What is the best way to improve the strength of the pull muscles, primarily lats, right? I just cannot pull the water hard enough and fast enough to go faster. I think I get a good catch, as I feel the high resistance in my lats as I pull, but my turnover is not nearly as fast as others.
Is the best way to improve the musculature to be able to pull harder and faster through more swimming or are there specific weightroom exercises that work better for muscle development? Would swim paddles be recommended? I have the small swim paddles, should I try larger ones? My coach was noncommittal on weight room workouts and paddles.
I am doing my first HIM on April 5 and would love to do the swim in the low 40s. Right now, in a 25yard pool with no flip turns and small kickoffs, I can do 100 yards in 1:40, but cannot maintain that and 1.2 miles in 50 minutes.
Note: I started serious swimming in October '07 at which time I had coaching. Took several months off for open heart surgery. Resumed again in June '08. So, I have only been actively, correctly swimming for about a year. And I’m 50 (according to USAT). Will this just come with time? Do I just need to get my fat @ss in the water more often? I swim 2100 yards 2 - 3 x / week and my work schedule prevents me from doing much more than that.
If your goal is to pull harder and faster for, say, 20 or 30 or 40 strokes, then by all means hit the weight room. If, however, you want to pull harder and faster for, say, several thousand strokes in a triathlon, then swim much more than 4-6000 yards per week. You need to ingrain a good swim technique, and the only way to do that is to do it correctly and often. The amount of swimming you are doing won’t get it done, unless the entire workout is balls-to-the-wall-intensity intervals. Paddles will help you feel if you are losing water during your pull: try them without the bands attaching them to your hands. You should be able to pull without losing them, despite having no bands. Find an instructor who can point out what you are doing wrong. Good luck.
I understand why your coach was non-commital about paddles and weightroom.
The thing is that paddles increase resistance, but you seem to already ‘catch’ enough resistance to fatique those muscles, so why would paddles help?
As was already wisely pointed out, unless you are talking about 50-100 meter races the weight room won’t help (at least not the traditional approach to weight training) because that will train the fast twitch fibers which will run out of steam in 15-30 seconds anyway.
If you do hit the weight room, which I certainly am an advocate of, then I would suggest LONG sets of lat pulls in the neighborhood of 50-100 reps…unless you are hoping to increase your short race speed then do the standard sets of 8-10 reps after a warmup.
I recommend working the Lats (there are a variety of good weightroom exercises for this) as well as triceps.
You could consider augmenting your swim training with a Vasa Ergometer (not the trainer). Set the Ergometer to a high damper setting and concentrate on a long pull with a high elbow. 2-3 sessions of 15-20 minutes per week should make a big difference.
I’ve pondered the same thing. I’m wary of paddles and I was contemplating a dry land solution, maybe a narrow lat pull-down. I noticed Sheila Toarmina used pull cords a lot on dry land. I have a pair in my office- haven’t brought myself to use them regularly… I wager they would help though.
IMO sounds like you might need to work on technique. I use to use paddles on swims, but I use them now only to skull. I swim 2 miles 5 times a week. My feeling is that you just need to get in and swim all the extra stuff like paddles is unnecessary. More surface are is not necessarily better, I swim with my hand open sometimes. I swim for maximum efficiency not turn over, I breathe every two strokes, but can easily maintain sub 1:30 100s for over 35 mins. Bottom line, I dont think your power problem is with your lats, and I dont feel paddles are necessary. Try either doing sprints to get your power up or longer swims goin at 70%.
I can do 23-27 pull-ups on any given day, but I’m still a really slow swimmer. I’m pretty sure that’s a consequence of my inability to get to the pool more than a couple of times a week. Strength training has its place, but it can’t replace sport-specific training.
Hey, but on the bright side, I can do 23-27 pull-ups on any given day.
Here is your problem: you need to swim more to develop the aerobic strength to go faster, but you have to do it correctly or else you won’t be training the right muscles. I used to think that swimmers had some kind of secret code they passed among themselves to keep the rest of us in the dark, but I believe otherwise now after spending the last few months training with a Vasa Ergometer.
