I have a very hard time believing that you would pack on so much mass that it would slow you down more on the bike than what you gained on the swim.

---

Endurance coach | Physiotherapist (primary care) | Bikefitter | Swede

Yes, I add about 3-4kg on, when I had a year off swimming and tri I was about 4kg lower than when I swim.
I put this down to inefficient technique.
You shouldn't NEED muscle and child swimmers don't, but if you are very inefficient it seems to happen!

If you already ready swimming "very little", it seems like a stretch to think that even less swimming will make you're overall race performance better. That being said I'd trade off a bit of time to look more jacked all the time.

Yes it does, but your still scrawny. Just a little less.

No noticeable impact on aero.

Probably in much the same way a cyclist or runner will 'bulk up' in their legs once they start logging more miles.

---

---

---

Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Haha- This definitely matches my observations about triathletes.

It requires a lot more muscle mass to swim slowly than it does to swim fast.

Here are some personal guestimates (from a FOP swimmer)
Keeping body fat constant.
A duathlete will weigh about 2 kg (4 lbs) more than a runner
A triathlete will weigh 3 kg (6 lbs) more than a runner

This extra mass is not a pure "cost" to running however.
Yes- the weight will slow you down some.
But triathlon allows for a higher volume of aerobic training.
And produces lower run related stress on the body

Personally - I would swim a lot faster, if I quit running and biking. I would bike faster, if I quit swimming and running.

But, if I were to quit swimming and biking, my running would not improve much.
I would train less but run more.
My fitness and strength would be worse.
My running soreness would be more.

Once I kick my swim volume up, my weight goes down. At 20,000 yards a week for a month I can drop 5-8 pounds. I have never understood how more aerobic training can result in more mass, unless you are eating a lot more. Swimming does not build muscle for ME. YMMV....

-Rober

---

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." ~Anne Frank

Not if you keep your cals in balanced vs your cals out. OTOH, if a person wants to "bulk up" and they have the right genetic background, then sure, they can bulk up big time swimming, espec if they do a fair amount of short hard efforts, e.g. 50s and 100s with a minute or so rest between each repeat. If you look at the top swimmers, the majority are pretty well muscled, and sprinters tend to be bigger than the D swimmers.

As others have said, even if you were to gain 5 or so lbs from swimming, that is certainly not going to make you "less aero":)

---

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

My n=1.

I'm historically a 32-33min swimmer and currently forced to only swim through injury. ~6 weeks later (and after reintroducing lots of chocolate into my diet) I'm the same weight, no noticeable difference in body weight. I've probably taken 3-5 seconds / 100 yards off my threshold swim pace. I haven't noticed my body frame change at all.

Maybe if you keep eating like you're on the bike for 4 hours at a time, but only swim for 1 hour, you'd put on weight, and any muscle mass increase would probably be more weighted to your upper body.

I really wouldn't be concerned with being less aero!

IMO no. I takes a LOT more resistance then swimming can offer to add muscle.

Can we change the forum to automatically translate any somatotype into "idiot type"?

many thanks all...that's useful.

If you swim hard, you'll put on a little muscle and lose some fat. Takes a big increase in intensity, though. Not very typical.

---

----------------------------------------------------------
Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com

Here's my n=1

Prior to last July running was my strongest and favorite type of exercise/race. In July I developed a stress fracture, bam, no running for 10 weeks. To take up all the free training time I started swimming way more, cycling naturally dropped off for Colorado winter. Over the course of 6 months I put on 5-6 pounds. I think I still look the same but my "medium" t-shirts all now fit like "schmediums" and waist size didn't change. I definitely increased in upper body muscle mass. The good side is I dropped my 100/yrd time average 8-9 seconds. The bad is now I'm packing around 5-6 pounds more mass and about 15 sec per mile slower running.

Getting back to running was tough and full of nagging aches and pains, but when I finally worked through all of that and felt good again I developed a hernia......FML. Since hernia surgery running has been overly tough as now I have chronic shin splints but don't want to quit running again. Maybe I should take this response to the "Cry Like Biatch" thread.

