Anyone have a Total Gym and can simuate swimming like a Vasa Trainer?
why do you want to simulate swimming? It’s no fun unless there is water involved!!!
Thinking of geting it for the wife for her workouts and wondered if it can simulate avasa trainer. I assume you do not have a Cyclops or indoor trainer?? Why ride indoors, not the same without riding on the road???
I do have a trainer. I can’t ride on the roads when they’re covered in snow and ice. Oh - I see. You don’t have a lake or a pool or an ocean to swim in? 
I’ve never used a vasa trainer, though the club team around here has a couple of them on the pool deck… I just swim…
swim cords might be another option.
MY PT used one for me after my accident last year. It works well and does a bunch of other stuff, too. I always made fun of those things, but I was impressed.
I used a Total Gym this winter in lieu of swim training (avoiding the chlorine and its effects). After a short transition period when I began swimming again, I was just about back to regular pace/fitness in the water, but that could be the many years of swim training talking.
In short - it helps, but it’s not the same as swimming. I’ve never used a Vasa trainer so can’t compare. One benefit is that it takes a lot less time on the Total Gym than I would spend in the water, but it’s a different type of workout, and just as well because the Total Gym is pretty boring. Yes, swimming IS more interesting, especially open water swimming.
The Total Gym will not work as effectively as the Vasa Trainer for swim training, regardless if you use the high-end $4,500 or $300 version. When laying in the streamlined position, the Total Gym rear foot lays on the ground, so you will need to bend your knees so that your feet do not hit the ground. When pulling with our hands you will hit the ground before you can complete a full range of motion. You could raise the head of the Total Gym so that your hands would clear but… you are now pulley too much bodyweight and will only be able to complete a handful of repetitions. The Vasa Trainer rear foot sits about 16" from the ground. This give you plenty of clearance so that you can maintain the long streamlined position. At level “1” (the Vasa has 15 levels) you have enough resistance for the beginner to complete a full range of motion and maintaining perfect technique .
As for other functional strength training exercises, the problem that I have run into with the home models of the Total Gym has been the cables are too short. If you have the opportunity visit your local Sears, or Sporting Goods store, many have the Total Gym on display, try it out for yourself. I highly recommend the Vasa Trainer.
Because riding a trainer simulates riding a bike much more closely than any swimming trainer can ever simulate swimming.
Swimming is a much more coordinated and complicated process.
Just ONE of the HUGE differences is coordinating a breathing/rolling/kicking motion that cannot be effectively simulated on any trainer or gym. Another biggie is body position/head position…
I was referred to this thread by one of our customers and wanted to make some comments.
There has been a significant development that will be of great use to triathletes and triathlon coaches.
On March 24, 2007 at a USAT CEU clinic in Boston, triathlon coach Al Lyman gave a thought provoking presentation outlining how triathletes can train for swimming more effectively in less time and gain better results than pool swimming. Coach Lyman discussed how he uses the Vasa Ergometer nearly exclusively to train his triathlete clients. To summarize his presentation: for very practical reasons, he has found the Vasa Ergometer to be a “cutting edge training tool” for himself and 9 serious triathletes he coaches. The Erg allows an athlete to simulate swimming while increasing sustainable power and pace – all in a fraction of the training time most athletes currently devote to pool or open water swimming. Each athlete trains virtually 90 – 98 percent of prescribed swim training time on the Erg, which also is now less than half of what they had been doing when they were always training at the pool. As a result, most are setting PR’s in the swim portion of their races. If you factor in the time savings of no travel time or change up time, the time savings is even greater.
Coach Lyman also noted another benefit – the ability to practice T1 transitions anytime.
Obviously, we at Vasa are very pleased for this discovery. Moreover, when i put on my sports physiologist hat, I am compelled to regard this discovery a true paradigm shift in the way triathletes train for swimming. It’s likely that this will have an impact similar to what aero bars, heart rate monitors, powermeters and computrainers have done for the sports of triathlon and cycling.
Coach Lyman’s presentation was video taped and is now available on DVD. You may get a complimentary copy by writing to Coach Lyman or from the Vasa website. Just click on this link:
http://www.vasatrainer.com/index.php?page=TriSwimTraining
(Note: Coach Lyman does not work for Vasa and he was asked by USAT to present at that seminar.)
You can reach Al through his website and read more from his athletes who discuss the Erg on his website forum at:
http://www.pursuit-fitness.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=8
Happy trails!
Rob Sleamaker
Vasa, Inc.
