A marathon swimmer lifts so he can swim long(er)
Greetings all!
Background: I'm a marathon swimmer, going on 8 years in this wonderful sport. A couple times in races my lower back has gone bad and prevented me from finishing, the pain being unbearable so much that I had to DNF the race. Three years ago I attempted a particularly long (for me) and difficult swim. While my lower back didn't hurt me, I thought that if I had been stronger, I would have completed the swim.
I set a goal of trying again in 2016, and starting in fall of 2015 I began lifting with my wife (she's a very experienced lifter). Long story short, I killed the swim and felt great, very little pain during the swim and hardly anything the day after...despite having swum for 6+ hours at a mile above sea level. ;)
Fast forward to nowadays: Still swimming, still wanna get strong. Started 9 weeks ago doing SL 5x5. Love the program and am getting stronger. My swim schedule for this summer is busy, so I thought I'd start this log so I can track and record my progress in both lifting and swimming.
Little about me: I'm 50, just about 51. I'm 5'8" and 180#. I eat LCHF, as best I can (about 150g of carbs a day). I've been eating this diet for about 5 years and my blood panels have been great. Only thing I've changed in the last couple months is I've started drinking milk with protein powder after each lifting session and the following morning, if I remember. I live in Moscow, Russia now, but will be moving back to the states late summer.
The plan: I lift 3x a week, two evenings and one weekend day per week. I swim 3-4x a week, between 12k to 25k a week depending upon the season. For lifting these are my most recent workout A and B:
A: Squat (3x5) 170lbs
Bench: 135 (5x5)
Row: 120 (5x5)
B: Squat (3x5) 175
OHP 77.5 (5x5)
DL: 235 (1x5)
I of course do warm up sets before all those working sets above. I failed at OHP a few weeks back (at 40kg...the gym in Moscow is all kg; the above was while I was traveling in the states), deloaded and have been working back up. I've since bought 4 x 0.5kg micro-plates that should be waiting for me when I get home next week. I'm going to build my OHP past 40kg and hopefully get it beyond 50kg (my most immediate goal).
My squat is getting heavy (I moved to 3x5 after failing at 176 (80kg) twice). My immediate squat goal is 5x5 at my BW, so when I get past 180 (82kg) at 3x5, I'm either going to deload and move back up on 5x5, or if it was easy-ish, go beyond to something over 82kg (maybe up to 90 by 2kg?) then see if I can do 5x5 at my BW.
My other lifts all feel easy. I started row way too low.
When my squat stalls, I'll move to the Texas method. Of all the intermediate programs, that one seems like it'll fit me the best.
I'll keep lifting as it's been fun, and since my wife lifts too, it is a nice hour-plus together just the two of us. For the swimming, I'll measure how I feel after my races this summer. Sure that's very subjective, but this is my log, so there's that. But additionally, I conduct a pool-based test every 4-6 weeks, which involves two timed events; a 400 then a 200, with proper warm-up, maintenance between, and cool down after. Some math is done with the times, resulting in a time (my critical swim speed, or CSS) which I can supposedly average per 100 meters for a distance of 1500. I'll try and do that test monthly now and report back here, see if my CSS improves.
OK, that's me and my plan. I probably won't come back in here after each lift day, unless I've got something to report. Hope this finds you all well and lifting heavy!
Cheers,
IronMike