Help With Training Program - Personal Goals Inside

Soopaman

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Of all the sports I've done, swimming is the one that won me over. I first swam with my high school my junior year, the one year we had a team and got hooked. At the age of 17, it was pretty late to try and be really good in the sport, but I was into it enough to join a local club team with the hope of doing well enough the next year to make it to the state competition. Unfortunately, our small swimming program was cut from our high school's sports program. After swimming for a year and a half, we had some coaching changes at our swim club and I didn't like the way our coach was doing practices, so I stopped. I was going to community college at the time and was the oldest one in the club so I wasn't very motivated swimming with a bunch of 15 year olds. I did end up with a job coaching for the club and still coach to this day.

As it is now, I'm transfering to the University of Houston and finally moving out of the house. I've swam off and on for the past year and I'm wanting to take this opportunity to start training again on my own. I've always preffered training like this and have seen some of my best results with my swimming doing so.

I plan to compete this May in Masters Short Course Nationals that will be held in Austin this year. I've got my diet in check, I know what supplements are going to help me out the most, and I know what training in the pool is going to work for me. What I don't is what is going to be best for weight training. I've had the same workout regimine for a while, and it works, but I don't think its going to be best for what my goals are.

As a sprinter (50/100yd freestyle & 100backstroke) I believe that what I really need to work on is gaining high amounts of strength and explosiveness. With races no longer than 55 seconds, I don't have to worry much about endurance, I can keep my speed the entire race.

My current goals are:
1. Get my weight to 210-215. At 6'4" and 190lbs, I think I can stand to gain another 20-25lbs of lean muscle. This should happen over the next year, not between here and May, possibly get up to 200lb by then.
2. Build a high amount of explosiveness in my legs and back muscles (mainly the lats). Legs have always been a weak point for me, and I want to change that. I'd like to be the guy that blows the starting block off its base because he's got such a powerful start. I'd like to get my lats and triceps very explosive for a fast stroke rate.
3. Build up my core. My abs and olbique muscles need to be really damn strong, these are important for a good form and proper rotation as well as a fast dolphin kick. Dolphin kick (think undulation) needs to be fast and explosive as well.
4. With all this, I plan to be able to swim under a 21.50 in my 50 free by May which would not be unreasonable at all.

With these goals in mind, what kind of lifting do I need to be doing over the next 4 1/2 months to train for this? After this competition, I plan to continue training but at that point it will be time to re-evaluate and create a new program to last till Aug 2009 when I plan to walk on the UT team.

I'm sure Volcom can help me out here, I've seen some posts of yours that look like you know your **** about training the body. Any help is welcome though.
 
CROWLER

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IMO increasing your muscle mass is couterproductive to swimming faster.

I am not sure if you are going for the muscle or the swimming?


CROWLER
 

Soopaman

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Swimming is different for sprinters than it is mid/long distance. The current world record holder in the 50 free is pretty damn big for a swimmer. I'm not looking to get huge here, which is why I really want to focus on strength and explosiveness. The getting up to 210-215 over the next year will allow me to get to an optimal weight with a high amount of strength and power. A heavier weight is good for momentum on dives and off the wall as well as maintaining speed.
 
VolcomX311

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Of all the sports I've done, swimming is the one that won me over. I first swam with my high school my junior year, the one year we had a team and got hooked. At the age of 17, it was pretty late to try and be really good in the sport, but I was into it enough to join a local club team with the hope of doing well enough the next year to make it to the state competition. Unfortunately, our small swimming program was cut from our high school's sports program. After swimming for a year and a half, we had some coaching changes at our swim club and I didn't like the way our coach was doing practices, so I stopped. I was going to community college at the time and was the oldest one in the club so I wasn't very motivated swimming with a bunch of 15 year olds. I did end up with a job coaching for the club and still coach to this day.

As it is now, I'm transfering to the University of Houston and finally moving out of the house. I've swam off and on for the past year and I'm wanting to take this opportunity to start training again on my own. I've always preffered training like this and have seen some of my best results with my swimming doing so.

I plan to compete this May in Masters Short Course Nationals that will be held in Austin this year. I've got my diet in check, I know what supplements are going to help me out the most, and I know what training in the pool is going to work for me. What I don't is what is going to be best for weight training. I've had the same workout regimine for a while, and it works, but I don't think its going to be best for what my goals are.

