Training time in the water vs time on land

[Q.]

What's the proper balance between land-based training vs water-based. I guess, as always, it depends on your goals. :p As with everything else, the more time I spend on swimming, the better that gets but the more my lifting drops off. My back was giving me problems for months so I was doing a lot of swimming and now I feel like I'm practically starting over in the weight room. Plus, my BF has gone up but that's partially left over from the holidays. Thing is, I think I need to do a lot more work out of the water to deal with the loss of strength/strength endurance and to work on the BF. My diet is pretty much the same as always but I might should have adjusted the calories down when the back was giving me problems. However, I'm really not a calorie counter... I just eat the same stuff all the time.

[karky]

just a question. have you been swimming and cutting down on the weight training, and that caused you to have to "start over"?
Lol, i dont want to loose my weightlifting gains just because im starting swimming :p

[Q.]

Originally Posted by karky

just a question. have you been swimming and cutting down on the weight training, and that caused you to have to "start over"?

Basically, yes, but I'm 53 and I think it's harder to retain everything as you get older. Not positive about that but I wouldn't worry about it at your age.

[ODB]

A few years ago when I was swimming a lot I decided to add weight training (I didn't do any at the time). Within weeks I moved on past the guys I was swimming with and into the fast group at masters practice.

[Ruslan Kedik]

I'm going to have to credit this one to Boyle, he mentioned swimmers training on land in his FSC DVD.

Swimmers are in gravity free environment all the time, this is why swimmers should squat, and why they need strength training. Swimmers adaptations will be in the reduced gravity environment this is why they need to get out, be on their feet and use all those muscles.

As far as the split between dry and wet training goes. I would keep the bulk of my training in the water. Dry land training is a big staple in the swimming world, if done intelligently. Take a look at what's stopping you from going faster in the water, and fix it on land. For example take a look at your typical swimmer and their posture. Pronated shoulders, tight pecs, and lats, is this helping them in the water? Why are the coaching not spotting these problems?

I myself had shoulder issues when swam, due to tight pecs, lats and other factors that lead to "swimmers shoulder" syndrome. What did my coach have us doing in the weight room? What ever we wanted. My teammates and I didn’t know any better so we benched!

[fitzy21]

yea, i definately developed "swimmer shoulder syndrome" - trying to correct that now. but yea, really tight pecs and lats.

i'm trying to figure out a good balance for myself...most likely it'll end up being 3 days swimming, 3 days dry land.

most of my dryland exercises right now are corrective exercises and to build strength. but now with my ankle sprain, probably going to up the swimming and do more upper body type correction on dry exercises. i'm not gonna be able to do much of anything for a couple of months with this sprain i have.

[emartin10]

In the offseason, I try to weight train about 3 times a week - but it depends. This is the only time of year I'm not on a program, so I just kind of do what I feel like. Once the season starts, I'm in the weight room once or twice a week doing a solid full body routine (at least I will be this year )

Ruslan nailed it, figure out what's hindering you in the pool and fix it on the land.

E