Swimming As BB Conditioning

[quote]fraggle wrote:
It’s really dificult to say wrt the fat storage hypothesis, so I won’t touch on that.

I would say the main reason you is the one you just touched on. It just isn’t as pleasant or convenient as other forms. If you had to choose a form of cardio, would you choose one that involved:

1 - being in a pool of heavily chlorinated water
2 - potentially having to go to different facility and spend cash on another membership?
3 - being in a crowded pool, going too slowly for some and too fast for others.

I would rather go for a hike, run sprints, or just walk on a treadmill at my regular gym.

That said I would reconsider if I started getting serious joint problems.

I don’t see the bouyancy thing being that much of a factor, as the point of cardio is to expend energy, and improve your cardiovascular health, not swim faster than others. [/quote]

One big plus to swimming is that it involves a lot more upper body into than traditional cardio. It isn’t that comparable to the things you listed as alternatives.

I swam 6 years of my lift before turning to bodybuilding. I chose not to swim in college cause of time issues. But love being able to hop in the pool and swim faster and longer than the avg person despite not having swam competitively for 2 years.

We used to go up to 10,000 yards a day during winter break, but the majority of practices were around 6,000 or 7,000.

As a swimmer (all strokes, though now I’m a bit more muscular I do breast and fly) the reason that you don’t see BBers swimming from what i’ve seen

muscle mass will make you sink in the pool - much harder if you’re a 300 pound body builder

the treadmills are probably in the gym. Going to the gym, out of the gym getting changed/ driving to a pool getting in swimming = hassle.

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]fraggle wrote:
It’s really dificult to say wrt the fat storage hypothesis, so I won’t touch on that.

I would say the main reason you is the one you just touched on. It just isn’t as pleasant or convenient as other forms. If you had to choose a form of cardio, would you choose one that involved:

1 - being in a pool of heavily chlorinated water
2 - potentially having to go to different facility and spend cash on another membership?
3 - being in a crowded pool, going too slowly for some and too fast for others.

I would rather go for a hike, run sprints, or just walk on a treadmill at my regular gym.

That said I would reconsider if I started getting serious joint problems.

I don’t see the bouyancy thing being that much of a factor, as the point of cardio is to expend energy, and improve your cardiovascular health, not swim faster than others. [/quote]

One big plus to swimming is that it involves a lot more upper body into than traditional cardio. It isn’t that comparable to the things you listed as alternatives.[/quote]

That is true, and it is a good point, but SteelyD was referring to it’s use as Cardio, not using certain bodyparts over another.

If you are just looking at expending calories and placing demands on your cardiovascular system, your results will be determined mainly by how much effort and time you put into it.

edit for grammar

Man, I had to take a swimming class a while back. I thought it would be easy to swim laps but no…I just sank like a rock. I could barely stay afloat…it was a serious WTF moment.

So, screw that! haha

[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
Man, I had to take a swimming class a while back. I thought it would be easy to swim laps but no…I just sank like a rock. I could barely stay afloat…it was a serious WTF moment.

So, screw that! haha[/quote]

Lol, my experience was pretty much the same. I was actually penalized on my grade because I had to push down with each stroke to keep my head above water.

We had to hold onto pool noodles for this one part, and I was the only one who needed two. The one instructor started calling me Rocky after that.

On the plus side, my cardio improved alot as I had to bust my ass compared to everyone else in that class.

Most of you guys think that a big muscular person cannot swim well. You can; it’s all about find the balance and being efficient in the water. Which comes with years of practice and is hard to pick up over a few lessons. Also having a proper suit helps. If speedos aren’t your thing, try a Jammer, they go down to your knees.

I’ve always believed that most BBers do their particular cardio of choice (whether treadmill, bike, jogging etc) because they believe that by relying on their largest muscle groups (legs) during cardio sessions, there is leg likelihood of the particular area being pushed beyond the recovery point and adding to muscle loss during times of contest prep (diminished cal intake). As swimming is most likely regarded as an ‘all body’ exercises, it’s probably best left to people who wouldn’t be concerned about losing a little extra mass :slight_smile:

S

An interesting topic.

