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?
WHAT THE HELL DUDE
Read the thing I posted. I've posted it for you before. You didn't read it. I posted it in this thread and you ignored it. You keep saying with absolutely certainty that there is no scientific evidence. You're wrong. Here it is again:
www.teamunify.com/.../EFFECTS OF DRY-LAND VS. RESISTED- AND.pdf
You need to get over your absolute denial of the existence of any evidence at all, and come up with some other, less stupid, argument. I'm sure you can do it.
The article makes a case that strength training, including weight lifting, helps swimming performance. But the resisted/assisted swimming training was not distinguishable from weights: "dry-land weight training does not seem to be the only way to overload functional muscles."
Don't get me wrong, I think weight training helps swimming performance (and is healthy besides). Though I do differ from conventional wisdom in some respects -- I think you can maintain strength gains in the water for longer than is commonly believed (this article may support that view).
It was an interesting study; I like how they tried to correlate swimming performance with other measures. Although the improvement due to weights and the "RAS" treatment was similar, the reasons seemed a little different. Why not try both and see if the effects are at all additive?
I wish they had a larger sample size. I wish they had specified the type of swimming training that was done a little more (the magnitude of the gains will probably depend on the type of training). I wish they had tested the effect on other distances and strokes; I've sometimes wondered if butterfly, for example, is more strongly helped by upper-body strength gains than backstroke. And the authors themselves noted the need for a longer-term study.
WHAT THE HELL DUDE
Read the thing I posted. I've posted it for you before. You didn't read it. I posted it in this thread and you ignored it. You keep saying with absolutely certainty that there is no scientific evidence. You're wrong. Here it is again:
www.teamunify.com/.../EFFECTS OF DRY-LAND VS. RESISTED- AND.pdf
You need to get over your absolute denial of the existence of any evidence at all, and come up with some other, less stupid, argument. I'm sure you can do it.
The article makes a case that strength training, including weight lifting, helps swimming performance. But the resisted/assisted swimming training was not distinguishable from weights: "dry-land weight training does not seem to be the only way to overload functional muscles."
Don't get me wrong, I think weight training helps swimming performance (and is healthy besides). Though I do differ from conventional wisdom in some respects -- I think you can maintain strength gains in the water for longer than is commonly believed (this article may support that view).
It was an interesting study; I like how they tried to correlate swimming performance with other measures. Although the improvement due to weights and the "RAS" treatment was similar, the reasons seemed a little different. Why not try both and see if the effects are at all additive?
I wish they had a larger sample size. I wish they had specified the type of swimming training that was done a little more (the magnitude of the gains will probably depend on the type of training). I wish they had tested the effect on other distances and strokes; I've sometimes wondered if butterfly, for example, is more strongly helped by upper-body strength gains than backstroke. And the authors themselves noted the need for a longer-term study.