---

--------------------------
The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

I didn't swim for about month this year - I lost 6-8 lbs in the process. The muscle came back. As for you, the question really comes down to what your goal is. If you really want to be the best triathlete you can be I encourage people to always keep working on your swim. If you want to be the best biathlete you can be then don't swim and focus on your bike/run.

---

---

Save: $50 on Speed Hound Recovery Boots | $20 on Air Relax| $100 on Normatec| 15% on Most Absorbable Magnesium

Blogs: Best CHEAP Zwift / Bike Trainer Desk | Theragun G3 vs $140 Bivi Percussive Massager | Normatec Pulse 2.0 vs Normatec Pulse | Speed Hound vs Normatec | Air Relax vs Normatec | Q1 2018 Blood Test Results | | Why HED JET+ Is The BEST value wheelset

More swimming would / should make most of us better LOOKING. That lil bit of musculature in the back & shoulders is nice on scrawny runner biker types. That's what counts Imo. Ha ha.

I don't mean to seem rude but if you really believe this then I would say that you may not be pulling hard enough when you swim b/c, if a person eats enough to allow themselves to gain weight, then he/she will gain muscle mass from swimming hard. The oly swimmers did not get those V-shaped torsos from lifting weights but rather mainly from just swimming hard. I swam with several guys in college who could almost have been mistaken for tall body builders, but their bulk was mostly from just swimming as our coach was not a big believer in weight training.

---

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

I think the only muscles which has gotten noticeably bigger from doing tri is my chest/back. When pulling hard i feel it through my chest/back all the way down to my core. It hasnt affected my aero factor on the bike, but then again i am only 148/6'. Now if i could just fill out the sleeves on my small octane.

+1. Definitely put on enough in the arms, chest and back to make me look slightly less scrawny. And that is on one and a max of two swims a week. Definitely makes a visual difference.

Just think what would happen if you did a late fall/winter swim block and swam 6 days/wk:)

---

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

Has-been fish here-

You will add muscle, and it will make you a lot faster on the swim. Won't hurt your bike, and you can do the math on the run:
http://www.runnersworld.com/...ect-my-running-speed

I think 10 pounds equals 10 seconds/mile on the run is potentially accurate. And that's a very small number. If you gained 5 pounds of swimming muscle, then, in theory you would be 15 seconds slower in the 5K, 30 in 10K, 65 in 13.1, and 130 in 26.2. So would adding 5 pounds of muscle from swimming make you 2 minutes faster in the water? It could, depends on technique. Get a great swim coach, break it down to basics like body position, glide, and you will gain 10 minutes in the full at least. So IM is -8:00 or so. If podiums are on your mind, that's a lot! If you are a 15 hour person, not as much. But if you are a 15 hour person, you'll gain way more than 10 minutes in exchange for those 5 pounds.

This is really stupid that I see parroted here all over the time by fish. Because child swimmers don't have visible large muscles, that means adult triathletes shouldn't?

Citation 1 - Look at build of olympic or even D1 swimmers

Citation 2 - Think about the differences in a 40 pound kid vs a 160 pound man

Citation 3 - If children HAD testosterone and could bulk up, you don't think a 10 year old with massive lats would crush a skinny 10 year old? Just because prepubescents cannot do something does not mean adults should strive for the same thing.

Have you ever seen the twiggy arms and shoulders of Ali Brownlee?

My point being that people like him who have grown up swimming don't need the bulk, there muscles are strong and efficient without needing to be big.

In the case of most adult learning triathletes bulk is a consequence of poor/inefficient technique, requiring a bulking of the muscle to do the same job.
It's not necessarily a bad thing, just a consequence

Who's said that? Of course you need some muscle to swim. You don't even need to look at D1 swimmers. Look at D2, D3, or virtually any of the better masters swimmers. Distance guys tend to be less bulky than sprinters, but they are still much bigger than a 5k runner. (I'm just talking about the guys here, I don't think there is quite as much of a tendency on the womens side for the female sprinters to be much bigger than the distance girls).

---

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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