weight lifting and swimming

[mo_mughrabi]

Hello all,
I have one big question and am hoping to find some professional help in here. Well, first of all my name is Mo and am 24 years old..
Before sometime I started weight lifting to gain muscles. I’m 177 and use to weight 49 kg… after 4 months of working out I’ve reached 60 kg…
I stopped weight lifting for 3 months and the weight dropped 4 kg plus my abs muscles disappeared instead I’ve got a bit stomach now
During the time I use to work out, I use to eat protein shake recommended by the trainer and some other things like Aminos… plus, I use to eat A LOT!
Okay, now I really love swimming… I cannot swim very good but I feel its easy to learn the techniques with long practice, plus I love it and am sure I’ll learn quickly… also I’ve been watching some videos on youtube, teaches how to swim and I learned many things from what I’ve seen so far…
Now, the problem is I want to swim very badly but I also want to gain weight “muscle” and work out on my abs… the trainer in the gym told me, if I want to gain muscles I should not swim… and frankly, am not buying it
I thought of a plan and I want to discuss it here…

Sat:* In the pool
Sun: in gym, biceps, triceps arms
Mon:* In the pool
TUE: Legs, calves and shoulders
WED: in the pool
THU: in the pool
FRI:* OFF

I figured biceps; triceps, arms, legs, calves and shoulders will never grow muscles from swimming (I read this somewhere online). so, I’ll work it out in the gym…* as for the rest of the muscles chest, back and abs are working very hard during swims.. so, I don’t need to go gym… is this information correct??
And for the swimming, I found one training program online but I don’t know how far how good it is… at get-fit-swim.com
As for the diet I’ll stick with the old one… I’ll eat as much as possible , plus protein shakes between the meals…. I think this is all, please advice me
Last but not least, I want to apologize for my bad English I used Microsoft word to help me in spell checking and grammar mistakes…
And thanks in advance,
Mo

[Jimbo]

Originally Posted by mo_mughrabi

I figured biceps; triceps, arms, legs, calves and shoulders will never grow muscles from swimming (I read this somewhere online). so, I’ll work it out in the gym…* as for the rest of the muscles chest, back and abs are working very hard during swims.. so, I don’t need to go gym… is this information correct??

First - Welcome to the board.

I too love swimming. I am no expert but I will give my opinion here.

Just because you are working certain muscles in swimming does not mean that you are training them in such a way that they will grow. Look at long distance runners..really really small bodies including their legs. If you are interested in building muscle you need to be lifting weights.

Why does it have to be an either or? If you are going to the gym to train biceps; triceps, arms, legs, calves and shoulders why not just focus on major lifts like squats and deadlifts and get full body results?

This will benefit you in you swimming as well.

[fitzy21]

i'll be starting to swim on sunday. i've been doing the Starting Strength workouts for the past 1 1/2 weeks. its a full body routine, with squats. i also include lots of work for my shoulder - internal/external rotations, scapular work, stretching to loosen up my pecs. i've started to include more rowing to counter the impact swimming will do.

you'll be better off strengthening your whole body instead of just isolating parts of it in the gym. in the pool, you work your whole body. and develop imbalances, which is why its key to get into the gym, get stronger, and doing exercises that will fix or prevent those imbalances from happening before you get an injury.

[karky]

Yeah, isen't downwards rotated scapulae typical for swimmers? Due to the tight lats they often get? So do some overhead shrugs, face pulls, pushup pluss and lower trapraises (these will benifit anyone anyhow also)

And I agree with the others, work the entire body with big lifts. And don't be afraid of overtraining because you work the same muscles with swimming and weightlifting, you work them in very different ways so to speak. I had a period where I did alot of swimming, but I diden't sacrefise any of my lifting because of it, and I felt great!

[mo_mughrabi]

First of all thank you for replying me and making things much more clear than what I understood.

Can anybody please recommend me with a training program that will help me in gaining muscles yet i'll be able to get in the pool every once in a while. And which strokes would you recommend and how many meters I should go maximum?

One other question, my trainer mentioned something to me. He said, if you work out to gain muscles and go swimming this can burn the muscles you are working out in gym... is this by any chance true?

thank you alot

[Aoife]

Your problem with trying to gain muscle with regards to swimming is mainly a matter of caloric expenditure.

Swimming a lot will burn a lot of calories. If you do not eat enough to compensate for this, you will lose weight. If you want to build muscle, you need to gain weight (in the form of muscle, hopefully).

So, basically to be able to meet your goal of putting on muscle while also swimming, you'll need to go ahead and eat nearly everything you can get into your mouth. It can be done, sure. But it'll require you making sure you eat enough. I think that's what your trainer is trying to say (I assume) and maybe he's just saying it badly.

So... eat a lot to gain weight (muscle). Eat even more to compensate for burning calories during swimming. You have to be eating more than you expend through living and exercise.

[fitzy21]

Originally Posted by mo_mughrabi

First of all thank you for replying me and making things much more clear than what I understood.

Can anybody please recommend me with a training program that will help me in gaining muscles yet i'll be able to get in the pool every once in a while. And which strokes would you recommend and how many meters I should go maximum?

One other question, my trainer mentioned something to me. He said, if you work out to gain muscles and go swimming this can burn the muscles you are working out in gym... is this by any chance true?

thank you alot

plenty of programs will work - what do you have access to? have you done barbell work before?

swimming wise - i'd take the time to learn the mechanics of the strokes before pounding away on distance right away. until you get the mechanics down, long distances in the pool will be tough and won't accomplish much of anything...while teaching you bad movements in the pool. so learn the strokes, and then vary it up throughout your time in the pool. dont' just swim freestyle - mix it up with some backstroke...and if you can get it down, breaststroke...then eventually you might include butterfly.

you want to gain muscle, you're going to have to eat.