Those of you that do dry land swim stuff, do you do sets of say 30 or more like sets of 100+ with a low resistance cord? I’ve done set of 30 for quite a while and I do feel stronger but I cannot maintain the same stroke or strength of pull for all that long. Got me thinking that 30 reps (full pulls both arms at the same time) is similar to swimming 75y. Would it make sense to do higher rep sets? The routine I did was from Gordo’s tips but I was curious if there was benefits to changing it up and doing longer, more endurance type Stretch cord workouts (full pulls for say 5 min straight, especially on days when I cannot make it to the pool).
Back in my college swim days, we would do interval type workouts of about 20-30 minutes total duration. The duration of the work interval would vary from 30sec to maybe 2:00 at varying intensity and with different intervals emphasizing different parts of the stroke. I would suggest starting out with a lower resistance cord and working your way up to the higher resistance. The coach viewed cords as a form of resistance training as a supplement to weight training, not as a swimming substitute.
Thanks… I wasn’t thinking of it as a substitute, although I have a month comming up where I will only be able to swim 1 or 2 days a week so I wanted to supplement the endurance part of swimming during that time. I think I may have used a bit to strong of a cord (at least for me) as it took me quite a while to build up to be able to do 3 sets of 30 with them… I used to only be able to do 15 before my form broke down and I stopped. So maybe part of my problem was choosing a cord that was a bit to high of resistance.
Sounds like you are on the right track. If you are looking for endurance traning, I would suggest a low resistance cord, and a longer “aerobic” type workout. I have done low intensity high rep longer sets with cords before.
When doing any type of resistance training, it is best to never sacrifice good form as poor form leads to increased risk of injury.
I only do maybe 2-3 sets of 10-20 reps each. And only for the catch part of the stroke. I view cord work (or Vasa) as the equiv of weight training, not really for building up any type of endurance. It mostly helps me practice that high elbow catch in a friendly environment (air!).
It does seem to help when I go swim. And then I’ll see someone have a much lower elbow go ripping by and think “why do I bother???”
