I see many swimmers don’t warm down right away. After they swim, they are either prancing around celebrating their best time, sulking in a chair because of a crappy swim, or talking to the coach about their swim. All three of these things can be done AFTER warm-down. Don’t let the lactic acid just linger in your muscles. A long wait between competition and recovery gives the body more time to tighten, making it harder to flush out the lactate acid built up in muscles.
Go straight to warm-down.
Any team I have been on always has a time in the beginning of the year where the coach asks us to write down our goals for what we want to go by end of the season. We then go around one by one announcing our goals to the rest of the team.
There have been plenty of studies( Lewin(1926) Mahler(1933) Gollwitzer(1982)) that show that you are more likely to achieve your goals if you don’t announce them. The reason being you get instant gratification when announcing your goals even if you haven’t achieved them. This gratification is unjustified. Watch the TED talk below
Conclusion: Actions speak louder than words. Set your goals, keep them to yourself, work hard, and achieve them.
It is pretty common to see swimmers train with drag suits on. The idea is that training in a performance-dehancing condition creates a more potent training stimulus since your body must overcompensate to adapt to the hard conditions.
The question then is, if training with an empty stomach (ie. a performance-dehancing condition with limited muscle glycogen) could lead to superior training results.
I found one study that seem to have some interesting results.
The study’s aim was to see if fasted state endurance training would yield greater improvements in fuel utilization and boost muscle glycogen storage efficiency. The secondary aim was to see if the effects differed between genders, since men and women favor slightly different fuels during exercise. Men tend to utilize more glucose, while women tend to burn more fat.
The experiment
This study lasted four weeks and had all subjects cycling 25 minutes at 65% VO2Max five mornings the first week. The duration was then increased by 25 minutes per week, so that subjects were cycling 100 minutes in the final week.
The cycling was either done in the fasted state or one hour after a cereal-based breakfast (1.5 g carbs/kg). In weeks three and four the fed group also received 30 g of maltodextrin during training. The fasted group received the breakfast, and the maltodextrin, after training.
Week 1, fasted: 25 min cycling followed by breakfast.
Week 1, fed: breakfast followed by 25 min cycling.
Week 2, fasted: 50 min cycling followed by breakfast.
Week 2, fed: breakfast followed by 50 min cycling.
Week 3, fasted: 75 min cycling followed by breakfast.
Week 3, fed: breakfast followed by 75 min cycling.
Week 4, fasted: 100 min cycling followed by breakfast and maltodextrin.
Week 4, fed: breakfast followed by 100 min cycling and maltodextrin.
With regards to the diet maintained outside the laboratory, weighed food records were collected to ensure that potential differences could not be explained by differences in diet. This was done pre-training and in the final week. The findings showed that calorie intake increased in both groups, with an increase coming mainly from carbs and protein. But no difference in total calorie intake or macronutrient intake existed between groups
Results
VO2 max: Remember VO2 max is a measure of the maximum volume of oxygen that an athlete can use
Fasted: +9.7% increase
Fed: +2.5% increase
The fasted group increased their VO2Max significantly more than the fed group.
Muscle glycogen content: shows how much glucose is stored in the muscle. The sample was taken from vastus lateralis, a portion of the quads, since this was the main muscle exercised during the cycling sessions.
Fasted: +54.7% increase
Fed: +2.9% increase
Summary:
Straight from the paper…
“The main findings of the present study were that: training in an overnight-fasted state enhances storage of muscle glycogen compared to training in the fed state; skeletal muscle of men and women respond differently in terms of oxidative activity to training in the fed and overnight-fasted state; and peak VO2 and peak power improved more when training in the fasted state compared to the fed state.”
My thoughts:
There seem to be some clear benefits of doing a workout in a fasted state. However I encourage you to do your own research and try training fasted a few time to see how it works for you. It will most likely be very hard the first few times, but your body should adjust over time. If you do decide to train fasted, I highly recommend taking 10 grams of BCAAs prior to the workout to prevent muscle catabolism.
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.
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