Strength for swimming improvement--need suggestions/ideas

I liked that article!  Overhead medicine ball throws are awesome.  Great exercise.  If you do them with a squat in between they really help your core as well. 

Some more suggestions...

Dumbell thrusters...dumbbells at shoulders, squat down.  As you come up to full standing position, press dumbbells up explosively.  Then bring DB's back to shoulder level and squat again.  Builds shoulder strength and tightens core.

Sumo deadlift high pull...you can do this with dumbbells.  Stand with feet wide.  Arms hanging in front of body.  Dumbbells in hands.  Squat down into sumo position, stand up, and bring dumbbells up into an upright row at the same time.  Another great traps/shoulders exercise.

Shrugs...anything heavy will do.  Just make sure it's balanced.  You don't want one trap bigger than the other. 

Bent over dumbbell raises...great for midback, but keep a slight arch in your back and isolate the upper lats.

Pushups...lots of 'em.

Pullups...GREAT for swim strength!!

Attach resistance tubes to your doorknob (or somewhere similar) and simulate the freestyle stroke (bend at the waist and start stroking). Gradually build up to a 30min workout. Vary the pull by standing further back, making you work harder.

Make sure you pay attention to your form. Get your elbows up and let the tension out (your reach) slowly. Keep it tight.

Assuming your logs are accurate, keep doing what you are doing.  You swam about 7000m in 2007 and have already put in more that 43000m in 08 - so you are already 6x ahead of your 07 totals

Endurance sports are not strength limited so when these muscles fatigue it is a result of endurance, not an indication of lack of strength.  Provided you want to focus more on swimming and cannot get to the pool more often, then as recommended by another poster, try swim cords.  Although boring, you can do long sets with relatively low resistance to build endurance in your swimming muscles.

As always, weight train if you like it, but the best way to get better at SBR is to just SBR!

Good luck with your training,

Shane

Thanks all! I appreciate it--and yes, logs are accurate, but December was the ONLY month I got into the pool because of a little stint in the "desert."  I like at least core strength pieces to keep me strong, and can feel it make the rest my racing better.  But, I absolutely do need some more endurance sets in there.  The input is great, I appreciate and am learning from it all!

It's also how there are little pre-pubescent kids out there that can go under 1:00 for the  100. Nothing to do with strength cuz surely we're all "stronger" than them.

(Sorry, don't normally post in here, but I saw amiine did and just had to see what he was saying .)

All makes sense, and since the original post, with exactly the concepts y'all are saying (basically--swim endurance) have knocked out some of the farthest swims I've done and just made sure to push myself to complete the long sets even if I'm contemplating wimping out!   I really appreciate all the advice--definitely a constant learning process, so thanks to all for your input!

I can't let Jorge have the last word on a strength training topic.

The thing is, he's right and I agree with him. If you have the time to increase your swim volume, by all means do so. However, I will add an observation that I've noticed in my own training. When I don't have the time to go for a long swim, I've found that a shorter swim plus some weight training of the swim muscles in a variety of rep ranges helps to improve my muscular endurance. It's not a perfect substitute because it won't work on technique, but it works for purposes of muscular endurance.

I am assuming you do your 'variety' of reps (as you posted) using no to very little weight and doing lots of reps since the requirements for a stroke are probably less than 5-10% (just guessing here) of max rep weight; otherwise how can you reproduce the endurance required for swimming say 2200 yds? I am guessing it is less than 5-10% of max rep weight cuz even using the elastic band reps to improve pull via muscle memory when your arms get tired very fast even when the movement in theory is the same as swimming, yet you can swim the entire distance no stop?

i.e. I can do 2x20 reps with the elastic band each arm resting 30-60 sec before my arms get tired, while today for instance I swam 5000 yds (although 400yds were kicking) with less than 4 min rest total. Since I normally avg 16-17 strokes per length, that's 2944 strokes (for 4600 yds) with 4 min rest. Let’s go wild and say if I commit to it I could do 200 total reps with the elastic bands over the 2944 strokes I can do on a 4.6K swim with similar rest that’s only 6.7% of reps I can do before I get very tired.

"Lets not forget as we stated many times before; if swimming is not an option then any training, in this case resistance training is better than no training…"

That was my point. I'm done arguing the merits, or lack thereof, of weight training for endurance sports.

By all reps I mean anywhere from very heavy for sets of 3 (works purely maximal strength) up to 20-25 (works endurance). Yes, I understand I will never be able to duplicate the thousands of reps that are actually done in any of the events. This is just something that I've found useful when I can't devote the time to going the long distances needed to build endurance.