Why?

because every swimmer does

http://en.wikipedia.org/...rgumentum_ad_populum

cute, a deflection, but cute

listen carefully to what Mr Phelps has to say about it (at 20 seconds in)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBXKQaIFpyk

http://en.wikipedia.org/...ument_from_authority

 
http://en.wikipedia.org/...ument_from_authority[/quote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5uAf3Te8Jc
I guess he didn't


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGJ9M2C_LJw
and they don't either


But you have made a compelling case for intelligent discussion
Don't do what they say, do what you...hang on a minute...what do you do?
are you a swimmer, were you a swimmer, can you swim?
tell us your secret

Did you look at the top 15 men finishers article? Does it look like any of them do strength training?

They might, but certainly not much.

They also probably have to ask their wives to open jars for them.
Don't get me wrong, at the pro level you probably need to spend all of your time getting specificity of training. However, average Joes probably benefit from strength training since they aren't putting down insane miles. YMMV.

Frodo does:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bu60n_v5lZI


Granted it's not the traditional method. But he's doing it.


It doesn't bother me that most people on here think strength training is a waste of time; however, when I've got 20-30 free minutes, I do try to squeeze in some core/pullups/some kind of lifting. For me, I know that I run better when I lift (I know that makes no sense, it doesn't make sense to me either), my biking feels about the same (I thought this was where I was supposed to feel the benefits), and my swimming feels a little better but there's always an initial adjustment period from starting to lift weights to feeling the benefits. It usually takes about a week in the water to get used to the increased fatigue, and another two weeks to see improvement.


Overall, I'll say that if you want to look good, weights are great. For some people, they help performance too-I'm one of them.


The flip-side is that if (I believe it was a big time coach who said this) if you are swimming enough, core and upper body workouts shouldn't be necessary. I just upped my swimming about a month ago to 18-22k per week, while originally I was doing 12-15k per week, and before that 10-12k/week. The first thing to go when I upped swim volume was strength training. That time became time in the water.


I know this doesn't help anyone since I've sat squarely in the middle of the debate. If you've got the time, and it won't come out of s/b/r, knock yourself out. But if you're taking time out of s/b/r to hit the weights, you're slowing down, not improving.

---

"Don't you have to go be stupid somewhere else?"..."Not until 4!"

A guy at work calls his upper body weights "vanity exercises".

Which, for a lot of people, vanity exercises are exactly what strength training is.

I think there's a difference between strength training and weightlifting. I don't go in and do 3x10-12 curls and tricep extensions, it's more like 5x5 of power cleans and weighted pullups. Takes less than a half hour if I'm focused and then I'm out. Easy to fit in if I've got a bit of spare time.

Again though, it's the first thing to go when volume increases.

I do prehab stuff year round though. Theraband shoulder exercises, single leg squats, foundation training. That stuff is necessary for me to stay relatively healthy.

---

"Don't you have to go be stupid somewhere else?"..."Not until 4!"

Weight training (or asking about it) is almost like trolling on this site.
There are some who take the position that sufficient training will create sufficient muscle.

It's a nice concept. But not realistic.
I will assume you are talking about swimming, because that's the only time you really need upper body strength,
unless you have a really heavy bike.

If you have swum since youth, you developed muscle that no adult onset swimmer ever gets (without work).
If you ran cross country or track, you have developed a system that will always give you running efficiency and if you biked, for whatever reason, as a child or youth, the latent ability is always there.

But for swimmers muscle is a big deal. Check out a swimmer on the blocks, you might notice which muscles they have, you don't.

So, for the non swimmers, you have to consider some form of weights. Whether it's stretch bands (really good), straight lifting or floor exercise, somehow you have to build the basic muscle groups that swimming requires. You don't have five or six years (including puberty) to spend developing the system. Neither are you going to swim 20,000 (yards or meters, who cares) a week while training in two other disciplines. Weights in whatever form, can help. There are people in my Tri swim group who can beat the pants of me riding or running (sometimes both), but they don't have a swim muscle worth squat between them and they never will until they develop the muscle some other way. Because the 5,000 (y-m) they swim a week will never develop them (2 1/2 out of the 10 hrs they train).

So do I think weights will help, yes.
Which ones is the most important questions. For swimmers it's rather simple, lats, more lats and then a few more lat exercises. And when you are not doing those, triceps, and pecs. Along with anything that gives you shoulder flexibility. It's not enough to be stronger, it's how it is applied and for that you also need flexibility. Watch a swimmer. As a kid I could hold a towel shoulder width apart and take my arms straight up over and down my back (I'm not a kid anymore, but some of the flexibility is still there). Also almost any 16 year old swimmer can rip off 60 pushups in 60 seconds (real ones, not those silly bobs that body builders do). Surprisingly, that covers a lot of swim muscle groups (unless you intend to do backstroke). How many can you do. That would be a start.

Does lifting weight help your run and bike. Well we all lose strength as we age. This is magnified past a relatively young age (think 30). Can you lift what you once could, can you carry for any great distance what you once could, can you climb a hill (or a tree) as you once could.

Bingo.

There's a million training programs online that help in muscle strength for different disciplines.
Find your weakness and work on that.

Size is not indicative of whether someone is weight training or not. Take for example 2:08 marathoner Mo Farah...Double gold medalist in the 5000m and 10000m at the London Olympics. Salazar had Mo on a fairly aggressive program that incorporates a lot of core work and dairly explosive dead lifts with fairly high weight. In fairness, Mo closed the 5000m with a sub 4 mile and 53 second final 400m lap. Mo is also a 3:3x 1500m runner. The guy is the size of a tooth pick so don't confuse his size with strength. Having said that, he underachieves at the marathon, probably because he has more fast twitch muscle fiber than 2:03 marathoners, but his fast twitch which is a liability at the marathon is a massive asset when he has to close in 53 seconds.

All this to point out that you can do weight training and not gain weight and at the age group level if you keep your weight low and do enough SBR (which I do...usually more than 700 hrs per year of SBR) then it won't really hurt the endurance end much. And the benefits for overall health, neural function and anti aging are fairly decent. The forces and range of in SBR at the paces we need for tri competition are just too low to really push the the human body sufficiently in terms of sustaining one's abilities as an all round athlete/human.