A sprint experiment

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. Agree about technique, just not sure that I will be able to swim w/good technique and distance right now LOL... whereas I can swim with good technique for short distances.

My impression is that most swim workouts involve overtraining and better results could be gotten with more focus. When I read that shoulder pain is more prevalent in high school level swimmers than in older swimmers, I think "destructive overtraining." Maybe coaches use overtraining to filter for the most highly motivated? Overtraining as hazing? A while ago, a coach posted on here about letting one swimmer (who later became an olympian) train less than the team. I've been thinking - it would be a rare coach, indeed, that would do that for a kid whose highest potential, say, would be to get a partial scholarship for a non-powerhouse college team. I read about something similar in principle for marathon runners "Run Faster, Run Less." Amazon.com: Runner's World Run Less, Run Faster: Become a Faster, Stronger Runner with the Revolutionary FIRST Training Program (9781594866494): Bill Pierce, Scott Murr, Ray Moss: Books As near as I can see, the "run faster" is only slightly faster. The book could be more accurately: "Run less, Run without injury, Enjoy it, Still Run Fast." I used a modication of this program to train for Upper Michigan's Teal Lake 2.25 mile Swim for Diabetes for this year. Bettered my old time by 16 minutes. (Now I'm just slow. But continents no longer drift past me when I swim.) I'm guessing that your program's success might depend on some fine tuning in the exact lifting exercises you do. It will be interesting to see how this experiment plays out. Good luck.

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. I "sink" without 'significant muscular exertion' hell I almost sink if i don't kick hard with a kick board!! In all seriousness though, I get what you guys are saying, but do not underestimate the exertion of even a slow swim.. it's nothing like walking.

Actually, there was no assistance-only group. Resistance and assistance were combined in the group referred to as "RAS." True but I seem to remember they referenced studies that claimed it as effective. I may be misremembering and I can't look it up right now. (Of course I didn't read the source article either.) I can't see the value for strength building. But for technique and/at high stroke rates, I can see it. One still needs to build the power and conditioning to sustain the high SR.

? So what if his motivation is some variation of laziness? Trying to find an easy way to improve swimming still seems to me like a fun thing to do. It doesn't hurt anyone. It will almost certainly improve his swimming compared with not swimming at all. If he tries his program and it doesn't work (and he answers "yes" to one or more of your questions), then he has some hard decisions to make. Until then, what does it matter if his motivations are impure? +1 There is no requirement to swim X amount to participate in masters. Do what you want -- swim mega yardage and feel pure or swim the bare minimum and compete in 50s. Just ignore the bashing of sprinters that is fairly commonplace.

-- you say that you cannot swim (say) an easy 200. -- you mention you don't have the "cardio" to complete a 50 at full speed Did you notice he has only be swimming for 3 days and day 1 back was a swim meet? I would say that his statements match my experience returning after a multi year break. I don't see how gaash's experiment can fail, starting from nothing and doing something will result in some significant improvements.

Thanks for these tips. I am actually planning on doing fast paced workouts in the pool with most of my focus being 25s type distance and kick intensive workouts (my main technical (and overall) weakness I believe) As for technique, I swam age group on strong teams and high school from 10-17. . I was never a great swimmer but my technique while I'm sure can use improvement is at a relatively high level (other than my weak kick!) ..the reason I have difficulty swimming non-stop is more of the lack of swimming for 12 years than very poor technique and will come back very quickly. Jumped in the pool yesterday and already I feel much better in the water (post my last swim which was a meet and about 100m warm up before my 2 50m races) As an example of what I did yesterday so you can have a sense of what might evolve into a typical workout is something like: (note pool is 18yards unfortunately) This is on a day of heavy lifting so it is on the shorter end of what I plan 6 lap warm up 4x18 underwater dolphin kick (on stomach) as fast as possible 4x18 free style kick drill 4x18 free style w/very slow arm and all out kick the above 4x gradually increase arm speed but focusing on kick Not much pull intensive work as my pull has (and I think still?) always been my strong suit and the extra upper body strength makes it even eaiser. It can obviously improve and I may consider adding some stretch chord work per your suggestions but bringing my kick up to par (and just getting used to swimming again) I think will give me the most bang for buck at least to begin with... I plan on racing in a meet on Oct. 1 so hopefully I will be able to have some good data to compare to my 17 year old times and the meet I did a week ago. Maybe...but he still swims 15k a week, which is perhaps somewhere around the median for masters swimmers. (I'm sure his gym workout is harder than the vast majority of masters swimmers.) But weekly yardage is a poor standalone summary of a training plan. Foster's approach seems to be to eschew aerobic and lactate-tolerance training in favor of building strength and raw speed, and working on technique. He does full-speed work in the pool and lots of easy swimming. Seems like a fine approach for training for 50s. I wish you luck in your experiment. A few things that raise red flags in my mind: -- you say that you cannot swim (say) an easy 200. This implies either that your muscles are not used to swimming or that you have poor swimming efficiency. A key point in your experiment is the ability to transfer strength gain from the weight room to the pool. I don't doubt that lifting weights can hit the major muscle groups that propel swimmers, but there are probably many small muscles that swimming depends on that might only (or best) be exercised by actually swimming. Maybe 2k per week is enough to get them properly conditioned, but perhaps not. The saying that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link may apply here. -- Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression that you plan to avoid or only do minimal race-pace training (or any hard swimming) because it might interfere with your strength gains. If true, I think this is a huge mistake. While there are a variety of training philosophies on this forum, I think perhaps the one thing almost everyone agrees on is the need for race-pace training with adequate recovery between sessions. Both Mark Foster and Jazz Hands (to choose a masters swimmer with a comparable philosophy) do plenty of race-pace work. -- you mention you don't have the "cardio" to complete a 50 at full speed. I am not sure how you are using the term, but if you mean it as "aerobic fitness," I would strongly disagree. I think the aerobic component of a 50 sprint is very small. Again, IMO the best way to train in the pool is to do race-pace 15s, 25s and 50s as well as work on technique (drills, starts, breakouts, turns). One thing I found interesting about the article Jazz linked to was that assisted swimming (eg, swimming with a stretch cord) can be as effective as resisted swimming or weight training. I can certainly see the value in encouraging/developing a fast turnover. Another useful tool to develop a fast (but still efficient) turnover might be a tempo trainer. These sorts of swim-specific things are hard to replicate in the gym. Enjoy.

Did you notice he has only be swimming for 3 days and day 1 back was a swim meet? I would say that his statements match my experience returning after a multi year break. I don't see how gaash's experiment can fail, starting from nothing and doing something will result in some significant improvements. Well yes, I definitely expect to be faster than I ever was given what you said and that I am almost at my peak speed with no training... however, I think the magnitude will be what is most telling.

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! ? So what if his motivation is some variation of laziness? Trying to find an easy way to improve swimming still seems to me like a fun thing to do. It doesn't hurt anyone. It will almost certainly improve his swimming compared with not swimming at all. If he tries his program and it doesn't work (and he answers "yes" to one or more of your questions), then he has some hard decisions to make. Until then, what does it matter if his motivations are impure?

Is that why there are 10x as many open water events as "regular" meets? :) They can't go fast so they have to go slow. :)