Programming for Swimming

[Winona77]

Andy,

I noticed in the coaches thread you mentioned that you have had success with strength and conditioning for your local high school swim team, and I am curious about how you program (off season and in season). From what I have read, much of the swimming world is afraid of powerlifting. No where on the entire internet have I found a log of someone who swims and barbell trains.

I am a 6'4 235lb 23 year old ex-high school swimmer, and I mostly did distance work. I was a captain on a competitive varsity team, but I was always sort of like the mascot-- I busted my butt in practice but wasn't very fast. Before I started SS, I had started swimming 3x a week. My lifts are still very novice (160/100/235lbs), so I will keep LP going but I hope to transition to swimming too in the coming months.

As much as I'd like to get incredibly strong in my Squat/push/DL, I can't think of a goal I'd rather accomplish than to do the two things I never could in high school: break :30 on a 50yard swim and 1:10 on the 100y.

Strength is strength, and offseason I can't imagine a better prep than Starting Strength as programmed. However in season (and for me, if I am swimming 3-5x a week), what is your approach to strength training?

Do you still teach the low-bar squat for swimmers? The reason I ask is I've seen literature that the HBS and front squat most naturally mimic the flip-turn push off position (A2G and a relatively upright position).

Thanks and sorry for the long question, you can answer just the parts you like

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Strength is a general adaptation and we don't necessarily try and use strength movements to "mimic" our sports movements. If this were the case then lunges would be better for sprints than squats but they aren't. The SS model of squatting allows us to use heavier weights/more muscle and therefore produce more force.

My swim program has always been twice per week with my high schoolers. Some of that is for recovery reasons, but its also for logistical reasons/scheduling issues.

Workout 1: Squat/Press/Chin
Workout 2: Squat/Bench/Deadlift/Inverted Row

I always Press/Chin 1st in the week because I want to make sure we get those two movements in.

[OZ-USF-UFGator]

why no cleans? Seems to me that swimmers can benefit greatly from being explosive.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Time.

You are right, they benefit immensely from increased explosive power.

However, I think in this particular instance chins are a more valuable exercise than cleans. Besides, squats and deads will get them more explosive by increasing their strength. I suspect that if I trained my swimmers more than twice per week I might have them doing some cleans or snatches. I realize that others on the board will disagree with this diagnosis (including other SS coaches and probably Rip too). That's fine. I give you permission to taddle on me :-)

[veryhrm]

OP, though he now seems to be marketing an abz program, Lochte used to do weights. One mention is here: http://www.menshealth.com/olympics/ryan-lochte I think i read a more specific article about his weight routine, but i can't find it now. It was 8-12 rep stuff.

That said, unless you have t-rex arms you don't need SS to break 30 and (especially) 1:10. I'm going to (only semi-seriously) accuse your coach of sucking and suggest that you look at some stroke work and more interval work.

[Winona77]

Thanks Andy for the response. Strength's relation to swimming is interesting, it clearly helps but always seems to be relative. You can throw a ripped athlete in the pool with a 400+ squat, but unless he swims regularly, a fat 12 year old girl on the middle school team is probably still faster than him. That being said, certain strokes always seemed to benefit more from strength. In particular was the butterfly, most of the best butterfly swimmers on our team were also football players/ ex-wrestlers. In the freestyle (over 50 yards), long and lanky seemed to be dominant.

And veryhm, congrats on the 3,000th post. I saw that Lochte was doing tire flips and strength work prior to the London 2012. It was supposed to be his "secret weapon", but it wasn't quite the year he had hoped to have... In regards to my times, I swam 4,000-8,000 yards a day for 4 years and was still skinny fat the entire time. I have a textbook perfect stroke, but it is just clean and slow-- I only really had one speed and it wasn't much different for a 50 yard sprint or a 2,000 yard set. I lack a motor, and a lot of that was from my weak kick. Since I started squatting, my kicking has improved dramatically.

I'm hoping to start a "Squats and Swimming" log in the General Logs section this summer, it'd be interesting to track progress on the two.

[Andy Baker (KSC)]

Yes, you are correct on your analysis. Strength training without a lot of time in the pool won't help. Swimming is an extremely specific type of conditioning that cannot be sustained unless practiced regularly. This isn't one of those instances where I say "stop what you are doing for 12 weeks and just focus on strength." That won't work here. Just add two days a week of barbell training to your swim program and your speed will start picking up within a few weeks.