That's great Dave, and as I have said for about 25 years now, it is the weights. Some people will begin to get faster after just two sessions, I'm one of those people. I have to admit that weights are the first to fall off the training schedule during the season, but now that I'm turning 50, I'm back on them twice a week, and already feeling a lot better in workouts. The older you get, the more important slinging the iron becomes. My suggestion is to continue lifting, even through the season, maybe modify it to a set or two to just maintain your strenght gains....Good job....

Ya, I've actually resisted weights for awhile now, and this season decided to take the plunge.. and I really do feel they help! They don't even take to long - squats, bench, rows, arm raises and lat pull downs, and then tons of core (20' minimum)..I think I'm gonna add in some tricept extensions though..

what else do you reccomend?

-david

That sounds like plenty of exercises. You can add a million different routines, but hitting the basics regularly seems to do the job. Keep the workout under 45 minutes, that way it won't burn you out, and you will feel like continuing the program throughout the season. At some point don't go for any more weight gains either, just do another set or two, or add a few reps. You'll find that you will continue to get faster in the 3 sports, even when you have plateued your weight strength.....Have fun.....

Monty -

I read your comment about weights with a lot of interest. I posted this question on this forum a couple of months ago and got no responses:
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"For all you swimmers out there - How much does actual strength play into speed in the pool?

Here's the deal: I started doing tri's at 21, had never swam before. Got faster until I plateaued in my late 20's and stayed there for a few years. Then, at 32, inexplicably, the bottom dropped out. I lost far more speed than you would expect from aging, and I think most people at that age maintain for several more years anyway. I basically have gotten slower every year since. (I'm 41 now) Back then a 500 TT in the pool for me was under 6:30 on a good day. These days I can rarely break 8:00 - maybe 7:50 on my best day, and this is with basically the same quantity and intensity of training I used to do. I think this is way more loss than can simply be attributed to aging.

I have struggled trying to regain my stroke ever since. But lately after all these years of frustration I've wondered how much of it could be just purely about strength. I've always lifted some, and back when I was swimming my fastest I could put up about 260 on the bench. Today, at about the same weight, I probably max out at 185 or so.

I know swimming is mostly about form, but all other things being equal, could just being that much weaker cause me to be that much slower a swimmer? I'm wondering if I should take a shot at building back some strength over the winter instead of just doing light weight, high reps.

Thanks."
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Since you seem to be an advocate of lifting, I'll give it another shot here. I do still lift regularly. Do you think just max strength could make that big a difference in my swim speed?

Sure -- for a 50m sprint. Maybe even 100 or so. But not a 500. Lots (most?) of fast distance swimmers aren't particularly strong, and lots of strong dudes (I am/was pretty strong for my bodyweight) are slow swimmers. If weights were the answer, I'd be a hellova lot faster than I am.

Before someone barks at me, I don't think weights *hurt*... unless you drop them on your toes. ;-)

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Since you seem to be an advocate of lifting, I'll give it another shot here. I do still lift regularly. Do you think just max strength could make that big a difference in my swim speed? ///





Absolutely!! What a lot of people fail to recognize is that everything that we do, or are, is a trickle down. If you get faster in your 1/4 mile repeats, your marathon gets faster. If your kilo time improves, your 40k ITT gets faster. IF you get stronger, then everything improves and gets faster. Dave Scott has preached and lived this theory for over 30 years now. It works, not the same for everybody, but an advantage non the less. It is kind of like the wetsuit advantage, slower, poorly positioned swimmers get the most benifit and advantage. With weights, it's the weaker people with less natural strenght that get the biggest jumps in performance. But across the board it appears to someone that has observed and lived through all types of training programs, that weight training is as intergal as any of the 3 sports, possibly more so......

Lots (most?) of fast distance swimmers aren't particularly strong, and lots of strong dudes /////



You are right, I'm one of those swimmers. And weights won't correct a flaw in your swimming, running, or cycling style. You have to have a fluid, efficent style before extra strenght will help, otherwise it just makes a crappy stroke stronger. I don't know your exact situation, so I can't comment on that, but us weak distance swimmers get quite a benifit out of getting just that little bit stronger. It is not about numbers or total wieght, but is about making yourself stronger than you were..If I gave you my weight that I started lifting a couple months ago you would laugh. And you would laugh at what I'm lifting now( a good % higher than I started), but as I said I'm stronger than I was, and funny thing is, now getting faster, in all 3 sports.....

But don't most elite level swimmers lift mainly high reps/low weight type programs? They aren't trying to build bulk are they?

I still do a full upper body workout a couple times a week. Most of what I do now is something along the lines of 3x12-15 reps for most exercises. I still have more upper body bulk than most endurance athletes, so for years I've figured I should stick to that kind of routine.

You think I would be better off to work on high weights/low reps to increase my max? (and I would think subsequently put on a bit more bulk)

Here's a funny story from the old days that may apply to your situation. Rob Mackel, a former pro and 4:23 500 swimmer at Indiana, used to tell me that if he just walked into a weight room, he would begin to swell. This guy was chisled and built like the old Roman statues. You would look at him and say, this guy must lift 3 hours a day. He didn't... He has so much genetic strenght, that he was possibley the one in a 1000 that didn't need weights. So he stayed away from weights, and he became one of the best in the world, from sprint distance, up to the Ironman distance. He was the Eric Heiden of our sport. So back to your question, what kind of lifting should you do. I'm actually sorting that one out for myself right now too. Not sure what you consider high reps, but I would say anything over 20 would be considered high. Most of the swimmers I knew and worked out with, usually used the 8 to 15 rep range. I'm currently using 10 to 12 myself. I'm also trying to lose about 12 pounds this winter, which I'm sure will be a challenge while lifting. I'm guessing here that diet and nutrition will be the key to that plan. I plan to lose fat, along with some muscle mass,( in the end lowering body fat %) but hope to minimize the strenght loss through this process with the weight training. I've never had to lose weight before while strenght training, so it will be new to me. But my logical brain tells me that if I restrict my calories enough, my body will have to shrink. I think as long as I'm doing a fair amount of swimming, biking, and running, that that will help keep any bulk from building up. A lot of what you do just depends on how your body reacts to the weight stress, but don't just assume that you will get bigger. Restrict the calories, maybe up the reps,if that is what you find is happening....And most of all keep track of what is happening to your tri sports, because after all, that is what we are trying to influence...

ha- my bench when i started - 90lbs! I'll let you know % improvement in a month or so, but after 2 sessions I was benching 100lbs, thats 10% improvement (i think mostly neuromuscular development personally though)
but I think overall it helps

-david