It does not take long for the Minds here to get right on the money,right tc? Great understanding of the points I was trying to make! You relieved me from my rather poor communication skills for once!
Upper vs. lower body involvement as limiting factors of swimming performance is also very much dependant upon the duration of the event ,regardless of the stroke.
Stroke wise comparatively similar parameters might be applied fo Butterfly and Freestyle vs Backstroke and Breaststroke. With the latter being a matter of its own anyway.
Dr.Staeger from Indiana University identified peak power output in swimming occurring in the first 5 seconds of an in water version of the Wingate Test,with very little differential after drop off for the following 20/25 seconds.
Parameters like these are of crucial consideration when constructing a program aimed at sprint swimming events (50/100y/m),regardless they can truly be defined as âSprintsâ or not.
To be honest, I donât have much experience with the biomechanics of swimming, but as I gather, the stroke (iâm mainly concerned bout/discussing the free and fly) is pulling dominate while the walls, which I have heard can be up to 1/3 of the race, are a push. Then there is kicking: flex-extend-flex-extend rapidly.
To break âthe wallsâ down further, is it the actual pushoff from the wall that is important, or the DK after?
Iâd say swimming is more force/less rate dominant than say track sprinting due to the water resistance and slower velocities. Less of an impact on the CNS than track sprinting too. It is interesting since water resistance increases as velocity increases.
As for hypertrophy, do you feel the negative of increased drag due to increased surface area is an overrated concern? Or is this similar to the bigger = slower myth of land based athletes? hydrodynamics makes it trickyâŚ
As for dynamic effort dryland training, do you do any? And you just do walls as a track sprinter practices blocks?
The guy Iâm helping out has told me he thinks the SPP heâs been doing sucks as well. A âspeedâ day for him is 10x100, which in track terms is supposedly equated to 10x400.
Iâll start/add onto another thread for that. And I only thought Iâd have to help with the lifting part. ughâŚyet, if I dont ruin him, it should be fun too.
Can you elaborate on this. I assume the shorter the distance the more the arms are worked because you are moving faster so the amplitude of the leg kick is going to be shorter to keep up with the arms (just trying to visualise this as I havnât been in the pool for 6 months)? As the distance moves out do you generally spread the load more evenly because each stroke is âlongerâ so you try to get maximum length (amount of water moved) rather than rate?
Actually considered the opposite to be true,and my programs reflected it: the shorter the race the more kick strength is the true limiting factor.You wonât easily find a World ranked sprint swimmer who isnt a great kicker too. As the distance moves out yes,the load spreads out more evenly.
I would like you to substantiate further your point about F/V and CNS,as I can only see evidence for the very last of your phrases: âwater resistance increases as velocity increasesâ
As for hypertrophy: what kind of hypertrophy are you talking about,and what is your concern?
Dynamic work? You have to distinguish anyway between land and water based skills.For the latter they get plenty of it while in the water already. I also have been using MB and plyos as from CFTS for years now.
While I understand that 10x100 cannot be considered a âspeedâ workout,I think the nature of the skill itself calls for greater care and numbers of submax work in the water (relative to max) than sprinting on the track.
F/V curve: To be honest this stuff is probably over my head but here it goes. I was under the impression that CNS impact is greatest when an activity is at the extreme ends of the curve. i.e. Max squats are at the extreme of the Force side, and track sprints are at the extreme of the Velocity side. In track sprinting, air resistance decreases when velocity increases. This means less and less force need be applied per every application of force and the rate of the application of force becomes more important.
Swimming is of a slower velocity than track. With swimming, the resistance increases with increases in velocity. If the resistance is increasing, then the force requirement increases the faster you go. And itâs not the typical land based âcurveâ itâs an exponential model because âresistance increases by approximately velocity cubedâ, and so it rises steeply and keeps going to infinity.
As for the application of this fact on CNS impactâŚI think you alluded to this in another post, where you said the difference in effort yields much different CNS impact in swimming because of this. i.e. As HUGE a difference between 90%-95% is in track sprinting, it is EXPONENTIALLY greater with swimming. I think thatâs what you were saying, which also might explain why you say âthe nature of the skill itself calls for greater care and numbers of submax work in the water (relative to max) than sprinting on the trackâ.
So, swimming is probably less CNS intensive then on the track in regards to total stress, though at a given percentage of effort, swimming will be a relatively greater stressor?
Does tempo work also need to be lowered in intensity accordingly? (relative to the track cutoff of 75%ish)
âAs for hypertrophy: what kind of hypertrophy are you talking about,and what is your concern?â
I was interested in your opinion on the effects of myofibrillar or sarcoplasmic hypertrophy on drag. Through my own experience and research I know that with land based athletes that athletes can become faster and more explosive despite increases of extra mass/surface area. Do hydrodynamics make this any different for swimmers than aerodynamics for track athletes? If so, is this significantly different?
The sprinter Iâm working with is already 6â0 182 with little bodyfat. 50-100 free/fly guy. Iâm pretty sure no matter what we do, he is going to gain some mass/surface area/volume in his legs. So Iâm just wondering if there were some phenotypical cutoffs you could provide to serve as a guideline. Of course, every case is individual.
Dynamic work: Iâm concerned with methods to enhance the wall pushoff as the actual sprints will help the water work. You say you do plyos so do you consider the pushoff a reactive/elastic action? Or are you trying to enhance the kicking action?
Obviously not always the âmindâ you were talking about! So for the shorter sprints do you use more upper body work in the gym? I guess the calves arnât used that much in swimming (hope iâm not wrong again!) so are things like drop jumps a good CNS primer without affecting the hip flexors/extensors?
If your athlete gains mass of any kind,just make sure the power gains always outweight the gains in body weight,or your powerhouse will slow down,sink,or just lose its balance in the water,which will have to be regained over time.
Appropriate strength training will enhance either pushoff s and kicking in the water! Donât fall in the specifics trap againâŚ
Every component will only to be balanced against each other for the program to be successful.
So, my friend who is a sprint swimmer at Penn State University is going through their GPP type phase as of right now. So the last week or two theyâve been doing lots of medball stuff, stadium stair sprint intervals, pushups, situps, etc. for their dryland training. Not too shabby and I havenât heard of any 1mile+ runs or anything like that.
Today though, he said they went down to the football stadium and did AGILITY DRILLS! Cones, agility ladders, and a whistle. Is this not insane? At the beginning of a GPP phase, while the athletes all have DOMS, with swimmers who probably donât have the best land-based proprioception, along with the potentially joint-endangering activities of agility drills themselves??? To work the âfast twitchâ.
As for preparedness my friend can only squat the bar to a quarter squat and he thinks this is the normal âsquatâ. His back is totally vertical and his knees are half a foot in front of his toes. And so I try to show him how to squat but he thinks because Iâm some college kid that I canât possibly know anything because Iâm not certified and obviously his swim coach whoâs probably knows how to âlift for swimmingâ. So he couldnât be bothered to have me show him how to squat correctly.
PSU does have a good program though from what I could tell from my friendâs summerâs workouts, which of course were cookie cutter workouts given to the athletes with no supervision, the weight training at least is not so good. A shame.
It all makes sense to me. One way or the other this is generally how swimmers are trained.
Real world.Stop complaining.Do yourself things as ârightâ as you feel and manage in your own training,and keep your thirst to learnâŚ
