Swimming & weight training

BossArky

Today I swam 1km (40 lengths of 25m). That is my second longest distance ever, apart from the 1.5km in the London triathlon in August.

Since August I have swam only twice: today and one week ago. In between I've been in the gym a lot lifting heavy with little to no cardio each week.

I'm suprised that my swimming is better than ever. I have no problems with oxygen depravation i.e. headaches after swimming about 750m from not breathing properly. Also, my stroke feels smoother.

I would be interested to hear other experiences of weight training and swimming. Have you noticed improvements through a combination of swimming and weights?

Killgore Trout

I find weight training benefits my swimming, at the moment i'm swimming 2/3 days a week, weights 3 days a week and cycle to work 5 days a week. I do open water races during the summer, and will increase swimming to around 5-6 days a week as i get closer to the season.

How much improvement is down to more swimming and how much is down to the weights is unclear, but i definitely feel the leg weight work (squats, leg curl machine, leg extension) has improved my kick strength and endurance, great for sprints on their own or where a bit of speed is required, say at the end of a set or race - and the shoulder, chest, back and arm work has been good for the arms too.

Unpossible

We used to do light weight training as part of our swimming training when I was compeditive swimming.

I have found that swimming training helps with Judo and BJJ training flexible shoulders, strength and fittness to help get through the grappling.

milod

I swim 1.25km (50 lengths) 3 days per week and combine weighs with 0.5km (20 lengths) on the other two weekdays. I don't do anything at the weekend.

I haven't really found the weights to be any major benefit since I started them - so has anyone any recommendations as to what sort of reps/routine is best for improving swimming?

I normally just use free weights for bicep and tricep work.

BossArky

The kind of weights I have been doing include deadlift, squat, bench press and pull ups... plus the other minor stuff. I think the deadlifting has helped my back and lats... which has helped my crawl?

hunnymonster

g'em did a bit of digging for me a while a go and started me on
-lat pull downs
- seated military press
- pull ups and
- dips

I had really weak upperbody muscles and the weights have really helped my swimming.

Killgore Trout

I do the following weight work:

Bench Press
Lat pull-down
seated row
db lateral raise
db curl
Db shoulder press (trying out standing military press)
bent over db row

Squats
Leg extension
leg curl

Ab crunches
Lever 45 degree side bend
Chair vertical leg-hip raise
Plank and side plank

I decided to try a programme I found on the web, (swimming.about.com) aimed at improving swim strength, with the following set/reps:

Week 1
2 x 8

Week 2
3 x 6

Week 3
3 x 8

Week 4
3 x 14


The abs don't change - I currently do 4*30 unweighed crunches - and 2-3 sets of 15 side bends and 2-3*15 for the leg hip raise. 1 Minute on the planks

Obviously I adjust weight to suit the amount of work and always try to increase the weight.

I've been doing that for about 12 weeks now aiming for 3 days a week, and I like the variation as it seems to keep the body guessing. Have definitely found it good for swim strength and felt some reasonable improvement in lifting strength especially on the legs, which I tended to neglect in the last year and a quarter of weight training) - however a few weeks of general not-wellness has stopped me training as regular as I'd like, so it's hard to gauge recent improvement. But in my swim tonight i feel my leg kick endurance is better which is great for maintaining a strong pace and for sprints and bursts of speed over longer distances.

I plan to tweak around the plan a bit (have done so already) and want to include pull ups and deadlifts.

Currently I'm getting in only 2-3*2500M swims a week. But as I get closer to the summer that's going to go to 4-5 with some longer distances.

Additional exercise is got from cycling to work and walking 30 mins at lunch.

Wanders_fan

Unpossible wrote: »

We used to do light weight training as part of our swimming training when I was compeditive swimming.

I have found that swimming training helps with Judo and BJJ training flexible shoulders, strength and fittness to help get through the grappling.

We did the same thing when i used race.we used medicine balls small light weights and leg weights.the leg weights really helped me as my legs used sap all my energy.the thing that improved my swimming most was serious streching(which i hated).

Unpossible

Killgore Trout I should probably know this, but for the life of me I cannot figure out what the db in front of those weights stands for. Are you using machine weights? That session looks good and is kind of similar to what we used to do (we had 3x10 sets on machine weights).

