swimming and overtraining

B

balletgrrl

Cathlete
Hi Cathe and educated crowd,

I might soon be adding swimming to my workout routine because of a knee injury. Along with this, I will be doing upper-body weight training and abs, bc any lower-body at all is not an option.

When I have tried swimming in the past, I REALLY felt it working my back and shoulders. I am adding this in with upper body work (I usually lift 2 or 3 body parts per day and then do one day total upper body). In total, I do each upper-body part twice per week. I am really trying to add mass up there (If you couldn't already tell:)!

I am worried that since swimming uses a lot of these same upper-body muscles, I will end up over-training. The last thing I need is another injury. Does anyone have advice on this? Thanks in advance!

Alison
 
Alison:

I don't think this will lead to overtraining. It seems like a well thought out program to me, just be mindful of how you feel. Swimming leads to all round fatigue I always found, not specifically in the upper body, because swimming uses all the muscles, so I don't think you will strain a muscle in the upper body. And any day you feel over tired, well, just schedule an extra rest day.

Clare
 
Hi, Alison! Yours is a wise question; traditional swimming is overwhelmingly an upper-body activity, and the possibility of overtraining the muscles and over-recruiting the joints is certainly there.

A couple of suggestions:

1. In any of your swimming workouts, make sure you vary your strokes frequently among backstroke, breaststroke, front crawl, side stroke and even dog-paddle (which is more exertion than you might think, because it is such an inefficient stroke!). This will ensure that most if not all of the upper body muscles are recruited (I'm not sure how well the pecs are recruited in these strokes) and will vary how the joints are being taxed. Also, with front crawl make sure you are alternating the sides in which you turn your head to breathe, so that both sides of the back and shoulders are recruited equally;

2. I would suggest taking a couple of weeks off of doing the total-upper-body workout while you acclimate to swimming (while maintaining your 2-3 body parts per day system), and then determine whether you really need to do another full-blown workout for those muscles. I personally think that you will not;

3. As far as not being able to do any lower body - is this related to minimizing or eliminating impact forces on the knee joint? If impact is your only consideration and knee flexion and extension within a pain-free range of motion are okay with your doctor / PT, you may want to consider adding in kickboard kicking drills (MILD flutter kick, breast-stroke whip kick, MILD dolphin kick) to your swim workout to recruit the legs. This will enhance the cardio training of a water workout and help maintain leg muscle endurance conditioning;

4. Along the same lines as #3, again ONLY if impact is the only thing you need to consider with your knee and knee flexion / extension are cleared by your doctor / PT, consider bringing in aqua-jogging in the deep end into your water workout. You can do a lot of leg exercises in addition to standard water-running / -jogging with the aqua-jogger (long-leg scissors forward and back, vertical flutter kicking, leg abduction/adduction) and at the same time do a lot of upper body exercises that are quite different from swimming strokes and are really really good muscle conditioners.

HTH -

A-Jock
 
A-Jock already covered the important stuff but I'd like to add from personal experience that yes you can over-train by adding too much too fast. I had a knee injury and took up swimming and swam 5 days a week plus UB weights 2 times (plus other stuff just talking about my UB stuff right now since that's your topic). I ended up with a raring case of shoulder tendonitis and rotator cuff problems that I'm still working to get rid of completely (it's much better!).

I would seriously be careful adding swimming in and do it SLOWLY. Don't do like me and start off with 30 min to 1 hour of swimming 5 days a week PLUS weights. Ease into it adding a little each week and working up. If you can, kick with a kickboard and give your arms a rest part of the workouts. If it's a knee problem you can kick from your core/hips and keep your knees fairly uninvolved.

Also, repeating what a-jock said but be sure to rotate your strokes and don't just do one over and over and over.

Listen to and honor your body at all times. It will tell you if what you are doing is right. :)
 
Which is weird because I used to swim 6 days a week, a mile at a time, always the same stroke and was never more injury free! I used to swim when recuperating from a running injury of the knee and it worked fine. Never overtrained or strained any muscle swimming. It may be a case of how your own body responds to swimming. It's way gentler on the joints than high impact aerobics, running, step and hi/lo.

Clare
 
I have swam for a couple years and then took up serious swimming this last Jan. Swimming with a masters swim team. It has been amazing. 1 hr of tough tough work 3 days a week.

When I started I could only do 2 days a week and then after 1 month I moved up to 3 days a week.

A couple things I learned that may be helpful -

I think it all depends on the intensity in which you will be swimming. Previous to joining the masters team I could do weights and swim no problem because I wasn't swimming super intense. More of a moderate swim.

When I switched to intense workouts I had to drop weights. matter of fact I would swim on mondays and my arms would be fatigued until Wednesday - Eventually I built up Stamima and could swim with the team 3 days a week and if I had time I would swim with them 4 days a week now.

It took me about 3 months to be able to do weights again. I really didn't lose to much strength over that period of time because swimming is such an amazing workout. Now I lift upper body 2 times a week with no problems.

As everyone else said I think it is a gradual build into it process. You will love swimming.

you can also work your legs pretty good with kickboard drills. They can fry you legs quite effectively.
 
TUVAK!!!!! Where have you been, girlfriend?!

I've seen Tuvak in action in the pool, folks - she knows what she's talking about!

Glad you're still around, Tuvie!

A-Jock
 
I have been interested in swimming as a form of exercise for some time now. But I am not quite sure of how to start out. Is there a website or book that you might recommend that will give you an outline of how to start out. I am also not quite sure of how to do all the different strokes that were previously listed so pictures of how to do the strokes would be helpful too. Thanks.
 
Hi, Sistina! IMHO, no website or book, or even video, would be as good for you as some in-person in-pool swim lessons with a qualified swim instructor. I'd suggest you contact whatever facility you wish to swim in, and ask for their programs on swim lessons. A video might be helpful, but again I think direct instruction is best.

You may be able to get good web information on swimming simply by doing a Google search with a query "swimming+for+fitness" or something like that.

HTH -

A-Jock
 
Sistina, I have to agree with A-Jock again (do I sound like a broken record yet?), nothing can replace lessons with a live instructor. That said here are some links.

Useful Links:
http://www.usms.org/
http://www.totalimmersion.net/
http://www.h2oustonswims.org/frames/home.html
http://www.kiefer.com/
http://www.swimming.about.com/
http://www.swim-city.com/
http://www.swimmersguide.com/

Today's USMS workout can be found here: http://forums.usms.org/forumdisplay.php?s=cf0fb2118811a8469ea6b7233e36f30f&forumid=99

Workouts can be searched on here by type:
http://www.swiminfo.com/swim-cgi/work_search.pl
 
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