I have never really done any weight/strength training, but am thinking about adding some in hopes it will improve my swim. As someone with a skinny build, with the right training would there be a noticeable improvement in my swim times or would the time be better used by just swimming more?
I have never really done any weight/strength training, but am thinking about adding some in hopes it will improve my swim. As someone with a skinny build, with the right training would there be a noticeable improvement in my swim times or would the time be better used by just swimming more?
- Whats your race distance?
For shorter races weight training has more benefit, than for longer ones. It has some anyway.
- Whats your build?
A 240 pound former wrestler will benefit less from strength training, than a 90 pound weak office worker
- How much do you swim?
Swim less than 9 times per week (4 times for a triathlete) → swim more
- Logistics
Can squeeze in a lifting workout in your lunch hour, but no swim → lift
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Ironman
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skinny build 6ft1, 160 pounds
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Average would be roughly around 12km per week over 4 sessions
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Could fit in the extra time, but am just not sure if it would make a significant impact
If you’re not doing any strength training at all you should consider it. A 10-15 minute body weight circuit following an easy run or bike isn’t a big investment time wise, but goes a long way in keeping your chassis strong. Do some pull ups, body weight squats, planks, lunges, and pushups and you’ve got a well rounded workout.
A TRX system is a good investment, along with some theraband, to really focus on some swim specific exercises. Each of these are portable and can give you a good workout in not much time. I really like the TRX system as it really makes your stabilizing muscles kick in as well.
For most people who club swam as a kid, they have developed swim muscles to a greater degree than adult learners.
So for an adult learner developing those swim muscle groups wouldn’t hurt.
As a Masters AG swimmer for a couple of decades my experience is…
I have never met a national level swimmer who hadn’t weight trained.
But then I’m sure someone would point out I haven’t met them all.
If you’re not doing any strength training at all you should consider it. A 10-15 minute body weight circuit following an easy run or bike isn’t a big investment time wise, but goes a long way in keeping your chassis strong. Do some pull ups, body weight squats, planks, lunges, and pushups and you’ve got a well rounded workout.
A TRX system is a good investment, along with some theraband, to really focus on some swim specific exercises. Each of these are portable and can give you a good workout in not much time. I really like the TRX system as it really makes your stabilizing muscles kick in as well.
this trx exercise helped my butterfly … i go a bit more parallel to the ground than this picture shows
If you’re not doing any strength training at all you should consider it. A 10-15 minute body weight circuit following an easy run or bike isn’t a big investment time wise, but goes a long way in keeping your chassis strong. Do some pull ups, body weight squats, planks, lunges, and pushups and you’ve got a well rounded workout.
A TRX system is a good investment, along with some theraband, to really focus on some swim specific exercises. Each of these are portable and can give you a good workout in not much time. I really like the TRX system as it really makes your stabilizing muscles kick in as well.
How the heck can you give any meaningful advice given the information provided? Maybe the OP swims 2:15/100scy, and the issue is terrible form. Maybe the OP can do 1:05/100scy, but can’t swim a 200scy under 3:00. Maybe the OP already can hold 1:10s on 10x100 on 1:20.
Swimming, in any case, is not strength-limited.
If you’re not doing any strength training at all you should consider it. A 10-15 minute body weight circuit following an easy run or bike isn’t a big investment time wise, but goes a long way in keeping your chassis strong. Do some pull ups, body weight squats, planks, lunges, and pushups and you’ve got a well rounded workout.
A TRX system is a good investment, along with some theraband, to really focus on some swim specific exercises. Each of these are portable and can give you a good workout in not much time. I really like the TRX system as it really makes your stabilizing muscles kick in as well.
How the heck can you give any meaningful advice given the information provided? Maybe the OP swims 2:15/100scy, and the issue is terrible form. Maybe the OP can do 1:05/100scy, but can’t swim a 200scy under 3:00. Maybe the OP already can hold 1:10s on 10x100 on 1:20.
Swimming, in any case, is not strength-limited.
