BT Forum

the trainer you talked to is correct.  always. ALWAYS, lift before any type of cardio training.  doing it afterwards is basically worthless.

protein synthesis is the key here.  during lifting protein synthesis goes up and protein breakdown goes up; meaning your body is breaking down protein and using it to construct new muscle to make you stronger.  cardio causes protein synthesis to go down and protein breakdown to go up; your body is consuming protein but not really doing anything with it as far as strength/muscle growth.  lifting after cardio will mean your body is still in this same mode.  also cardio uses up a lot of your glycogen stores, which are also needed to get gains from lifting.  lifting does not require a lot, and it will leave plenty left over for your cardio routine.  depleting them before lifting negates you even being in the gym for the most part.

i do a hard leg workout before my weekly OWS and survive.  teaches you to rely on your arms and save your legs

Training on the same day works both ways. If you weight train before your session your swimming suffers, and swimming before your session will affect the strength gains you can achieve not to mention the fact that peak hormone release for strengh training requires a max of 45-60 minute session.

However, we dont live in an ideal world. We are busy so I have to concur that swimming should be done before the weights sessions for best results. I also say that performing strength endurance (15-20 repetitions) should be avoided. I say this because we do enough endurance work on the road and in the pool. Train to get stronger so that your muscles produce force faster. Like everything in periodization and programme design this is debatable, but in terms of real world application I have gained results with this and it something else for you to consider.

This is the conventional wisdom for people who are primarily lifters but for endurance athletes I think this is a bad idea.  I'd rather have more energy for my focus event like a swim versus and accessory/support exercise in lifting weights. 

Like I said above it's really a matter of how hard you lift.  If you are just doing some light weight pink dumbell or cable machine stuff killing time to feel better about your self then it's probably no big deal but if you are doing compound lifts and going to failure, you better think twice about doing that before a swim especially if you swim in a lap pool with a deep end. 

I believe that would be beneficial strength wise, but you are too likely to injure yourself.  With swimming being low impact, then should it really be a problem??  If you can keep good form!!  Also watch out for your shoulders.

When I was younger, fitter and stronger and in HM Forces running with a backpack was awesome training.  But you need to build up the weights to prevent injury (the older you are the more important this is).  Your whole body has to work very hard.  But when you take the weight off, you can fly!!  However nowadays, I am running with a similar weight but no backpack!! 

But when I need to get fast and fit, then I will build up my backpack weight again.  But I need to loose some weight and get back to a good normal running strength first to avoid injury.

Also, with regards to mixing it up and changing routines, I believe you will get fitter faster, with it helping your overall fitness to be better in the long run.  In the army, we had to be fit for anything, speed, strength and agility.  The excercises were extremely varied especially for punishment.  I wish I had found a triathlon club back then!!  But swimming was my weakness, I could swim for survival, but to go faster I tried to swim harder - how wrong was I!!!

I am no personal trainer, so you may wish to ignore it or at least gently try things first!!  But its worked for me in the past, and will again in the future.

I don't know about the science of it but as a former competetive swimmer I always lifted before pool time.  There were always a few guys who wanted to get in some extra weights after swimming but it never lasted very long. 

Another vote for lift before swim.

missed this comment when i first responded in this thread.  

yes, this was a requirement when i ran track in HS two times a week.  i ran 400m/800m/1600m/3200m, with some relays thrown in.  you do it before because the gains of doing it after aren't there.  if you can run with legs that are slightly fatigued, you will do even better at the event you are training for with fresh legs.  don't train for your training, train for your race.

I have not read all the posts but I will tell you this; ever went on a long walk up hills or did something then tried to go lift but found that the normal weight you have been lifting is harder than usual? It is because of fatigue plain and simple. This is straight textbook information saying that strength training is better first with working on large muscles before working on the smaller ones. Example would be doing squats then doing a hamstring workout. Now with the addition of actually wanting to do the practice of the event you are doing which is swimming, perfect practice makes perfect results. So the overall challenge comes to you and your friend, do you want to be fatigued before you swim by having your muscles be broken down from previously working out OR would you rather swim under usual conditions and then workout with being fatigued from swimming.

If you want to make sure you have enough energy, studies show that fat is the best soure of energy and is optimal at a 75% VO2 max over protein and carbohydrates. Eating a nice steak or something with good fat the day before you need to produce the work and being at that level of intensity will make you last longer since the body stores more fat than carbs, and carbs run out.

With both (before and after) you are running a higher risk of injury.  That doesn't mean avoid it.  Both ways can be very beneficial which I will explain.

Before:

Allows the major muscles to become fatigued.  This creates a strength endurance workout environment during the s/b/r.  The learn to produce continuous power while under fatigue.  The body will recruit its secondary muscles to produce power and will develop more endurance capabilities.

After:

Allow the muscles to be depleted of its stored glycogen.  This creates a strength training environment for secondary muscles.  With the primary muscles fatigued the body will recruit its secondary muscles for the strength training workout.  Those secondary muscles will be directly benefited from the workout.

Conclusion:

It depends on what you want to develop.  Done slowly, this workout, Shoulder Tone Routine, is a great pre-or-post strength workout for swimming.  Done before-after can create more endurance for secondary muscles, or will strengthen your secondary muscles.  (Obviously a lot more goes into this but it's the basic idea).  I hope this helps! 

uh yeah, not exactly.  It's pretty much widely accepted that swimming is a mostly about form.  Being depleted enough that your form suffers only encourages bad habits.  While pre-exhausting the muscles may work great in endeavors that aren't so form related I don't see it being beneficial to the vast majority of triathletes when it comes to swimming.

My background is lifting and that will always be "home" to me, but I got bored and then added triathlon. I have tried strength training immediately before and after endurance as well as spacing them apart during the day, again strength before and after endurance.

If I do endurance before strength, then I can usually go all-out in the strength without compromising endurance, but sometimes I need to cut out the last set of each strength movement or the last exercise or two of the workout.

If I do strength before endurance, then I back off on the number of sets and/or movements, and sometimes the weight as well.

The way that works best for me (allows for the best recovery during the day as well as through the week) is to do s/b/r earlier in the day and strength in the afternoon or evening.

One caveat is that my strength workouts are not what you normally see the masses doing, i.e. bodybuilding style isolation movements. Those only train the prime movers and will set you up for injury. The entire structure must be trained for strength as well as performance, so my workouts focus on that. FWIW, the prime movers also get worked plenty hard this way. It's what they used to call "training the chain" in the '80s, and I'm sure there's another cutie pie term for it this decade.

Occasionally I will block out a week or two to do power workouts (simply because I like heavy squats, deadlifts, cleans, etc), but I will back off on s/b/r until I recover completely.

I train for functional strength, not for size or prettiness. Just like scheduling long workouts, strength adds another layer of planning complexity. For example, if my leg workouts are too close to a long bike then I will start to drop off about 75% of the way through rather than finish feeling like I could keep going. And I have to be vigilant and ready to regroup at any time because a gain in one area will affect other areas.

Doing it this way, I continually improve, see s/b/r/strength breakthroughs (physical and mental) every two or three months, and remain injury-free. And of course nutrition and rest are key. If you're not eating and sleeping to support recovery from both strength and endurance, then don't do both.