Stretch cords are a good alternative.

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I tried stretch cords but I didn't find they did anything for my lat muscular endurance.

When you say you tried them, what did you do?

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I did both strength sets with 2-3 cords practicing the catch and pull and endurance sets, doing pulls for 2-5 minutes.
Was I not doing it right?

Without watching, hard to say, but if the issue is muscular endurance , then that dictates doing lots of volume with them.

You may have been pulling more with your chest rather than your back.

I dunno, I've never tried to use cords as a substitute for pool time, just a supplement.

If they don't work, the rower would probably be ok. My only concern is that it isn't a swim specific motion, but would be fine for general conditioning

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

No. The rowing motion is closer to cycling; it's mostly core, lower back and legs.
IMO: you'd be better off doing pullups, than dropping $900 on an erg.

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no sponsors | no races | nothing to see here

Tom,

It's understandable that you may want a lower cost entry to land swim training. The main thing to focus on is getting consistent swim training done, whether on land or in the water. Then you'll be better prepared and more confident on race day. How you get all that done is of course up to you!

Vasa just announced a folding Sport Bench that can be used with stretch cords or with the SpaceSaver SwimErg. The bench puts your body in the right position to pull correctly with a high elbow catch.
https://vasatrainer.com/product/vasa-sport-bench/


If you want total body + swim-specific training, then I'd suggest the Vasa Trainer as a cost effective option that will last a lifetime.


Hope that helps.
Rob

Nah, the rower doesn't really replicate the swim pulling motion at all. You say the Vasa is too expensive but i believe the Vasa Trainer is around $1000; how much did you spend on your bike??? I'll bet it was more than $1000, plus the Vasa is pretty much indestructible, so you can prob use it for 20 yrs or more. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

The Erg is over double that. Personally I would spent $50 on a standalone bench from eBay or Craigslist and use resistance tubes.

The Vasa ergs start at $1549 but the Vasa Trainer starts at $999. IIRC, the trainer is their original product which came out back in the early 80s. I've never used the Vasa Erg or Trainer but they *appear* to be useful. I've used the StretchCordz off and on over the years when I was deployed on USAF duty and had no pool access, e.g. in AFG and IRQ. I used them just attached to a staircase post or similar and just leaned over to simulate swimming. The cords work well for maintaining the strength in your pulling muscles with the non-trivial exception of your deltoids, i.e. you just do not get the same strain on your delts using the cords. When you get back in a real pool, your delts will be sore for the first few weeks. Also of course, you completely lose your feel for the water but, if you can swim 1/wk as the OP intends to do, this would certainly help.

https://vasatrainer.com/shop/

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I recently got a HALO kit. And by recently I mean it arrived a few days ago. It's obviously too early for me to say much about it yet, other than I like it more than stretch cords alone. The cords are better (more progressive resistance through a whole "stroke") than generic cords I got on the cheap, and the vertical forearm thing seems to keep me honest when my arms get tired. The "HEAT" tubing is supposed to target lats and back but I've only been using the handles so far, so again it's too early for me to say.

Definitely more expensive than cords alone, but also definitely less expensive than an erg or some of the fancier dry land swim trainers.

Sorry I can't (yet) give a more detailed review.

http://lanegainer.com/...o-a-halo-swim-bench/

I recommend the erg, and have reviewed it a lot in prior posts. I still recommend it highly - it feels exactly like swimming with paddles to me, and really targets the muscular endurance in the swim stroke.

I still use stretch cords occasionally, but more for 'weightlifting' type reps, as you can get a lot more low-rep resistance than the erg resistance, so you can do stuff like 20 pulls to exhaustion. This sort of training won't substitute for muscular endurance, but if you can keep training your muscular endurance, I do think this sort of dryland resistance work pumps up your top swim speed (something I need a lot more of!)

I've also used the cords for up to an hour while standing bend over pulling the cords in a doorframe to try and get the muscular endurance effect. It doesn't work well, unfortunately. The issue I found is that the power curve of the cords, which maxxes the resistance in the back end of the stroke but is lighest up front (where your crucial catch is) really becomes annoying on those long reps. For the 20-40 rep strength stuff, it's not as much of an issue since you are powering so hard from front to end, but when you're doing it for like 4+ mins at a time for 30+mins total, you start to really feel that you're missing on that front end catch endurance where you need it. You can sort of get around this by just doing the first half of the stroke with higher resistance (dont finish the stroke) but it feels really fake and I quickly lost faith in doing it day in day out at volume as a likely poor use of training time - I def didn't want to be investing 2-4 hrs per week of my precious time on this type of backwards-power curve stroke training.

The Vasa doesn't have many limitations. I found losing 'feel' for the water at my middling MOP (or FOMOP) swim level is hugely overstated. I just spent 6 months with ZERO swimming/Vasa while training for a marathon, and literally just restarted my swimming in the pool 2 weeks ago, and while I'm def slower, I didn't feel clumsy or out of touch with the water at all. I immediately settled into my regular stroke, just with a lower cadence and a less forceful pull - I certainly wasn't relearning my swim technique or anything close to the sort despite such a long break. The muscular endurance , does have to be re-trained, but it seems to come back fast to prior levels.

My only comment on the Vasa - it's a great tool, but it's not a magic bullet. If you buy one and aren't prepared to hammer as hard or put in as much volume as you would in the pool to make meaningful gains, it's not going to happen on the Vasa. A great time-efficient Vasa workout is something like 1' all-out on, 1' rest, for 20-30 mins straight. Ouch.

I'm looking at building my own swim erg out of a rowing machine, basically modifying the handle with two paddles and placing a bench above it at the right height to simulate the pull. Thoughts?