Strength training is universally good, therefore, it’s generally good advice that someone who doesn’t do it to begin doing it. That seems meaningful to me.
If you’re not doing any strength training at all you should consider it. A 10-15 minute body weight circuit following an easy run or bike isn’t a big investment time wise, but goes a long way in keeping your chassis strong. Do some pull ups, body weight squats, planks, lunges, and pushups and you’ve got a well rounded workout.
A TRX system is a good investment, along with some theraband, to really focus on some swim specific exercises. Each of these are portable and can give you a good workout in not much time. I really like the TRX system as it really makes your stabilizing muscles kick in as well.
How the heck can you give any meaningful advice given the information provided? Maybe the OP swims 2:15/100scy, and the issue is terrible form. Maybe the OP can do 1:05/100scy, but can’t swim a 200scy under 3:00. Maybe the OP already can hold 1:10s on 10x100 on 1:20.
Swimming, in any case, is not strength-limited.
Strength training is universally good, therefore, it’s generally good advice that someone who doesn’t do it to begin doing it. That seems meaningful to me.
It is not universally good. It is quite possible that it would be detrimental if it prevented the swimmer from maximising return from, you know, more and better swimming. Any quality workout, strength training included, imparts a cost on the body if it is to do any good. The recovery from that training effect can interfere with other, more individually valuable training.
I have never really done any weight/strength training, but am thinking about adding some in hopes it will improve my swim. As someone with a skinny build, with the right training would there be a noticeable improvement in my swim times or would the time be better used by just swimming more?
- How much do you swim?
Swim less than 9 times per week (4 times for a triathlete) → swim more
Swim more than 9 times a week??? I know an Olympic swimmer that only swims 9 times a week.
I have never really done any weight/strength training, but am thinking about adding some in hopes it will improve my swim. As someone with a skinny build, with the right training would there be a noticeable improvement in my swim times or would the time be better used by just swimming more?
- How much do you swim?
Swim less than 9 times per week (4 times for a triathlete) → swim more
Swim more than 9 times a week??? I know an Olympic swimmer that only swims 9 times a week.
Which is no contradiction to what I said. If you are an “only swimmer” training 6 times a week, do you profit more from 8 swims, or 6 swims and 2 lifting sessions? And here my opinion is, that the cutoff for even considering strength training is 4 sessions for triathletes and 9 for swimmers.
“Maybe the OP already can hold 1:10s on 10x100 on 1:20.”
If they could, they wouldn’t be on here…
But it would be useful to let the experts know their baseline.
Weight training is a very, very important.
WITHOUT weight training you are EITHER going to have to:
- Train
- Or admit that you are out of shape.
WITH weight training you can say:
- “I am a super-serious athlete working really hard.”
- “You can’t expect a super muscular and athletic guy like me to compete with skinny swimmers, runners or cyclists.”
It doesn’t matter how fat and lazy you are, nor how little weight training (or any other kind of training) you actually do-
this will work for you.
“Maybe the OP already can hold 1:10s on 10x100 on 1:20.”
If they could, they wouldn’t be on here…
But it would be useful to let the experts know their baseline.
IMO, he’s training for Ironman, so weight training is pretty low on the list of things to do to improve swimming performance. That time is better off spent swimming.
There may be other reasons to do some weight training for an IM triathlete, like general athleticism, injury prevention, etc, but it’s not really going to help someone swim faster over that duration that swimming more and swimming smarter won’t do more effectively.
While I do not profess to be anywhere near your league as far as swimming is concerned, I would take a moment to give you my initial response to swimming more and smarter. The OP has been a little vague on information, the only thing I got was that they are swimming 12,000m a week in 4 sessions.
If they are a 2:00 per 100m swimmer. that’s at least 4 hours a week at the pool, probably 5. If they are a 1:10 swimmer that’s 4 sessions of less than an hour. If they are at the 4 hour plus end of the spectrum, then they are all in, as far as time allotment goes for IM training and at the 1:10 end they really don’t need more (and we’re all jealous) unless they are going pro.
