OK, so we have had exhaustive discussions about why some pro triathletes can’t swim as fast as the front pack swimmers. While many have ascribed their relative slowness to technique, one thing that AFAIK has not been discussed very much is that maybe these slower swimmers just don’t have the swim-specific strength and endurance to hold a fast enough pace to keep up with the faster guys. Of course, as SnappingT always says, swim technique and swim fitness improve together. Thus if a swimmer’s hand is slipping when swimming hard, he/she just may not have the strength to hold it in place. Or he/she can only hold onto the water at relatively pedestrian turnover rates, and when they try to turn over faster, their hands slip such that while they go a little faster, the speed increase is not at all commensurate with the increase in effort and can’t be sustained for very long.
Lifting weights every day will help to improve their strength but pounding out a lot of fast 25s and 50s has the biggest potential to allow the swimmer to improve up to the limit of his/her ability. Experience has shown that fast swimming improves swim-specific strength.
Best of both worlds swimming with paddles?
How strong do you imagine a 10 year old boy or girl is that does low 5 minutes for a 500 free?? Guessing not many push ups or pull ups there…I think paddles is a good idea as well as your suggestion of some really short and fast stuff, but dont think it is usually a strength thing in general…
Ya, actually I meant to mention paddles as I definitely think they improve swim strength.
[quote=“monty, post:3, topic:1283457, full:true”]
How strong do you imagine a 10 year old boy or girl is that does low 5 minutes for a 500 free?? Guessing not many push ups or pull ups there…I think paddles is a good idea as well as your suggestion of some really short and fast stuff, but don’t think it is usually a strength thing in general…[/quote]
Actually, I think most fast 10-yr olds can do a ton of pushups and pullups. I’ve seen a few fast 10 yr olds bang out 20 pushups between 50s.
My strength to weight ratio when I was a 10 year old was quite a bit better than it is now at 56. We all did the annual presidential fitness test in grade school in the 70s. Push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, 100y dash, etc.
I’m quite sure every 10 year old swimmer can do way more of all than I can today… And have been able to since I stopped rock climbing.
So, I don’t know if Eric is into something or not, but I don’t think your argument about the strength of a 10 year old holds water. Pun intended.
My daughter is the 10 year old 100 free state champ got 2nd in the 50, 200 and 500. Upper body strength isn’t her forte.
She just turned 11 too so now she will have to swim faster.
Swimming is way more technique than strength. I’m stronger than most triathletes and I’m a crap swimmer.
Strength to weight hardly matters in the medium swimming is conducted, does it? Lucky for me.
@ericmulk what muscular development specifically are you thinking might help swimming endurance?
Paddles can help but I think they can also just wear you out quickly, undermining the technique gains you’re there for.
I saw LS put in some fairly big daily volume last Christmas for a month or so, but have any of these pros tried twice daily? Not for volume but for freshness.
I think the strength you speak of is in the core connecting upper body to feet. If the hands and feet are “slipping” (and I think you know what I mean by feet slipping in terms of timing the down kick) then the pull happens off a less stable platform (I think someone described it like doing golf, tennis, or baseball off a swivel table vs anchored on hard ground). My observation is the strength is needed for both pulling and have sufficient rigidity at the right time so the rest of the body is held in a streamline and not zig zagging all over the place.
For my size and age I can do a lot of pull ups and pushups and they both seem to help me most in fly and breast. With my back injuries I have difficulty in long axis rotation and can’t seems to apply force as well and slip all over the place because my core is flopping around . It is also why my run sucks because my core has to do the long axis thing.
You can literally see in Lionel’s run why he does not swim well based on what one of the legs is “NOT” doing and I am certain that the legs /core are not doing what they are supposed to do in the water and his timing to hold streamline is affected. He can pull all he wants but he’s likely pulling “standing on a swivel table”
For anyone questioning the strength of ten year old swimmers and pushing the idea that it’s all technique I would suggest they spend a few minutes at the playground and try to emulate the abilities of a ten year old on the monkey bars.
And to add to that there is a reason why a 14 old was perfect at the gymastics competition at the Montreal Olympics sweeping all gold medals with perfect scores. Its about forcexflexiblity/weight. This where sub 14 year olds are really strong. Guys may have an advantage until teens years (until they no longer do in their 20’s and 30’s), but all the BS commentary on ST about 12 year old girls beating adult men in the pool is for a reason and you can see it in any gymnastics training session. Its just not as apparent in the pool the insane force and flexibilty young kids can apply relative to their body weight
I was thinking about this thread on my ride this morning. If swimming was all technique then why aren’t women as fast as men? Strength has to play a big role, along with technique.
Who is saying swimming is all technique/ You are the 2nd person to say this, but I cannot find one single person saying that, and for that matter ever heard it said…
Size plays a role too. How many Olympic swimmers have you met? Kiddo has met about a dozen or so. The men are tall with very long arms and big feet. Most of the women are pretty tall too. Yes it’s is a multi factor issue, but raw strength isn’t as important as many would like to think. There aren’t any weak swimmers, but they aren’t any football lineman doing it well either.
Perhaps no one says, “it’s 100% technique, 0% fitness 0% strength”… But, it is certainly implied pretty strongly in almost every critique my swim video thread we’ve ever had.
And, the TI folks make the claim outright with their outsized emphasis on fqs, pull-glide-pull.
Maybe this falls in the category of strength in tennis. You can’t play at a high level with strength that is timed with form. Or as @Slowman once said, “the high cost of good form”. Most of us can’t serve like Federer did because we don’t have the specific strength in the first place (and most football linemen also can’t apply strength in that way. We can never get to that level because we can’t apply the fine tuned force. It is a lot of force but it is finely focused. Good footwork connected through the core to the fine application through the finger tips is pretty subtle way to apply high forces. You can see the opposite from good runners. When they have their spikes on they catch the ground with their forefoot and throw it backwards. Skinny sprinters like 7x Olympic sprint medalist Andre De Grasse can apply huge forces even though they look kind of scrawny
The original post was in regards to professional triathletes, which, I am not nor have been or have ever been around. My bad. My contribution and opinion was as an AG swimmer who has average technique but swims faster than peers due to swim specific strength. I wish my size 14 feet would contribute but they just act as drag anchors 
pretty sure terry’s book had it more like 70 tech 30 fitness. i also think he wrote that someone like popov was not as strong as others but had better efficiency and technique
I’ll bet she is stronger than you think. She can prob do lots of pullups and pushups, and pull her weight on the lat pull machine.
[quote=“JoeX, post:8, topic:1283457, full:true”]
Strength to weight hardly matters in the medium swimming is conducted, does it? Lucky for me.
@ericmulk what muscular development specifically are you thinking might help swimming endurance?
Paddles can help but I think they can also just wear you out quickly, undermining the technique gains you’re there for.
Developing your lats, pecs, triceps, etc. Basically all of the upper body but keeping in mind that the motions need to at least roughly mimic the swimming motion.