1 Allen Martin Drive
Essex Junction, Vermont 05452 USA
Telephone 802-872-7101
Fax 802-872-7104
Email: robert@vasatrainer.com
www.vasatrainer.com
Great! With a Vasa trainer, computrainer and a treadmill I can stay in my basement and not have to be bothered with actually going outside and enjoying a beautiful summer day! The only thing that was taking the fun out of triathlon for me was all that outdoor stuff. 
Sounds like torture to me. And you’d lose out on technique training.
Plus, with T1, it’s more about dealing with the adrenaline of racing, the numb feet and hands, the wetsuit, trying to find your bike, and then dealing with cold legs than transferring to cycling from swimming.
I’ve always advocated training that “takes you somewhere”. i love the outdoors as well and share your view in that regard.
The intention for posting the news about Coach Al Lymans presentation is that it represents a paradigm shift for the way triathletes can train for swimming. Coach Lyman discovered that he and his athletes, by training on the Vasa Ergometer, improved technique, increased sustained power, and actually swim faster now without getting in a pool.
Paradigm shifts do not happen often. When they do, most people do not see it. Worse is when they have never tried it and opt to criticize it.
The fact remains that there are many athletes who just do not have the time to get to a pool or have access to a pool, especially in poor weather. Some struggle with technique. Many are swim training in the pool and not maximizing their productivity relative to the requirements of the triathlon swim. Do you use fins and do flip turns in an open water triathlon swim?
One suggestion is to get the FREE dvd of Coach Lyman’s presentation and judge for yourself if there is merit in this approach. Maybe there is something to the fact that a high percentage of Olympic level swimmers and swim coaches in the U.S. use Vasa equipment on a regular basis. Probably because they recognize it takes more than just pool swimming to get fast and efficient.
Happy Trails!
Rob Sleamaker
Vasa, Inc.
www.vasatrainer.com
a very cheap way to replicate a total gym…
Thinking of geting it for the wife for her workouts and wondered if it can simulate avasa trainer. I assume you do not have a Cyclops or indoor trainer?? Why ride indoors, not the same without riding on the road???
I know this is an old thread but Wayne you ever get the total gym? I have a commercial model in my lab with all the bells and whistles that my students rarely use. Seeing if maybe there were any tips or tricks before I start spending time with the 100 attachments. Figured I might be able to get some utility out of total gym vs band work.
Actually we have a Total Gym in the Polar Pain Cave or as others refer to as the Fitness Room, which we will assemble for the tri guys/gals, Chris or I can report back at a later date
.
I use a total gym for strength training and there is definitely some value in using it to build/supplement some of the muscles needed in swimming. I find the movement that has the most functional carryover is doing a variation of a lat pull down while supine, keeping your elbows straight and extending your shoulders from about 180 degrees of flexion all the way through the full extension range of motion. Anatomically, it can mimic similar shoulder rotation, shoulder extension and shoulder adduction that happens in freestyle (or to a greater degree with fly).
With that said, I do love Vasa trainers and find that to be head and shoulders above other similar products I’ve used.
I really have to find the time to check out a Vasa.
With my (not unusual) busy full time work schedule, swimming by far has the biggest time-loss to time-training ratio with all the driving involved. I’d spend money on a Vasa if it really worked as a substitute (not supplement) to pool swimming.
NO kidding, digging up the past. I have two total gyms that cost me $10 each at garage sales and swap meets. They work great for swim strength training. Yes you have to bend your knees, but big deal, and you can get the full range of motion, not sure what the other guy is talking about. And you can adjust the height to make it harder or easier, so he is wrong there too, must have something else to promote. SInce so many millions of these were sold on TV over the years by Chuck Norris, there is a huge after market where they are just given away. You just have to look for them, but they do the job swimmers need about as cheap as you can get…
I have had a Total Gym for several years now, works great. Bought mine at Goodwill for $20 in brand new condition, best $20 ever spent. Tons of stuff you can do on there and lots of ways to set it up. I have used Vasa trainers, bands, etc and this is just as good or better. Been using it along with swim training to supplement on the days that I’m not swimming
About five years ago a gammy shoulder stopped my swimming so I got the VASA paddles and cables and put them on my Total gym.
Eighteen months later I was back in the pool.
It’s not an ideal solution for a number of reasons, so care must be taken, but it works.
- It needs to be raised - the foot end more than the pulley end - which can be unstable.
- The TG increments are large and so may lead to overloading the shoulders when performing so many repetitions. I drilled additional half-step holes.
- As the body doesn’t rotate that, too, can excessively load the shoulder. To combat that I used only symmetrical strokes: breaststroke and butterfly (which is much easier than doing it in the water!).
Hope this helps.