Questions and Answers - October 2002 edition
by Dan Thompson

Q."I was wondering how and if I should integrate weight lifting and swimming. What type of exercises should I do and when. Also if I lift weights what should I do during my taper?"

A. Tomes are written on this subject — in detail that loves to fog your cognitive goggles. So let me clarify the issue for you. Your best de-fog, as always in your training, is knowing where you've been, where you're going, how far you've come, and above all, why?

Weight training is simply a form of resistance training. That is, you work against loads heavier than those encountered in actual competition. There are two reasons to train against resistance. One is to toughen the sinews, as prevention against injury. The second is to strengthen the muscles that propel you through the water.

Toughening the sinews requires general weight training, using a balanced, progressive regimen. There is no need at this point to mimic the specific movements of swimming. Balance means proportion among the muscle groups of the arms, legs, and trunk. It also means proportion between effort and recovery. Progression means a restrained, stepwise climb from smaller to bigger loads. There is little room here for inspiration or heroics. Stay scientific.

A quick caveat though: It is difficult, for men especially, to dispense with resistance training when preparing for peak competition. Perhaps it's the fear of losing hard-earned strength. Indeed, you will lose strength, but the sacrifice is to the greater goal of speed. Look at legendary track coach, Arthur Lydiard, for example. He used steep hill running as his weight program for runners. He intensified it twelve weeks prior to the season's goal race and then dropped it six weeks out. Why? Because resistance work is the foundation for speed, not speed itself. Its prolonging actually dulls the sharpening phase of speed development. Have the guts to shelve resistance training when the time is right. And fear not. As coach Touretski (of Popov fame) would say, it leaves its "footprint."

If your creator endowed you with ligaments and tendons tough enough to withstand the slings of hard training and the arrows of Father Time, you may not need general strength training. But an ounce of prevention is well worth the investment. With it, you can tackle with confidence the kind of resistance work that yields the biggest dividends: strengthening the specific muscle movements of swimming.

But whoa, Nellie! Going straight to the Vasa Trainer is putting the horse where the cart should be. Realize instead that a continuum exists between strength adaptation to water resistance and to that found on terra firma. You must evolve along that continuum.

To do so, try to outgrow your water regimen. Try to make water insufficiently hard to work against. Only then are you ready to dry off and work against gravity. You should do everything in your creative power to delay the day you are driven out of water to obtain this kind of strength. Stay wet to get your "burn." Do it by creating the salmon effect of upstream swimming--what in cycling would be climbing or in track, hill running. Applying the principles of balance and progression, you are limited by one rule only: trash anything that disrupts the underlying rhythm of the stroke. Therefore,

OUT: Sweat-suit swimming.

IN: Vertical kicking and sculling; vertical kick-board kicking, especially with short fins; drag-suit swimming; oversized hand-paddle swimming; one-arm only drilling, especially with paddles (non-stroking arm to the side, please); drag-skirt swimming; and finally, pulley-weight swimming.

To vertical kick-board kick, make yourself a human barge by holding the board underwater, the flat surface facing dead ahead. A big, stiff board is best. For hand-paddle swimming, try the "rainbow set," rotating intervals among three colors of hand paddles. The first color is undersized, the second normal-sized, and the third oversized. When you've adapted, upgrade your rainbow.

With drag-skirt swimming, you are in drag to get drag. At mid-calf level, cut off the bottom of a mesh equipment bag and step into it, as though putting on a skirt, using the lock-tie to secure your waist. Color is optional. Pride is not. After skirtlessly conquering one-arm only drills and the rainbow set, do them in drag.

Finally, pulley-weight swimming gives beautiful transition between water and land resistance. By forcing you to swim against gravity, it maximizes the salmon effect. I used it with great success in my elite age-group program, despite conventional wisdom to the contrary.

Anecdotally, my own experience with heavy terrestrial training was humbling. When I went to creatine, triple-heavy stretch cords, and the Vasa Trainer strapped with two 50 lb. plates, I bulked up so badly that the extra strength did not offset the lost flexibility and the wider body cross-section. Net result, slower swimming.

So, my advice to you is to assess your own body type when determining what your diet of resistance training should be. There are no beauty points in swimming. Don't be seduced into weight lifting at the expense of your water resistance program. Better lithe and long than stodgy and strong. And realize too that everything is honed and balanced based on your goal event. One law for the ox and lion is tyranny!

Send your swimming technique questions to Dan Thompson at thommed@bellsouth.net.

Coach Jimmy Bynum also offers a response to this question. Read it here.