I believe a person seeking to gain muscle shouldn’t swim for extended periods of time, because swimming for an hour or more is very exhausting and b) a lot of the consumed energy will go into fat deposits.

Swimming once or twice a week, however, is AWESOME as active regeneration, provided you know how to swim and can do this in a relaxed fashion. Compared to sprinting, it’s a blessing for you knees.
Sprinting at high speeds twice a week or more is quite destructive on your bones when coupled with heavy weight.

Again, regarding the fat/cold hypothesis:

I’m ABSOLUTELY convinced that swimming can potentially make you a tad fatter.
While this is no problem for a young, male athlete trying to gain mass (the apetite boost has already mentioned), it gets problematic for others who try to keep bf as low as possible (eg, female figure athletes, bodybuilders or martial athletes cutting fat for competition).

It seems unscientific but consider this:
In virtually ALL cold climates, natives indians tend to be flabbier then natives from hotter climate zones.
Similarly, western tourists doing sporty vacations tend to lose a lot of fat when training in sunny countries compared to those who fly to a cold environement to train.
A body submerged in water loses it’s warmth very quickly. It’s irrelevant if you move more or less, the heatloss remains the same.
Comparing olympic sprinters’ and marathon runners’ bodyfat has been popular around here, you could easily do the same with swimmers. They seem to be the “fattest” endurance athletes, which is even more curious since they are among the most dilligent.

To sum up this highly anecdotical musing:
Exposing your body to cold over and over will potentially increase it’s demand for fat, our natural means of insulation. If you’re obsessed with cutting for any reason, you should do the opposite, ie seeking out warm places and do stuff that increases your core temperature.

I think Rocky2 has a point here.

I’m about 248 (at 6’4, I should add…), but it doesn’t take more energy for me to stay afloat or move about in the water now than it did when I was, say, 180 at the same height… (simply pointing out that the difference in weight had zero impact for me. It may well be different for the huge guys on here).

I also learned to swim when I was 6, swam competitively in my teens, and simply feel ‘at home’ in the water.

Maybe it’s not really worth investing the time and effort if it’s not already ‘second nature’ in a way, like running is for most people?

I am a swim coach. I would vote no on using lap swimming as cardio. You basically have a huge learning curve to overcome with the technique of strokes.
I’m also very good friends with a lot of national and professional water polo players and my experience with them is that adding a lot of swimming to your bodybuilding is going to be pretty rough on your shoulders. You would have to scale back your overhead pressing and probably pressing in general.
That being said, while swimming laps may be out, I do think that treading water would be a good alternative, especially for a big guy. Instead having to worry about your swim speed, stroke, and sinking, if you just tread water, sinking will be your only concern. Google how to egg beater and hop in the water. I think it’d be very effective since most people have trouble with it.

Also, if you’re looking for something to increase your conditioning (and I don’t mean fat loss, I mean getting in good, fit shape) I don’t think swimming would be a good idea. Most of the high level water polo players I know are beasts in the water, but absolute jokes on land with no athletic or fitness carryover onto land.

[quote]Carl_ wrote:
I think Rocky2 has a point here.

I’m about 248 (at 6’4, I should add…), but it doesn’t take more energy for me to stay afloat or move about in the water now than it did when I was, say, 180 at the same height… (simply pointing out that the difference in weight had zero impact for me. It may well be different for the huge guys on here).

I also learned to swim when I was 6, swam competitively in my teens, and simply feel ‘at home’ in the water.

Maybe it’s not really worth investing the time and effort if it’s not already ‘second nature’ in a way, like running is for most people? [/quote]

I’d say the difference is more in lean body mass than actual weight. At 266 and likely low teens bodyfat, I’m just not as buoyant as I used to be.

I imagine given time I’d be able to adjust for the difference and swim laps just fine, but I have no desire to do so lol

The study that gets quoted in this discussion each time it pops up is:

Gwinup, G. (1987). Weight loss without dietary restriction: Efficacy of different forms of aerobic exercise. American Journal of Sports Medicine, 15, 275-279

There are a few more that show a similar result. Quoting from a random website:

"Professor Grant Gwinup compared three exercise programs (walking, cycling and swimming) for three months. Each program began with up to 10 minutes of daily exercise. The length of each workout was increased by five minutes every week.