As a sprinter (50/100yd freestyle & 100backstroke) I believe that what I really need to work on is gaining high amounts of strength and explosiveness. With races no longer than 55 seconds, I don't have to worry much about endurance, I can keep my speed the entire race.

My current goals are:
1. Get my weight to 210-215. At 6'4" and 190lbs, I think I can stand to gain another 20-25lbs of lean muscle. This should happen over the next year, not between here and May, possibly get up to 200lb by then.
2. Build a high amount of explosiveness in my legs and back muscles (mainly the lats). Legs have always been a weak point for me, and I want to change that. I'd like to be the guy that blows the starting block off its base because he's got such a powerful start. I'd like to get my lats and triceps very explosive for a fast stroke rate.
3. Build up my core. My abs and olbique muscles need to be really damn strong, these are important for a good form and proper rotation as well as a fast dolphin kick. Dolphin kick (think undulation) needs to be fast and explosive as well.
4. With all this, I plan to be able to swim under a 21.50 in my 50 free by May which would not be unreasonable at all.

With these goals in mind, what kind of lifting do I need to be doing over the next 4 1/2 months to train for this? After this competition, I plan to continue training but at that point it will be time to re-evaluate and create a new program to last till Aug 2009 when I plan to walk on the UT team.

I'm sure Volcom can help me out here, I've seen some posts of yours that look like you know your **** about training the body. Any help is welcome though.
Hey Kyle, I’d be glad to help. I may or may not ramble about excess information because I feel there are a lot of people who know the “how” behind training advice, but don’t understand the “why.” I believe when you comprehend why you’re what your doing, there is a greater success rate due to a deeper motivation. Monotony is a killer of motivation and monotony occurs when you feel like you’re simply going through the motions as you’re told, but when you understand the manipulations you are stimulating within your body, then you are equipped with a deeper sense of purpose, rather then religious exercising.

Sprint Swimmer Sport Needs.

Bioenergetic Needs.
-High VO2 max. Maximal amount of oxygen the body can assimilate and turn into ATP per cardio cycle.
-High Lactate threshold. Lactate threshold separates sprint athletes far more then VO2 max. The mythological essence surrounding Lance Armstrong is his highly renowned VO2 max compared to the average person. However, all “elite” athletes have a higher then normal VO2 max. Lances’s VO2 max is actually not that remarkable when compared to fellow elite cyclists. The reason Lance Armstrong can pull away on the uphill sprints isn’t due to his VO2 max, it’s a result of his lactate threshold. VO2 Max will effect endurance performance AND power output, however, your lactate threshold will determine how long you can maintain peak power output. The sprinter who win’s the race isn’t just the one who can reach max speed the fastest or the one with the highest max speed. It’s the sprinter who can “maintain” peak speed the longest and this has to do with your lactate threshold. No matter how high your VO2 max is, or much power you can potentially exert, once your muscle begins to accrue that numbing feeling (build up of hydrogen ions as a byproduct of ATP and flooding of lactic acid in a sprint situation), it’s not a mental barrier of toughness you can break through, it’s a physiological incapability to maintain peak power output. No matter if you reach top speed faster then your opponents, and your top speed is faster then your opponents, but if you are unable to maintain that top speed, the racer with the slightly lower top speed, but ability to maintain his top speed throughout the bulk of the race will more often then not, slowly pull ahead, or the lead racer with high power output, but low lactate threshold will inevitability & unwillingly, slowly fall behind. Therefore, in terms of a sprint, your limiting performance factor is your ability to keep your muscle free of lactic acid/hydrogen ion build up and this phenomenon is called your lactate threshold.
-High Power Output

Physical Needs.
-Long limbs
-Slender, streamline frame
-Strong Lats

Things you cannot change: Your limbs.
Things you can: Everything else (technically your frame is a combination of shoulder width, torso length, to pelvic width ratio, but you can effect the streamline of whatever combination you have to an extent with percent bodyfat.

Number one criteria for your training is SPECIFICITY. Something I am sure you are well aware of. Sprint swimmers shouldn’t do multiple laps as part of their training, but more so as a general warm up. Endurance (VO2) has much less to do with a sprint swimmer, and much more to do with a distance swimmer/athlete. Sprinters need to be efficient at high power output and high lactate threshold.

You already know that a swimmer’s best friend in terms of muscle group are the lats. You don’t need large, hulking bodybuilder lats that would offset your body’s streamline, but you do want them strong and primarily powerful.

