A sprint experiment

Plus, I should mention, I used to (and still do occasionally) do brazilian jiu jitsu ... even doing that 2-3x a week (about 1-1.5hrs each day) :) When will we see you debuting in the UFC??? :applaud:

Lol to the rice... nope alas I don't. By chance a friend of me who has just got into lifting sent me this about 2 hours before I saw this thread. So I had to ask about the rice. How to do the Asian squat - YouTube Although satire, it does a decent job of justifying ATG.

Slow swimming is hardly like walking .. maybe if you have been swimming for a while. I haven't been swimming at all in 12 years. I literally can barely swim a 200 without stopping at ANY speed at the stage where I am. 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.

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. Slow swimming is hardly like walking .. maybe if you have been swimming for a while. I haven't been swimming at all in 12 years. I literally can barely swim a 200 without stopping at ANY speed at the stage where I am.

When will we see you debuting in the UFC??? :applaud: I'm even worse at BJJ than I am at swimming... so likely never haha

(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.

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. Agree however I am still managing to put on some strength (clearly not at the pace as before so I want to hit a "local plateau" first before upping the swimming) and it is still not easy to even maintain muscle without consistent lifting and I care about that not just for being faster in the pool but just because I enjoy lifting. As far as current strength, Last workout I benched 245x8 at a 175lb bodyweight (I am 5'8") I do about 25-30 pull ups and workout back with 125-135 dumbbells for dumbbell rows. My legs are crap (225x3 "real" ATG squats) and another reason I want to focus on lifting as I think they are very far from plateauing. Without a doubt I do not have aerobic fitness for a 50 yet, I died with 10-15m to go in both races I did on sunday but I think 2000yards/week will get me there cardio wise comfortably especially since I have had high swimming cardio in the past so it is easy to get back to that state. Even with that tho I was basically at my historic peak speed (which isn't amazing but whatever) As far as technique most of my issues I believe are my legs. I have always been good at pull and had good technique in age group and high school not sure why it would have deteriorated so much.

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. I agree completely with Jazz on this. Slow swimming, or "zero calorie swimming" as I like to think of it, is akin to yoga and can be an excellent cool-down or recovery workout for days when swimming is not the main focus. I almost always do a slow swim after a hard lifting session, since it helps to loosen me up. While I'm doing that I focus on technique and body position, while explicitly avoiding any significant muscular exertion. For me these recovery swims usually range from 400 to 2000 yards.

Without a doubt I do not have aerobic fitness for a 50 yet, I died with 10-15m to go in both races I did on sunday but I think 2000yards/week will get me there cardio wise comfortably especially since I have had high swimming cardio in the past so it is easy to get back to that state. It can if you do it right, but I think you don't need to be as cautious as you are right now about avoiding some threshold of pool work that might ruin your strength. Especially if you just focus on yardage. The benefits as well as the stress from swim training both depend on intensity. So don't be afraid to spend some extra time and distance on technique, which is the most important part of the sport by far.