starting strength gym
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 13

Thread: European swimming championships - cat A achieved.

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Posts
    156

    Default European swimming championships - cat A achieved.

    • starting strength seminar april 2024
    • starting strength seminar jume 2024
    • starting strength seminar august 2024
    Hello,
    In continuation to this thread: http://startingstrength.com/resource...ad.php?t=45106

    I promised to update after the national championship. So, a bit late but here it is. The team swam very good. Unfortunately the 2 best swimmers didn't swim. Yaron was injured (something weird - every February, for already 5 years - he get a shoulder injury. The same one. During the same 50m sprint) and the second one got a collage scholarship, which mean that he can't compete in order to not be considered by the NCAA as a "pro" and lose the scholarship. So soon he will train at the US.
    By the way, it was a short course championship so it's less important than the upcoming "real" national championship - at the 28th at July (10 days forward from today).

    All the others improved their PR, but they're young so you expect them to do so. But the fact that they improved their rankings in the age groups tell me that they have improved more than expected. Everyone improved their ranking by at least 4. One of them went from being placed 12th last year (July 2013, long course championships - I came at October to train the full team) to 3rd, and he just entered the 17-18 age group, he's 17. But I won't bore you with this.

    Anyway, the juicy stuff is not that competition. Yaron, which I mentioned at the last thread, that did 27.70 at 50m breaststroke (short course) now needed the score to compete at the European championships - the "real" one, long-course. Olympic pool. Problem is, that now he need to set the scores that adults need, he turned 21 at 2014, which he wasn't at 2013 and could affiliate the short-course championships with a youth-score.
    The score he needed was 28.21 at a long pool. He was injured quite some time, but we planned him to swim at the 16th to May, and try to set the score, which was the last day to do so - and there was a competition organised in our country (probably and mostly) for that - to help the swimmers who needed the score to have a last chance.

    He did 27.78 (!). This score is equal to a final at the last European championships, and a 6th place. This is not an olympic distance for the breaststroke, the olympics have only 100m and 200m, but the international score of this time is approximately an olympics semi final.
    Unfortunately he sort of broke his finger at the 50m when he touched the wall, so he didn't swim the 100m, but I guess he would have break his PR also at the 100m.

    Now he's squatting 130kg for 3X3, deadlifting 140kg for 5, but the main problem is that his motivation is quite low and he doesen't really train - either at the pool or at the gym. He miss A LOT. We work on trying to solve that problem.
    Anyway, we started cleaning not long ago, and now he's at 60kg for 5X3. I believe that it will be 75kg until the European championships. Couldn't do it until now, unfortunately - schedule wise - he wasn't at the training occasionally \ injured at the shoulder. At the moment thigs are better. We're not sure about competing at the national championships which take place 2 weeks before the Europeans, but the important competition is of course, in Berlin.

    http://www.bln2014.de/?lang=en


    Let's wish him good luck (-:

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,562

    Default

    Good luck!

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Oct 2013
    Posts
    765

    Default

    This is very cool to read. I swam competitively for about 11 years, through the collegiate level. I was never exposed to strength training until college, when our S&C coach "trained" us in the typical fashion. I was the second-strongest squatter on the team with a measly 215 lb 1RM at the time. Certainly wish I had been exposed to proper strength training during that time. Seems like more swimmers are starting to put in more work outside the pool nowadays, although still suboptimally (as you can see: http://youtu.be/gxQ6e1Quw_o )

    Anyway, best of luck with your athlete and with re-igniting his motivation.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,562

    Default

    Looks like he's doing an exercise program outside the gym. Not training. But I know he is aware of SS, I've seen him mention it online.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    The Deep South
    Posts
    1,002

    Default

    Here is a true weight room freak.

    http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b1NkCIkY_KU

    60 kg deadlift for ez double.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,562

    Default

    Do you people that have heard me talk about this at the seminars now understand what I mean about the current state of the strength and conditioning profession in the higher ranks?