Strength, does not equate to speed. There is a misconception that the larger you build your lats, the more it will directly correlate with moving through the water more forcefully. Is there a correlation? Yes, to an extent, but power will have a much closer correlation with speed.

Biomechanical equation for Strength is simply Work x Mass. Whereas, Power is Work/Time. Power has a direct correlation with velocity and the foundational premise of success in your sport is velocity, therefore, to make applicable gains in the gym that will transfer with high correlation to what you’re doing in the water is power lifting. Let me explain before you raise an eyebrow, because when you think Olympic Powerlifters, you think 400lbs, fat, stalky, round men. That however are due to reason’s other then the adaption(s) the body is making as a result of powerlifting. Aside from what you see in the Olympics, most powerlifting meets are 150lbs boys/men, hoisting 225-315lbs over their head. The adaption(s) from powerlifting are primarily neural as oppose to superficial.

Before I get into the how’s and why’s of powerlifting to assist your sprint ability, let me offer some suggestions for sport specific gym exercises. You already know you want a strong back, but the back consists of many muscle groups that are stronger or weaker at different angles of resistance. Very sport specific back exercises are straight arm resistance movements. Yes the lat pulls down is a relevant and applicable exercise to your sport, even bent over rows are relevant and applicable to the over all picture, but the two most sport specific exercises are number one, standing, straight arm, cable pull downs. Get on a cable structure, take a straight bar and connect it at the highest point of the structure, find a slightly greater then should width grip and without bending your elbows, you pull the bar straight down. This excites the muscles involved with the underwater portion of your stroke. It very closely mimics the motion of dragging your arms down, to the side and behind you. If you do this exercise bent over, then it mimics the motion even more precisely and it offers a greater range of motion throughout the exercise. Number two is like it. You get on a decline bench and take a mid sized bar, some gyms have it, some gyms don’t. It’s not the length of the bench press bars, but is about half the size, but you could use dumbbells for this too if you don’t have a mid size bar. You get on the decline bench, take the widest grip possible. You’ll start in a decline bench position, keeping your elbows lock, you drop your arms over your head until it’s behind you until your arms are about parallel to your ears and keeping your elbows locked, you bring the weight back up. This also excites that same area of your back that is involved in the underwater portion of a stroke. All the other back exercises are relevant, but these two are VERY sport specific to a swimmer. Again, you could do the decline exercise with dumbbells as well. Single or double arm.

You mentioned you wanted to get off the line faster and power through the water. I believe in doing squats as a swimmer, it is a relevant and applicable exercise to your sport, but having larger quads won’t make you quicker off the gun. It’s the power movements that will effect that aspect.

Power Movement: The Olympic Clean and Jerk.
Coordination:
1. Swimming consists of coordination in both the upper and lower extremities.
2. The Olympic Clean and Jerk enhances muscle coordination between the lower and upper extremities.
3. The O C&J increases neuromuscular coordination firing rate throughout upper and lower extremities.

Power:
1. C&J increases neuromuscular firing rate. What makes you quick and powerful isn’t the size of your muscle. It’s how fast your nervous system can send acetylcholine to the corresponding muscle. Acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter sent from your brain, down through your spine, out through your nerves to the specific muscle you are trying to excite. How fast you can move or how fast you can respond to a stimulant is a result of neuromuscular firing rate. Muscle size and strength adaption(s) do not correlate with firing rate as much as neural adaption(s). If you train yourself to be fast and explode in a powerful manner, you’re body makes neural adaption(s) to make this aspect more efficient. Power movements train your nervous system more then it trains your muscle. To complete a C&J requires that you make quick, powerful movements and the more you train this component, the more your body begins to make adaptions to be efficient at this component. The result is increased firing rate. You’re neurotransmitters will reach and excite your muscles faster then your opponents. When you hear the gun, all of you will hear it and react to it at approximately the same time, but you can train your body’s ability to react to that quicker, to stimulate the muscle fibers quicker, to launch more forcefully and drive through the water with greater force. This is primarily a power adaption, oppose to a strength adaption.

How can I become stronger without getting bigger?

2. Power movements, such as the C&J increases muscle recruitment. This is from a previous post I wrote “Number One factor to strength increase (aside from increased myofilaments), is increased muscle fiber recruitment. Muscles contract via nerves. In our system we have motor units, each motor unit innervates with multiple muscle fibers. If you know about the "all or nothing" principle of muscle contraction, it states that the muscle fiber contracts in its entirety or not at all. However, not every muscle fiber per motor unit contracts at the same time. Lets say you have one motor unit that innervates (via denrites & axons) to 25 muscle fibers. When you contract, not all 25 muscle fibers are excited, lets say for you, every time a motor unit is activated 15 of your muscle fibers are excited to contract. What causes increased motor unit activation? increased tension, thus, heavier weight” and I’ll add, the more compound the movement. Such as the C&J.