Using a low bench and the limited space of my room, it is impossible for me to “swim” using anything but a very high elbow pull in a very tight area. If I pull to narrow I hit the bench on the inside. If I pull to wide I hid the bed on one side or the dresser on the other. If I drop my elbow I scrape the carpet. In the beginning I could only do 50 yards or so on the low levels and I attribute that to really weak–aerobic strength weak–muscles in my back. I had not been swimming correctly so those muscles were not fit. After months of work they are fit because of daily workouts. Other than sundays, I went back five weeks and realized I had missed one day since the beginning of the year and probably no more than 10-12 days in five months.
Good swimmers just sort of develop their feel for the water. That’s why they become good swimmers. The rest of us sort of flounder along hopelessly. This isn’t really intended as a Vasa ergometer ad, but I’m beginning to believe it may be the single most useful tool a triathlete can buy.
I can do 23-27 pull-ups on any given day, but I’m still a really slow swimmer. I’m pretty sure that’s a consequence of my inability to get to the pool more than a couple of times a week. Strength training has its place, but it can’t replace sport-specific training.
Hey, but on the bright side, I can do 23-27 pull-ups on any given day.
Swimming is more about doing pushups than pullups. It´s about triceps, shoulders, breasts. Easiest way to get more power is swimming more with tougher intensity. Doing 100s at maximum effort is an excellent way of getting more power and improving your lactate threshold. I usually once a week do a set of 20*100 m @ 90-100 % w. 1 min rest, using paddles for the second set of 10. Paddles are great for power too. Point using paddles for the second set is your HR is lower and hence you can still push 10 reps at decent speed with them, even as you´re tired from going HR 190 at the first set of 10.
What is the best way to improve the strength of the pull muscles, primarily lats, right? I just cannot pull the water hard enough and fast enough to go faster. I think I get a good catch, as I feel the high resistance in my lats as I pull, but my turnover is not nearly as fast as others.
Do I just need to get my fat @ss in the water more often? I swim 2100 yards 2 - 3 x / week and my work schedule prevents me from doing much more than that.
Yes. More swimming. You’re doing 4000-6000 per week (and presumably incorporating drills), and that’s enough to maintain, but not really see many significant gains.
Some good replies. I agree with the consensus. You need to swim more. As you do your lats will strengthen and you’ll also get better at bracing your shoulders and using your body roll to power your stroke.
Think about it differently, if you feel your quads when cycling at normal speed do you hit the weights room or do you cycle more?
Just a comment on turnover. If you see a very good swimmer in your local pool chances are they will have a lower turnover than the “casual” swimmers around them. It’s because they’re more efficient. Obviously there can be extremes but if you’re putting pressure on your lats I’d suggest that for the moment your turnover is fine or there’s a problem with your technique.
Something that might help (or be interesting for you to try anyway). Instead of thinking about pulling the water hard, think about bracing your arm in the water and pulling your body past your arm. That’s one of the ways Touretski / Popov used to talk about swimming and it can help people with their catch.
Just thought of something else. If your turnover is low and you’re feeling a lot of pressure in your lats you might be gliding to much in your stroke (in the front of your stroke). If you’re doing this your stroke rate will be down and you can lose speed between strokes which can put pressure on your lats trying to get back up to speed.
If you think this could be something you’re doing, try to eliminate the glide phase of your stroke. you don’t want to be swimming “catch up”. Remember, as one hand stops propelling you (exits the water) the other hand should start propelling you. There should be no gap in power / propulsion.
As I see it many rookie swimmers believe there should be a phase where you keep your arm extended forward and glide through the water, but this is a misconception. One should initiate the grip and pull back immediately after extending the forward arm to its full length. You don´t try to extend your leg forward when running either, rather you´re kicking backwards.
Swimming is more about doing pushups than pullups.
Nah, Marcus, I have tons of push-ups in my arms too. I was doing 50 continuous push-ups every day when I was 14. I bench-pressed 151% of my body weight at 17. Face the facts, man: You’re fast at swimming because you swim.
Thanks for the post, though. You have me thinking I need to be a little more intense about my swim workouts.
Ok, I was just thinking since I´m inept at pullups but decent at pushups besides, I know one male swimmer who was national junior elite (in Finland) at age 15 but couldn´t do a single pullup…
Sorry to the OP for slight hijack but interesting fact.
The world record holder for 50 / 100m freestyle weighs in at a whippet like 78kgs (170 pounds) and does pull ups with 45kgs (100 pounds) hanging off him. Can’t remember how many reps he does.
