I’ve been swimming seriously now for about 4 months. At first it was just a way for me to get in some good cardio (because I hate running), but now I’m really getting into it and would like to get faster. I already have good form, I just need a to find a good swimming specific training split and some ideas for exercises. I usually only swim butterfly and freestyle for 100m and 200m respectively. I’ve heard of people talking about full body splits and max OT, but I want to hear your opinions. I wouldn’t mind doing a MWF full body weight session followed with some laps, I just need some help picking out the right lifts and isolation moves. Any swimmers out there have a good idea for a split?
For sure i would do Full body. You can cycle exercises from session to session. ie
mon - chin up, bench, squats, militery press
wed - rows, incline press, high pull snatch, deadlifts
Most of the power developed in swimming will come from swimming. Remember that water is 800x denser than air and when it is disturbed the resistance on your body becomes greater. At top speeds (ie 50m freestyle) the resistance on your body is cubed. This is why the essential element in swimming is reduction of drag and not propulsion. Good stroke making becomes the foundation for faster swimming.
A weight training program should focus on total body work and I see no issue with boldwarrior’s recommendations.
If you are trying to improve your power use properly sized equipment such as fins and/or paddles. Short distances using such equipment at a variety of paces will help in power generation but always do any swimming workout with stroke reliability as the key element
Sam Freas wrote a book called Sprinting: A Coach’s Challenge, about swimming, that has some parallels to Charlie’s stuff. You have to train fast to go fast, long slow distance kills you, etc. He has some neat stories about a Cuban 800m guy who came up from 400m and just went all out in the 800m. He kept dying, but later and later, until he (I think) set a world record in the 800m (I’m not a track guy, but I am sure someone here will know something about it). He also talked about a middle distance relay between his sprinters and his team’s distance guys. The distance guy said the sprinters would get crushed. The sprinters won by a ton and all looked like they were going to pass out. The distance guys looked and felt great, other than the fact that they got toasted. The book mentions a lot about dry land training.
Golden Girl, about Natalie Coughlin, was neat, too, in that she didn’t do much distance work, but did a lot of speedwork with relatively low volume and a lot of rest and that sort of thing. Apparently the program was looked down upon by other swim coaches, but she won multiple gold medals anyway.
This is why there is such an outcry over Swim suits the last few yrs. Times keep getting faster n faster when new suits come out. Now its free for all and one will see records keep dropping.
Alexander Popov, the Russian, great stroke technician. He had less power than guys not making the final… stroke stroke stroke.
about 1yr ago, i noticed some great websites with stroke patterns and photos of Grant Hacket and Ian Thorpe as they were swimming from underwater photos to above water. Fantastic for learning to swim, even for veteran coaches. cant rememeber the website but if you google them names with stroke correction technique and the like your bound to find something.
Yikes - the title of this thread gives me the willies!
The only thing specific to weight training is weight training. I think people are far better off to think of the general qualities provided by weight training and how it can improve your abilities in your specific sport. At best, you can think of pulls vs. presses and perhaps upper body vs. lower body, but be careful in getting overly selective with your exercises and loads.
Actually, the resistance is proportionate to the square of the velocity, not the cube. You might be thinking about the Power output necessary to overcome the drag, which does indeed rise with the cube of the velocity.