You can do traditional barbell clean & jerks, barbell snatch, one arm dumbbell snatch. The premise behind these power movements is velocity. Plyometrics also train neural adpation(s) and are great exercises for this purpose. Why lift weights for hypertrophy at all? Because hypertrophy and strength, increases the potential of training with heavier power movements, which in turn increases velocity. Strength and Power do correlate to a certain degree, but velocity of movement is a much greater aspect on power, then is strength.

Now what about all this lactate threshold and VO2 max stuff. It’s a very complex system that is very easily trained. The more you train at your peak output, the higher you push your threshold bar little by little. Training at full speed where you reach your lactate threshold over and over will cause your body to make the bioenergetic adaption to increase your lactate threshold. Your body will always try to maintain homeostasis. Homeostasis in terms of performance is a comfort zone or better put an efficiency zone. The body will adapt to what you put it through. If you frequently and consistently train at full speed, causing your body to struggle with H+ ion build up and lactic acid flooding, it will adapt to flush those byproducts out of your muscle more efficiently, therefore allowing you to maintain peak power output longer and longer.

Factors that effect sprint swimming.
#1. Form
#2. Lactate Threshold.
#3. Power Output

Body type is a factor. Obviously if you’re 4'5" no matter how good your form, bioenergtics, power, you’re going to be at a loss compared to someone who’s 6'2" with long limbs that streamlines across the water like a bullet. But I’m assuming since you’ve had success in swimming already, your body type isn’t a problem.

This was too much to proof read through, so if I didn’t make sense somewhere (which is likely) or you’d like more clarification or more detail about a specific aspect, just let me know.
 

Soopaman

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Great post, repped!

As far as the physical needs you listed, I have all of them, but of course need more power in the lats.

I'm 6'4" and have really wide shoulders, the typical swimmer body. I even have a wingspan of 6'9". Its one of the reason the local swim club picked me up, I look like I should be a swimmer.

What you described as far as training the lactate threshold, that exactly what I do in the water. My workouts are short distance (25/50/75/100 yards) and are always at a high speed with moderate amounts of rest.

The C&J is something I plan to use in my weightlifting from now on, but I want a little bit more information on what type of weightlifting I need to do to help build up on strength and power with all of the different exercises. How many set/reps should I be doing with each exercise? It seems like a 5x5 plan is best for developing strength, but in the last couple of months before the meet I'd like to graduate from training strength to training more on power. How often do I workout with the Olympic C&J, and what other muscles should i work it with? Leg day?

A little bit more information on the weightlifting side of this is what I'm looking for, and I love to here the science and the reasoning behind these things, so feel free to feed me as much info as you want.

Edit: I believe I missed the whole paragraph there on weightlifting exercises, but I'd like a little bit more information as far as sets/reps that I should be doing.
 
VolcomX311

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Great post, repped!

As far as the physical needs you listed, I have all of them, but of course need more power in the lats.

I'm 6'4" and have really wide shoulders, the typical swimmer body. I even have a wingspan of 6'9". Its one of the reason the local swim club picked me up, I look like I should be a swimmer.

What you described as far as training the lactate threshold, that exactly what I do in the water. My workouts are short distance (25/50/75/100 yards) and are always at a high speed with moderate amounts of rest.

The C&J is something I plan to use in my weightlifting from now on, but I want a little bit more information on what type of weightlifting I need to do to help build up on strength and power with all of the different exercises. How many set/reps should I be doing with each exercise? It seems like a 5x5 plan is best for developing strength, but in the last couple of months before the meet I'd like to graduate from training strength to training more on power. How often do I workout with the Olympic C&J, and what other muscles should i work it with? Leg day?

A little bit more information on the weightlifting side of this is what I'm looking for, and I love to here the science and the reasoning behind these things, so feel free to feed me as much info as you want.

Edit: I believe I missed the whole paragraph there on weightlifting exercises, but I'd like a little bit more information as far as sets/reps that I should be doing.
How many weeks or months away are you from competition time? There is a progression of three phases (mesocycles) that require a tapering plan which will intentionally make your body peak right before On Season.