If they are at the 2:00 minute end of things, we don’t know their 1 x 100 speed, versus their 25 x 100. and so on.
If they are a 2:00 swimmer who has a 1 x100 of 2:00 then stroke, aerobics and strength are all factors. Building swim strength can be done faster out of the pool than in it. Stroke and aerobics, endurance require pool work, but even there paddles certainly have a place. Each of those will change with their 1 x 100 and 25 x 100 time.
So stating that strength training is not relevant could do with more information before I would consider it (and vice versa)
All rather long winded, on my part.
Sorry.
I do understand that top pure swimmers, esp sprinters ALL weight train to improve their swimming (?sprinting) but as a counterpoint, I’m always amazed at how fast both Alistair Brownlee and Javier Gomez swim with no bulging arm or lat muscles. I mean, I know he’s still pulling like a beast to swim as fast as he does (clear FOP in ITU) but you’ll never convince me that he can match even a moderately trained HS football player in benchpress, shoulder press, and all the back pulls for low rep strength.
That said, I’m still for the +strength training, but not with the expectation that it will supercharge your swim, but add resilience both in and out of the pool. Like stuff as simple as not straining your back or arms during daily life and thus setting back your tri training.
Swimming more and more effectively will make you faster.
Lifting weights will give you a bunch of great excuses
- “I don’t have enough time to swim, I am too busy doing important weight training”
- “I am too muscular to swim, bike or run fast”
- “The experts (non-swimmers) tell me that weight training is the key, so I don’t need to worry about training hard or learning to swim well.”
- “The experts told me that weight training would make me swim fast. That didn’t work! I guess I am just not made for swimming. Might as well focus on weights.”
I do understand that top pure swimmers, esp sprinters ALL weight train to improve their swimming (?sprinting) but as a counterpoint, I’m always amazed at how fast both Alistair Brownlee and Javier Gomez swim with no bulging arm or lat muscles. I mean, I know he’s still pulling like a beast to swim as fast as he does (clear FOP in ITU) but you’ll never convince me that he can match even a moderately trained HS football player in benchpress, shoulder press, and all the back pulls for low rep strength.
That said, I’m still for the +strength training, but not with the expectation that it will supercharge your swim, but add resilience both in and out of the pool. Like stuff as simple as not straining your back or arms during daily life and thus setting back your tri training.
In the swimming world, there really aren’t any “pure” distance swimmers (except maybe some of the OW specialists), even the 1500 specialists are usually pretty good down to the 200, even if it isn’t their best event.
to Michael, quite honestly, for an ironman-distance triathlete, I simply don’t care what their 100 free time is, in any capacity. It’s never going to be relevant in an actual race. I would look at their 400 time, because that’s going to give a pretty strong correlation to the 3.8k swim time, but the 100? nope. completely different energy systems, more dependent on a strong kick, it’s really a different stroke altogether.
Weight training is NOT an effective way to make slow, moderate, or fast amateur triathlete swimmers faster.
Period!!!
On the other hand, more swimming and a greater variety of swim training- will make you stronger, and will do many of the things that weight training is supposed to do.
- Butterfly kick is a very, very effective “core” workout.
- Swim sprinting will do a lot to build strength in arms, legs and core.
- Breastroke, backstroke and butterfly also strengthen muscles that are rarely used.
From the British Swimming Website
Strength training for swimming is not about replicating the work with is being completed in the pool. When elite swimmers are completing 20 hours per week of swimming it is unlikely that trying to mimic what is being done in the pool for an extra 2/3 hours per week will make a significant performance improvement.
The main propulsive muscles used during a swimming race are the latissimus dorsi, pectoralis major and quadriceps. We therefore want to use exercises which allow us to sufficiently overload these muscles. Remember the aim of strength training is not to replicate what is done in the pool but to develop a stronger swimmer who can then use their new strength when swimming. 3 of the more effective exercise for overloading the propulsive swimming muscles are the chin up, bench press and back squat.