[quote=“ericmulk, post:1, topic:1283457”]
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. [/quote]
So, quoting myself from my original post of a few days ago, can we now mostly agree that swim-specific strength and endurance are crucial to swimming fast??? It seems that most are in agreement with this now.
I think your follow up isn’t quite what your earlier post said.
Has swim specific strength and endurance ever been contentious?
It’s how relevant that is, and what is meant by strength that’s been debated.
If anything it would be logical to conclude @SnappingT has shown just how much technique is predominant in the application of existing strength in attaining speed. IMHO.
Engner 66 and others flatly said that most pro triathletes are “big strong guys and don’t need any more strength”. Certainly SnappingT has shown the influence of technique but he also said their is a correlation between 1 rep max bench press and swim speed. Further, I am DIRECTLY QUOTING MYSELF above, so don’t tell me I’m not saying the same thing. 
OK, found the time to watch it. I see what you mean as he is going half the length of the pool underwater off of each turn. It is amazing that he has the lung capacity to keep that up for 20 lengths of the pool. Most guys are coming up at 6-7 yds out after 150-200 yds. However, if we just focus on his freestyle stroke per se, I would say it is pull-dominated.
Generally speaking, you can’t separate out technique from “strength/fitness.” A lot of times when I’m working with triathletes on technique, the triathlete can’t get to the technique because they don’t have the strength/fitness to support it.
I use to offer a S&C program to athletes on the team. At the peak it was about 30-40 athletes. None of them came from swimming backgrounds. I got to see everyone’s results in the program. The triathletes typically maxed at around 60-65 pounds for dumbbell bench press. In other words, they could press 60-65 pounds per hand. I also did the program and hadn’t lifted much since college but I was double that.
It sounds like you are talking about bench pressing with individual one-hand dumbbells, doing one arm at a time??? Or are you talking about conventional bench pressing with both arms and then dividing by two???
No, both at the same time. Bench press with a straight bar tends to increase injuries with swimmers.
OK, thanks. I’ll have to try that tomorrow at the gym. Usually I just do the chest press machine since it is a bit simpler.
Do some extra for me. Please.
I’d be lucky to do 65 total. Yikes
You know that’s just called endurance, right? Cardio-endurance isn’t a thing, neither is “muscular”. It’s just “endurance”. Everything is specific to the muscles used in a particular motion.
I and other choose to differentiate it. I think running the marathon is a great example of it. Most non elite runner run the marathon at z3, sometimes even z2+, which is not a hard aerobic pace at all. So very little time spent at in the high cardio zones. Yet, you need a lot of running muscular endurance to come close to your potential. Even if you’re a super speedy 5k runner, if you’ve never done any long runs and run low weekly mileage, you’re going to be in a world of hurt trying 26.2, even at a very easy pace.
Because of this, an above-average but properly trained AG marathon runner whose VO2max and overall ability to hold higher cardio ranges might be joe-average across the board, has a high likelihood of beating a young kid who has a higher cardio capacity and who can crush that AGer in the 5k, 10k, but will completely collapse in the late miles of the marathon because they haven’t trained specifically for it. It’s not their cardio endurance that’s the weakness, it’s the lack of muscular endurance in the legs at the 26.2 mile distance. That’s why I and others differentiate cardio endurance from the muscular endurance.
no, you make the claim, you provide the evidence… that is how court of law works
You were the one who made the uninformed statement. It’s an easy Google search. I don’t have to prove anything to you. I was simply making sure anyone else reading this thread wouldn’t go away thinking your statement was correct.
Here is where “driving directly behind them” and “driving directly towards back of pool” are slightly different.
I agree with directly “behind our own body”. But our body is rotating, so relative to the back of the pool the forces are not directly backwards “ALL THE TIME”.
In these diagrams how did they measure the direction. Was it relative to back of the pool or relative to the swimmer’s spine?
So in these diagrams, the label Left/propulsive/right are they relative to the body centerline or relative to the bottom of pool. I assume they are relative to body centerline?
That’s very interesting. Thanks.
Would it be too much to ask in what scenarios a triathlete can’t get to the technique advance because their strength isn’t commensurate? Just so we can understand
Generally I think swim advice really doesn’t address this. Like there is some “common understanding” that no one can explain.
In general I do agree with SnappingT’s statement about technique intertwined/inseparable from strength/fitness for swimming, but I don’t think it’s as true for beginner swimmers and some particular technical issues.
Like breathing, for example. Beginners do a horrible job at this, and less so, decent swimmers. But I doubt it requires a lot of strength/fitness to improve it. Time in the water, yes, and conscious practice, but it’s not limited by your swim fitness.
Similarly, there are a lot of things like this in swimming I could think that almost certainly are NOT fitness limited even if they have meaningful impact on speed: head position, over-rotation, under-rotation, errant kick compensating for stroke imbalance, inefficient sighting (huge impact for triathletes, greatly underestimated), poor wall turn technique for pools, I don’t think any of these require big fitness gains for meaningful improvement. In fact, I suspect swimming EASY and SLOW but concentrating on correct motion is the key to fixing these, and that’s the exact opposite of what you’d do for fitness gain, which is swim hard, fast, and sometimes long to push your limits.
Unfortunately, at least from what I’m seeing and experiencing, once you’re no longer a raw beginner, and are pretty flat in the water, the biggest impact on your speed is your pull ability, which is the DIRECTED force you can make x turnover, and from what I’m seeing over and over again, this is almost entirely a fitness related issue. You can study EVF, practice it slowly, isolate the motion, do it until all day, but unless you have the arm power to do a proper EVF that’ll get you faster, it’s not going to happen. Kinda analogous to watching a low 5-min marathon runner do intervals - it looks so easy and glidelike and efficient, but you dont’ get there but just mimicking it at slower speed, you have to actually get to that fitness level before you even have a chance.
It’s relative to the back of the pool.
Being able to keep the core engaged during the stroke at the level needed for the distance and/or pace.