1st Cycle: Endurance/Hypertrophy Phase, primarily hypertrophy.
2nd Cycle: Strength Phase
3rd Cycle: Power Phase and Plyometrics.

Something about plyometrics. In sport SPECIFICITY, you train in the terrain of your sport. Sprint swimmers benefit much more with sprint swimming in a pool, then sprinting on a track. Plyometrics can't be done in pool really because it requires the presence of gravity in a lot of it's exercises to get the benefits from plyo's. However, doing plyometrics on dry land isn't the same concept or comparison as sprinting on a track as oppose to sprint swimming in a pool. Plyometrics perpetuate explosive adaption(s) and the body's stretch shortening cycle, all of which coincides perfectly with the power phase mesocycle. When you move from cycle to cycle, you train to adapt in all aspects of that cycle. Meaning, in a power phase, you relieve yourself of all endurance exercises. While in the hypertrophy phase, you are not performing ANY power movements. As a sprinter, you're primary goal is to be able to exert the highest power output and maintain it for however many "seconds" your race is. Therefore, all the cycles are ultimately performed to maximize the potential of your power cycle.

Hypertrophy phase: Accrue muscle size. Increased myofilaments (Actin & Myosin), which are your contractile proteins.

Strength Phase: Muscle size/strength, but PRIMARILY Neural Adaption(s). Maximize the neuromuscular aspects of your increased muscle size. Primarily increased motor unit recruitment, which results in more powerful contractions.

Power Phase: PRIMARILY power and explosiveness. The primary neural adaption of increased neuromuscular firing rate. Increased CNS to muscle relationship in terms of speed, coordination, explosive movements.

My key question is how long do you have until competition? This will decide the duration and efficacy of mesocycles to make you peak.
 

Soopaman

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My competition will be May 1st - May 4th this year.
 
VolcomX311

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My competition will be May 1st - May 4th this year.
This is your basic set up. 1 macrocycle, 3 part mesocycles. 4 weeks per cycle, 12 weeks total in 1 macrocycle. The way to ensure you peak right before competition, is to coordinate the start of the macrocycle to end one week prior to your first race. Why one week before competition? There is a tapering plan that will lead to your body achieving max performance-ability by the end of the macrocycle. The tapering acts as a transition to the new cycle while preventing overtraining. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be training or lifting from now until the beginning of the cycle. But I’d suggest primarily focusing on swim technique, increasing lactate threshold, VO2. Some gym work, regular bodybuilding stuff, but don’t get into your macrocycle training until the appropriate date. You don’t want to over train, which for you, would be translated into lower performance.

Here is a basic set up, I’ll offer some suggestions, some are imperative, some are simply suggestive. The imperative exercises are the motions that lay somewhere within a powerlifting movement. The over-all picture is to increase the potential of your power phase, as the ultimate objective of your training is to maximize velocity, both muscular and neural. A suggestion about the C&J. I would substitute the C&J with a Clean and Power Press. C&J consists of pulling the weight off the ground, maximally exploding at midpoint (hip/pelvic region), scarecrow (upright row) to the catch and the jerk you push the weight above your head and shoot into the tripod stance. The tripod stance isn’t necessary for you, it’s a necessity of Olympic Powerlifting Competitions, but a Power Press excites the same adaption(s). The Power Press begins at the catch position of the clean, you bend your knees and shoot the weight above your head, just like a shoulder press. Only difference is you aren’t shooting your legs out in a tripod stance.

Which exercises are imperative to the Clean/Power Press? Quit literally, everything but biceps. There are more power exercises then Clean/PP, but we’ll get into that later. The Snatch is actually the most anaerobic, but it’s not wise to do without proper instruction and an actual power lifting station with mats and bumper weights you can simply drop to the ground from the over-head position. However, one arm, dumbbell snatch is a great alternative.

Hypertrophy Phase
Frequency: 4-6 times a week
Intensity: 60-75% of 1RM
Volume: 4-6 sets; 8-12 reps
Rest: 30-90 seconds
Exercises:
1. Squats
2. Straight Leg Deadlifts
3. Leg Presses
4. Single Leg Extensions
5. Hamstring Curls

1. Bent over rows (some people prefer this as a rear delt exercise if you pull it really high, but keeping it mid to low will focus primarily on the back).
2. Lat Pull Downs
3. Decline, wide grip, straight arm pull over (barbell or two dumbbells) ** very sport specific
4. Standing, straight arm cable pull downs ** very sport specific
5. Single Db rows.

