incredibly good at this, in part because of her monofin shooters. I don't know if it is possible to simulate this with weights; I suspect her core exercises do help prevent back spasms and the like which tend to afflict me whenever I do too much of any sort of kicking practice. I am rambling. I am no longer even sure what point I am trying to make here. Oh, now I remember! Ask yourself, in your heart of hearts, if you are avoiding pool time because you don't like it/don't feel you are good at it/find it too much hard work for your taste at this particular juncture of life. If the answer to any of these is yes, reconsider the advisability of not swimming much to get better at swimming. And take corrective action! Jim, didn't I show you this one? www.teamunify.com/.../EFFECTS OF DRY-LAND VS. RESISTED- AND.pdf

Mr. Gaash, Since you appear to be relatively new to the forums, you may not have seen some of our former debates on just how much benefit weight lifting provides to swimmers. On one side of the debate, you have Leslie 'The Fortress' Livingston, JazzHands, and pretty much anybody who enjoys weight lifting. On the other side of the debate, you have me and Science. I have yet to see any peer-reviewed journal article that shows convincingly (or even suggests possibly) that weight lifting helps swimming performance. There is endless anecdotal evidence in support of this element of intuitive "Old Wives Tale" conjecture; there is, alas, precious little if any replicated study suggesting it is true. Mickey made the point that there is lots of overtraining in swimming. In the elite ranks, this is probably true...to a degree. But look at Phelps. When he got his 8 gold medals, he was swimming prodigious amounts of yardage, 6--and often 7--days a week, sometimes doing doubles. There are some masters who do prodigious amounts of yards now, relatively speaking. The following folks have all swum at least 750 miles so far this year (Don has topped 1,000 miles): 05/25 Don Tatzin M59 OAK 07/01 Carl D Olson M58 ADMS 07/26 Jean M Carlson F49 SBM 08/03 Shirley A Loftus-Charley F60 VMST 08/09 Darcy H LaFountain F56 FLAQ 08/10 Harriet M Wall F69 MICHThe only one of the above I have met in person is Shirley, and she is an awesome open water swimmer. I do not think you will see too many all out sprinters atop the Go the Distance stat list. My point is that overtraining is a phenomenon you see in college and elite athletes, but very rarely in masters. At the risk of being incendiary, we had an older fellow on our team not too long ago who was very impressed with Popov's method of training, which the teammate claimed consisted almost entirely of slow motion swimming that focused on perfect technique. So this is what he would do--every practice, the entire time, swimming like some kind of manatee trying out for the lead in Swan Lake! I concluded the guy was just lazy as hell. He didn't want to work hard in the pool, not that he was in any way obligated to do so. But he wanted to preserve the illusion that he was swimming "the smart way" to optimize his performance. Again, it is absolutely your right to swim as little as possible while training to become a faster swimmer! I don't know why this notion brings out a touch of feistiness in me, but for some reason it does! I have met JazzHands. I have seenJazzHands smoke in the water. Even more impressive, I have met JazzHands' smoking hot girlfriend. Ditto for Leslie. She is an absolutely amazing swimmer who spends an awful lot of time out of the water doing various dry land exercises. However, she also practices something most of us don't practice nearly enough: SDK. She has become incredibly good at this, in part because of her monofin shooters. I don't know if it is possible to simulate this with weights; I suspect her core exercises do help prevent back spasms and the like which tend to afflict me whenever I do too much of any sort of kicking practice. I am rambling. I am no longer even sure what point I am trying to make here. Oh, now I remember! Ask yourself, in your heart of hearts, if you are avoiding pool time because you don't like it/don't feel you are good at it/find it too much hard work for your taste at this particular juncture of life. If the answer to any of these is yes, reconsider the advisability of not swimming much to get better at swimming. And take corrective action! Jim, didn't I show you this one? www.teamunify.com/.../EFFECTS OF DRY-LAND VS. RESISTED- AND.pdf