by Person A weighs 150lbs and can bench 275lbs. Person B weighs 200lbs and can bench 300lbs.
As a swimmer which person would you rather be?
Clearly person A as he is lifting 1.83 times his bodyweight compared to the 1.5 of person B.
Person A has a higher relative strength than person B.
An important component of swimming is relative strength. Ideally you want to maximize propulsion by increasing strength whilst minimizing your drag. Although drag is proportional to surface area and not weight, weight is correlated to drag and is much easier to measure. For this reason, relative strength is a very important component of swimming.
I study powerlifters because they have an extremely high relative strength. Why? Because it is their sole purpose. While a swimmer’s performance is measured by how long it takes them to complete x many laps, a powerlifter’s performance is based on how much they can lift compared to other competitors in their weight class.
The world record for bench in the 150lb class is 498lbs! That’s over three times his bodyweight!
You will see in further posts that a lot of my inspiration comes from powerlifting.