1. Military Press (smith or free weight or dumbbell Press)
2. Sitting lateral Raise
3. Sitting frontal Raise
4. Rear delt cable cross overs
5. Upright rows

1. Bench Press
2. Smith Incline Press
3. Flat Db Fly
4. Incline Hammer Press
5. Cable Fly


Strength Phase:
Frequency: 3-4 times a week
Intensity: 75-85% of 1RM
Volume: 3-4 sets; 4-8 reps
Rest: 2-3 min
Exercises:
** Anytime you make reference to “Power” it basically comes down to using a slight bend of the knees to drive with an upward momentum.

1. Squats
2. Straight Leg Deadlifts
3. Leg Presses
4. Single Leg Extensions
5. Hamstring Curls

1. Bent over rows.
2. Lat Pull Downs
3. Decline, straight arm pull over (barbell or dumbbell) ** very sport specific
4. Standing, straight arm cable pull downs ** very sport specific
5. Single Db rows.

1. Standing Power Shoulder Press
2. Standing Power Lateral Raise
3. Standing Power Frontal Raise
4. Power Upright Rows
5. Smith Machine High Bent Over Rows (hit the chest area rather then mid section and it has a strong focus on rear delts)

1. Bench Press
2. Smith Incline Press
3. Flat Db Fly
4. Incline Hammer Press
5. Machine

Power Phase
Frequency: 2-3 times a week
Intensity: 85-95% of 1RM
Volume: 2-3 sets; 1-3 reps
Rest: 4-6 min
Exercises:
1. Olympic Clean & Power Press (Olympic refers to off the ground)
2. Power Clean (Power Clean refers to dropping the weight just below the knees before the upward explosion)
3. Hang Clean (Standing fully erect is the starting point of the movement)
4. Single Arm Db Snatch (alternating arms)

Heavy emphasis on your normal sprint work in the pool.
There are a lot of applicable plyometric exercises you can do on dry land.
1. Lunge Jumps. Starting with your arms to your side, you throw your arms up and forward and using that momentum you draw your body forward, off the ground and land in a lunge, alternating your legs. This is extremely anaerobic for the upper extremities.
2. Tuck Jump and Sprints. Jump in the air high enough so you can wrap your arms around your knees. 20 tuck jumps and a 40 yard sprint. Or for you, 20 tuck jumps and sprint across the water.
3. Leap frogs, around 15-20 leaps.
4. High knee skips.
5. Sprints.

The way I do these plyo’s is I use a field or anywhere with grass really. Set a marker, whether it be a small cone or my sweater about 40-50 yards from a designated starting point. Perform my exercise to the cone, walk back and immediately start up. The rest portion is the 45-60 second walk back, and I’ll do about 3-5 sets per exercise. If you need more time to rest in order to give it your all every run through that’s fine. The goal of plyo’s isn’t to burn the max amount of calories or to get your metab in overdrive like HIIT. The goal of plyo’s is making anaerobic adaption(s). Which comes with quality of performance, not quantity of energy expenditure. It’s a performance issue, not a fitness issue.

By the end of the 12th week and your into your competition season, you’re no longer lifting to become stronger or faster, theoretically, you’re at your current peak and pushing it any further will run the risk of overtraining (in terms of sports performance in the race), but you’d still be doing the power movements to maintain your level of performance.

You don’t need to follow the information I gave you ver batum, nor is this the magic equation without an actual assessment of where you’re at, but this is a foundational guideline from a Strength & Conditioning perspective.

The 1RM stuff, the best way to judge your intensity without having to test your 1RM for each exercise, is what I’ve mentioned before. If you make a mental decision to stop at a particular rep, rather then being forced to stop as a result of a physical incapability to go on, then it’s too light. If you’re suppose to be pushing in the 12 rep range and the weight you’re using allows you to dip into 15, 16, 17 rep range, then it’s too light and vice versa. If you’re in the strength phase where your reps should be between 4-8 and you’re only pushing out 2-3, then it’s way too heavy.