* Test subjects following the walking program lost 17 pounds of weight during the three-month study.
* Those following the cycling program lost 19 pounds of weight.
* However, subjects following the swimming program actually gained 5 pounds.

In other words, subjects who walked or cycled lost weight, while the swimmers gained weight."

[quote]SteelyD wrote:

Thoughts (especially from any competitors)?[/quote]

Hey SteelyD,

I competed last year and even though I was an avid swimmer before starting the contest prep, I just couldn’t handle the fatigue that came from swimming (even at a low-moderate pace) combined with the effects of a contest diet. Plus being sore from weight training makes swimming a less than pleasant experience.

Also as someone mentioned earlier, the hassle of showering before getting into the pool and fighting for a lane to swim laps is annoying and it’s the last thing you want to deal with when you’re constantly hungry and irritable.

Guys… “conditioning” for Bodybuilding (competitive) purposes and “general conditioning” for the coach potato are very different concepts! You’re all discussing learning curves, and various aspects of actually swimming, but you’re missing the important consideration. It is too demanding as an entire body workout to meet the required point of “bodybuilding cardio”, namely metabolic stimulation with as little muscle fatigue as possible.

S

I didnt have time to read the whole thread, but the title reminded me of this guy. Not exactly a bodybuilder, but he was able to get down to about 6% body fat with swimming being his cardio. It might help, thats my 2 cents. I’ll read the rest of the thread when im back from school.

Have you ever seen an olympic swimmer with an impressive body composition?
No. They all have a thin layer of fat like blabber whales.
Have you ever seen a 100m track sprinter with a impressive body composition?
Yes. Do hill sprints.

/thread

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First off, I’d like to say that it’s hard for anyone to just get in the pool and swim laps, not just larger guys. Anyone thinking they can just get in a pool and swim laps are kidding themselves. I’ve seen a number of cross country and other distance runners get in a pool and become exhausted after a few laps despite being in great aerobic shape. Swimming is a completely different muscle set and different movement pattern than being on your feet. It is also not something you naturally figure out like walking. Getting into a pool to swim laps for the first time is like being a 1 year old taking their first steps. You have to put effort into swimming to learn it.

I really don’t buy the buoyancy thing. There are plenty of super lean swimmers out there. You guys just didn’t know how to swim. If you were pushing down in the water to “stay afloat” you were probably more or less just being horrible inefficient in the water and wasting a ton of energy to do what we used to call tarzan swimming (swimming with your head out of the water). If you lift your head, your body sinks, it’s physics. To breath you roll on your side (something you should do in your stroke anyway) and twist your neck, you don’t lift your head.

It isn’t good evidence to talk about what swimming is and isn’t when you haven’t learned how to swim. It’s kinda like talking to a 2 year old (even a muscular one) about the merits running.

I don’t buy buoyancy, either. I’m heavier than I’ve ever been and more muscle mass than ever and I swim at the same inefficiency I always have…

Some good points here.

Thank you Stu for driving the point home-- bodybuilding conditioning <> general conditioning. Swimming is great exercise, but has is hardly ever (if at all) been used as a primary exercise for dropping bodyfat to ‘bodybuilding standards’ for contests or otherwise.

I was curious as to ‘why’, since ‘conventional wisdom’ (which is often wrong) would say that swimming is extrememely effective cardiovascularly (is that a word?), low joint impact, and burns tons of calories.

I think it just has TOO much going against it, both physically and practically, namely:

  • Pool access (gym typically not near a pool).
  • Convenience – Treadmill/bike/steps are about 20 feet from where I lift. Pool is 3 miles.
  • Specialization (everyone can sit on a stationary bike, stepmill, and walk on treadmill, but swimming is a little more involved)
  • Too effective (in other words, swimming is so calorically costly, it burns away muscle)
  • Tying in with above-- too fatiguing when doubled with a bodybuilding weight regimen.

I don’t know that I buy the preferential fat storage, maybe only to the extent that swimming so much may tend to be catabolic and increasing fat percentage, but that’s just speculation.

There’s no doubt it taxing and great “GPP” though. It just seems to have too many things against it that make ‘traditional’ bodybuilding conditioning tools so much more valuable and effective.