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    The Deep South
    Posts
    1,002

    Default

    Would you say that the coaches having such dismally low expectations of their high level athletes leads the athletes to underperform with strength training in general? Or is it just a big mess of crappy techniques being coached, ADD programming, and emphasis on all the wrong types of exercise?

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Jul 2007
    Location
    North Texas
    Posts
    53,562

    Default

    Their coaches just don't know what they're doing. Because they've never done it themselves.

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    Iceland
    Posts
    2,318

    Default

    I was a swimmer and involved with my son's swim team before I started lifting an for a couple of years after I began.

    There was zero awareness or understanding of weight training among swimming coaches at the time. They just could not wrap their head around the idea that weight training with real weight (they advocated light, high rep, DB or bodyweight exercise) could benefit a swimmer.

    This despite the fact that when one swimmer started using steroids and lifting, blew up, demolished his old records despite not swimming at all and getting disqualified and all his "records" stricken. They did not put 2 and 2 together.

    I started lifting because the swimming bothered my shoulders. For a couple of years I lifted twice a week and swam twice. My swimming speed improved more in that period than before even though I was no longer a beginner. (Of course, my times were shit compared to the real swimmers. I was 40 years old when I started swimmng, 41 when I started lifting).

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Jul 2012
    Posts
    156

    Default

    starting strength coach development program
    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Rippetoe View Post
    Looks like he's doing an exercise program outside the gym. Not training. But I know he is aware of SS, I've seen him mention it online.
    If I remember correctly, it was his coach who mentioned it in an interview. But yeah, at least one of them is aware.

    Quote Originally Posted by kel View Post
    Here is a true weight room freak.

    http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b1NkCIkY_KU

    60 kg deadlift for ez double.
    I have a swimmer who trained with him, only at the weight room (a swimmer from here, Israel, who achieved an athlete scholarship and now train and study at the US). He said that he dumbbell bench press with 90lb in each hand. He wasn't sure, but said he considered as a strong swimmer.


    But actually, the S&C coaches is an interesting topic. I have experience with that:
    I just got our 2 swimmers who achieved an athlete scholarship and came to Israel to their spring break, and I train them for theese 6 weeks.
    One of them is unfortunately injured his hamstrings and usually don't show up, he want to rest at the spring break. When he does, he follow the rehab protocol which works great, and the second one came quite weak. His PR at the squat was 180lb (RM1) from ~4 months ago, he didn't touch a barbell for already ~4 months and now started again, here, with me. I was quite surprised that an adult elite-athlete (World championships low level) is that weak. He actually look a bit stronger than other swimmers. But he came quite weak.
    After teaching him how to actually squat (he was tought a HB with almost parallel feet and to a bit high squat - approximately parallel), he was struggling a bit with 125lb (3X5) - but probably could do 130lb - 140lb for 3X5 (a novice who doesen't know already how to actually use his strength). Considered that I have only 6 weeks, we started there, at 125lb.
    He missed a session or two, but yesterday, after 4 weeks, he squatted 175lb for 3X5. Looks like the road for at least 200lb will be strict, without any problems. So it took 4 weeks to get him stronger than he was after 2 years at the college. He is an open water swimmer, swim the 10k distance usually, and to be fair - here, in our club, he swim AT LEAST the same milage as in the US. Our swimming coach is an open water coach, and is known as a "volume believer". With these athletes, by the way, I prefer to add 5lb every workout. Some of them swim over 100km/week, and I don't think that the rush to get their squat to 240 two weeks earlier is a good idea. Most of them when stressed by +10lb/workout, with my experience, will just have hard time at the pool and than ---> won't show up for the strength session. Maybe even declare that "strength is bad for swimming!". So I'm just OK with them getting the 240 squat 2 weeks later. Fine by me.

    Also, he didn't actually deadlifted, but his PR was 155 for 3RM if I remember correctly. Yesterday he pulled 200 for a set of 5. And honestly, he has been taught how to use his erectors. He already knew how to correctly set his back, without any need to teach it. They were training him on the squat clean. At the moment I prefer him to only strength train, I believe that the power training shall be added only after there's a strength base established. Now the strength gains are easy, so I want it to occur fast until he's back to the US.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •