I've heard that swimming is the best workout you can do becuase you use a variety of muslces. Besides doing lengths, is there anything else that balances out the work out? Like treading water perhaps? Before / after swimming is it best to use the gym as well or will doing lengths be alright for a workout (I'm 15)
Swimming?
- Thread starter Tnuac
- Start date
It depends on your goals.
Swimming in my opinion is the best form of exersise. You are using almost every muscle in your body, plus your learning to control your breathing.
There is also no impact on ant joints (like running can damage knees).
Try not to do front crawl all the time, you can over work the shoulders. Try warming up with breast stroke, going under the water each time. Then doing one length as fast as you can in front crawl, then swim slow in breast stroke untill you recover. Keep doing that untill your worn out.
You should lift weigths before you swim so you have more energy for your lifting. Be carefull with your shoulders as they can be easily over worked.
Take a bottle of water to leave by the pool. People dont realise that you need to drink just as much water swiming as you do with any other sport.
Swimming in my opinion is the best form of exersise. You are using almost every muscle in your body, plus your learning to control your breathing.
There is also no impact on ant joints (like running can damage knees).
Try not to do front crawl all the time, you can over work the shoulders. Try warming up with breast stroke, going under the water each time. Then doing one length as fast as you can in front crawl, then swim slow in breast stroke untill you recover. Keep doing that untill your worn out.
You should lift weigths before you swim so you have more energy for your lifting. Be carefull with your shoulders as they can be easily over worked.
Take a bottle of water to leave by the pool. People dont realise that you need to drink just as much water swiming as you do with any other sport.
Yeah.. work for endurance and for velocity in different days. Thats what I used to do..damn I loved to swim but it got to tiring when I moved to competition after being off the pool for like 2 months so I gave up..I could have had some future buuh
For example on the first day 50 minutes non-stop with different styles and the second day count yor time
For example on the first day 50 minutes non-stop with different styles and the second day count yor time
i do competition swimming and yes it is the best, and yes it does stress out your shoulders.i actually prefer to do weights after swimming because lifting isnt a huge part of swimming. Like any other sport, you need to do it because it helps alot, but its not 100% necessary.I do mainly freestyle, i do the 50 and 100. but like they said, mix it up. oh and when i do weights i usually stay away from shoulders on swimming days, or ill maybe do my left shoulder, to keep it as strong as my right, if you use one arm too much, it sucks, trust me. If you just starting do a 100 warm up of each exercise, then do routines from there. My personal opinion to being a great, fast swimmer is to have extremely strong shoulders and legs (mostly quads). And having a strong chest and lats are also very helpful. So during the off season, id work my shoulders and quads more than anything. Also, train for endurance, not size, i have big legs but there just really weak i cant explain it so i have to mostly rely on my upper body. Dont let that happen to you.Being that this is only my second year swimming and weve only had one dual-meet so far, im not swimming all that fast, but here are my times from our first meet anyhow, set them as your goals too, because im only 16.
50 free-28sec.
100 free-1:08 i think (ouch...)
100 breast-1:32 i think (mega ouch, im new at that)
And our next meet my coach said hes put me in the 100 fly, which i cannot do, it is hard and ive never racedit before so im screwed. but anyhow good luck with swimming and you will see massive, and i mean massive, gains in your endurance as the season goes on.
50 free-28sec.
100 free-1:08 i think (ouch...)
100 breast-1:32 i think (mega ouch, im new at that)
And our next meet my coach said hes put me in the 100 fly, which i cannot do, it is hard and ive never racedit before so im screwed. but anyhow good luck with swimming and you will see massive, and i mean massive, gains in your endurance as the season goes on.
Oh so your distance. 7:00 for a free would be faster than mine, mine would probably be like 8:00, maybe a little less. but start u again and you should do fine.
lolcast? haha damn that sucks : /
Thanks for all the advice, I used to do swimming when I was like 11 but then when I got to gold level I quit and only did it about 5 times a year. Yeah I'm mainly looking for endurance now rather than size, but it should be a good 'base' to start on.
By '100', you mean 100m right? (like I say, 11..).
Do you reckon once a week is enough or should I aim for more than that?
Thanks for all the advice, I used to do swimming when I was like 11 but then when I got to gold level I quit and only did it about 5 times a year. Yeah I'm mainly looking for endurance now rather than size, but it should be a good 'base' to start on.
By '100', you mean 100m right? (like I say, 11..).
Do you reckon once a week is enough or should I aim for more than that?
If you can swim often like three times a week and mix it up a bit by doing intervals, continuous etc. If you want the endurance do the continuous training. But in saying that endurance intervals may be effective also. Swim 20 lengths have a two minute rest then hit another 20. Whatever you do swimming is something you will see improvement from if you do it enough.