If you’re an experienced lifter, meaning you’ve been bodybuilding for a number of years, then the hypertrophy and strength phase should be pretty natural and instinctual, but let me offer you a tapering plan for the power phase. I would do something like

Week 1: 3 sets 5 reps, 80% 1RM
Week 2: 3 sets 5 reps, 85% 1RM
Week 3: 3 sets 4 reps, 90% 1RM
Week 4: 3 sets 4 reps, 95% 1RM

Unless you have the luxury of being able to drop the weights to the ground, like at an actual Olympic Lift Station, I wouldn’t hoist anything over your head that you can only perform 1-3 times, or anything at all that may cause injury. I don’t know how versed you are in power lifting, so I’d rather have you make less then 100% adaption(s) injury free, then 100% potential strength/neural adaption(s) and you can’t compete, you know what I’m saying?

Plus the 1-3 rep range or more so for football players. You don't need to be quit that anaroebic and singles are generally for Power Competitors. I would also use straps, you have no performance use for rhino choking grip in swimming, and your goal here is to make power adaption(s) [velocity], not to be able to complete an official, power meet lift, so go straps if you have them.

I hope this was helpful. Let me know if you have any questions or require further clarification.
 

Soopaman

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Volcom, I really can't thank you enough. This information is very valuable to me and I'm really stoked to see how these next few months pan out. I plan to start a log soon to record my progress so I can keep track of what I'm doing and stay motivated. I'll be including everything I do in the weight room and in the pool.

Would I be able to start the macrocycle earlier if I add 1 week per mesocycle? I would start the 14th of this month with the first Mesocycle and the last one would end on April 26th, the Saturday before the meet.
 
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Volcom, I really can't thank you enough. This information is very valuable to me and I'm really stoked to see how these next few months pan out. I plan to start a log soon to record my progress so I can keep track of what I'm doing and stay motivated. I'll be including everything I do in the weight room and in the pool.

Would I be able to start the macrocycle earlier if I add 1 week per mesocycle? I would start the 14th of this month with the first Mesocycle and the last one would end on April 26th, the Saturday before the meet.
Natural mentality and reasoning is that extended training equates to better results. Which is true for fitness and bodybuilding to an extent. I myself would naturally reason that extended training would equate to higher potential for improvement. However, from a sports performance perspective, the 12 week cycle is set to prevent over training, along with peaking at a specific time (right at competition). There are always exceptions to the rules of physical capability, but because you're a sprint swimmer, which is a pretty anaerobic sport, overtraining would be much more prevalent, then say a soccer player or basketball player, or even a football player. Your sport ends quick, it's all on the line within a matter of seconds. Whereas, another sport, signs of overtrainnig may show in the form of lack of stamina deeper into the game, or lack of explosiveness, but there is a lot of room to hide it or make up for it. However, in a sprint, it's very prevalent and shows in your performance if you're 100% and it shows if you're not. Do you see where I'm getting at? Your window of performance is so short that if you are even "slightly" over trained, it'll be very detrimental. I would stick with the 12 weeks "this time," perhaps in the future you could toy with the numbers. That would be my strength & conditioning perspective.

However, in my personal, non-academic opinion. The hypertrophy phase can last as long as you want. From everything I can comprehend about the body's adaption(s) and responses to particular stimulants, it's the strength phase and especially the power phase that would have the most taxing effect on your performance. So instead of adding an extra week to each phase, just make your hypertrophy phase 6 weeks or however many weeks. The hypertrophy phase is basically just bodybuilding. Just keep your strength and power phase at 4 weeks. With that said, you may want to consider how hard you're pushing yourself in the pool if you're going to extend your macrocycle like this.

Final thing, the most important factor about Peaking, is your taper. Week 4 of your power phase should be your easiest week compared to the previous 3 weeks of your power phase. The taper allows a recovery, over-compensation effect to take place so you are peaked right at the week of competition as a result.

You can read this for clarification, it's a study on periodization (periodization is the cycle effect I've been sharing with you) done by my professor, President of the National Strength & Conditioning Association (NSCA), Dr. Lee Brown.
http://faculty.fullerton.edu/leebrown/PDF Files/Brown-Fractal Periodization.pdf
 

Soopaman

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Ok, then I'll start the hypertrophy cycle early and keep it going for 6 weeks, the other two will be 4.

I'm hitting the pool moderately hard right now, but don't have a whole lot of yardage. I'm going for more quality work right now as opposed to getting in the 5000 yard range. Usually at most I do 3000 yards, but some of that is all out sprint sets.
 
VolcomX311

VolcomX311

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Sounds good man. Be sure let me know how you do.
 

Soopaman

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I will be starting a comprehensive workout log next Monday to keep track of my progress, I'll let you know when its posted.
 

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