When it comes to building a better body, swimming may be a good way to strengthen your body. However, just like lifting weight, don’t overdo it. Do it incrementally to increase your cardiovascular endurance and cross-train with minimal risk of injury. And just like any other sport or activity, key training techniques need to be implemented to achieve swimming success.
Specificity, individualization, progression and overloading are the key principles in every sport and swimming is no exception. Here’s how to make the most out of your swim training sessions.
Specificity. This refers to the physical workload or stress you put on your body. The stresses that are applied to the body in training must be the same as those experienced in your sport. In other words, if you’re planning to improve your swim technique or fitness but are time restricted, then you must spend the time you do have swimming and not on other activities like lifting weights.
Individualization. This is a crucial training principle that is often overlooked. It is common to find athletes comparing themselves to others in an effort to measure up. The fundamental fact is that training rates are as different as people’s strokes and as different as their hair color and as different as their place of birth.
Progression refers to the gradual increase in workload or stresses you put on your body. These stresses are a combination of the frequency (how often you train), duration (how long you train in each session) and intensity (how hard you train) in your workouts.
Overload vs. overtraining. Overtraining is a very common problem that happens when you don’t factor enough rest into your training design. This should not be confused with overload, which is the planned increase in workload balanced with the right amount of rest.
(Source) Press
Tags: cardio, Health, muscles, swimming
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on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 10:59 pm and is filed under Fitness, Health, cardiovascular system.
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