Killgore Trout

DB = Dumbell. Excuse my lazy typing

So machines for Lat Pulldown, seated row, leg extension and leg curl. the rest are free weights.

Unpossible

DB = Dumbell

Ah, I should have gotten that

milod

Killgore Trout wrote: »

The abs don't change - I currently do 4*30 unweighed crunches - and 2-3 sets of 15 side bends and 2-3*15 for the leg hip raise. 1 Minute on the planks

....

Currently I'm getting in only 2-3*2500M swims a week. But as I get closer to the summer that's going to go to 4-5 with some longer distances.

Additional exercise is got from cycling to work and walking 30 mins at lunch.

JHC... I'm outa breath just reading this. I'm 42 and at this stage I'm never going to work up to that sort of routine!

Killgore Trout

milod wrote: »

JHC... I'm outa breath just reading this. I'm 42 and at this stage I'm never going to work up to that sort of routine!

Never say never. I'm 31 Now, two years ago I could hardly swim 1000M and very little experience weight training.

I swam as a kid - lane swimming - not up to competitive standard or anything close. As I moved into my teenage years I did water safety but moved away from lane swimming. Apart from the odd time like holidays i didn't swim much after the age of 17.

Two years ago I went back to renew my water safety qualifications. I found myself getting back some level of swim fitness and wanted to keep it up, so went back to lane swimming with a pretty informal club twice a week and kept plugging away, and i found myself improving.

Got gym membership so I could have more pool access and got into a bit of weight training in. Started competing in open water swims this year.

If you're looking to improve your swim I'd recommend swim training with others:

• It keep me pushing out of my comfort zone.
• Keeps me interested.
• Lets me set realistic goals
• It taught me how to train when training alone, deciding what sets to do and timing etc...
• Get good advice from other swimmers
• Swimming with better swimmers forces you to try and drag yourself up to their level

As for the weight training - I learned lots from someone with more experience. I developed a good structure on my swim training before I worked weights in, which was more just the way it happened than any actual plan.

If i had to reduce my weight exercises i suppose i'd go:

Squat
bench
Lat raise
lat pulldown
Shoulder press
dumbell curl
Ab crunches + planks

As for sets/reps 3*15 would be what i started off on - but I like the current variety i'm doing now.

hunnymonster

to add to what killgore said, it's never too late. I'm a few years older than him/her but in 2004 I was a complete couch potato. I'm still not the fastest swimmer out there but knocking out 4-5 km is not a problem anymore. Indeed, my preferred race distance has a 3.8km swim at the start

Killgore Trout

hunnymonster wrote: »

to add to what killgore said, it's never too late. I'm a few years older than him/her

Him FTR I find time is the limiting factor rather than endurance - it's easy to push out another couple of easy k at the end if i've got the time.

Mate of mine who does IM is always trying to get me to do tri's - can hardly run 5K though

hunnymonster

Killgore Trout wrote: »

Mate of mine who does IM is always trying to get me to do tri's - can hardly run 5K though

luckily that's exactly the distance for a sprint triathlon.

IM is a special event though. An the run at the end is more of an uncomfortable shuffle for most so no problem!

interested

IMHO, weights can be specific to strokes but a general core strength program always helps

as per a previous post - stretching before, during and after weights or swimming and maintaining or attaining good flexibility is the ideal - however Id go with greater improvements come from working on stroke and cardio fitness in a pool than in the gym
- Ive seen scenarios where weights are actually detrimental - a persons stroke can change since a person has physically increased muscle ... but thats a different discussion.


For freestyle - tricep related excercises are always beneficial, along with lateral pull downs - those new fangled machines that allow independent left and right arm pulls are pretty good (Im sure someone here has the appropriate name for this machine).

For fly - leg extensions or squats or alot of hill running, shoulder press and as above for triceps

For backstroke - lateral pulls from the side - again dont know the name of the machine but its the one with two stacks of weights for left and right hands - stand in the middle and pull in hands to meet in middle. Personally, I always thought the weights for free/fly above were useful but alot of shoulder flexibility for back stroke is kinda key to get a roll going

For breastroke - varied opinions - flexible legs and knees vital for the kick but Ive seen guys and some girls go for upper body weights for b/s - shoulder and bench press work

Just another opinion