Swiming for conditioning

i understand what your saying but the sportsmen that your talking about are not fighters and would most likely get their head knocked off in a boxing ring, but many atheletes in boxing, football and other high impact sports (which is closer as an activity to a historic dogfight or a pig hunt) use some kind of water training as a regular part of their training where i come from. Im not saying they get out there and just swim 20 laps and get out, they will do some swimming and then use the water for resistance in other excercises. Its only a small part of their overall training but these atheletes go out of their way to do this so there must be some benefit to their performance. The cardiovascular benifits alone would help performance in any activity not just more swimming.

 

i think swimming is a nice addition to any conditioning program. no, it's not necessary, and no, i don't think it can substitute for any other workout, but i DO think it helps add another element to good healthy exercise and can help condition muscles that would not otherwise be used in land-type activities. IMO, why not give you dog every possible advantage?

 

George Saint Pierre is one of the top fighters in the world at the moment. The type of strength you are talking about is "Isokinetic Strength" (the more force you apply the more resistance you will meet).
As you can guess from previous posts I disagree with you. I had no intention of coming back to this thread but after testing a guy today decided to. I tested a 17 year old State Champion swimmer for strength and structural balance who is going to university to play rugby. He had a 1 Rep Max on the bench press of 135lb and his 1RM on a chin up was body weight, so obviously he is very weak. I then tested upper body structual balance by testing his external shoulder rotators which even though he is weak should have been 13.25lbs for isolated rotation and 14.3lbs for retraction of the scapulae followed by ext rotation for 8 reps, his 8RM for the first was 6.25lb and for the second was 7.5lb.
We had a conversation about how him being in the pool so much and being so good at swimming had no transference to outside the pool. He agreed 100% and said that he has to stop swimming and become stronger and faster on land as the swimming not only didn`t help him but had a negative affect.

 

i guess you misunderstood me, yas. im not talking about doing swimming instead of normal land workouts. im talking about adding swimming to normal land workouts. swimming is completely unnecessary, but that doesn't mean it is going to hurt to add it in from time to time. yes, i think if the only exercise you do is swim, then you aint going to be worth a damn at land activities. that goes without saying. of course your buddy wasn't going to be any good outside of the pool, because all he ever did was swim. if he wanted to be balanced, he should have done plenty of land workouts in addition to his swimming.

 

I agree mate. Sorry, I quoted you by mistake, I meant to quote Ausdog hence the reference to GSP.

 

ah ok, lol. i was wondering!

 

i think that swimming is a good way to keep ur dog in good shape

 

yes water adds to bouyancy but water adds alot of resistance to movement. You dont get this resistance from air. When a dog is swimming all four legs are submerged in the water and moving. next time you are at the beach try throwing a punch under water and then throw a punch in air and note the difference.

The other reason swimming is good, it allows the dog to work muscles in a different way adding variety to a work out.

 

hell i just like it cuz it's fun! :-)

 

The problem i'm having is dogs tend to drink to much water (beach is 10 min away from me) and eat sand when you throw the ball! Otherwise, its a very complete workout, the only one i would do when the weather is hot and humid and the dog nevers gets hot so you can do longer workouts without the joint stress and the heat problem.

 

i have a buddy with an apbt, hes white about 50 lbs, and shredded to the bone. And boy can that dog swim haha. It's a good thing to add IMO prob burns a ton of fat after an hour of swimming haha.

 

no disrespect yas but ya dont no squat.as stated b4 swimming is a totally diff workout than weightlifting or any other land based workout.I used to be on the swim and track team and i used to box.swimming builds up the cardio better than running.once i incorperated it into my workout i was able to run longer and throw more punches.Did it make my legs stronger?no not out of the water but it helped build the stamina i needed to workout longer and harder and as a result i got stronger faster could go longer.So what that kid couldnt lift shit i Know big ass dudes that move furniture who never lift weights and swore they could lift this and that and could bench as much as me and they twice my weight.Reason being is because benching weight is diff than moving furniture.a top class palates or yoga master could hold their self in weight baring positions that a body builder could never do and not because they cant stretch. its because in their sport they dont work those muscles.

 

Im not sure of the exact numbers but it will take u a lot more time to run to achieve the same cardio workout compared to swimming.And since cardio is and should be the base of any workout youd be a fool to not take advantage if u have it.weight training and running made me stronger cardio helped me go longer wich made me even stronger and swimming is the mother of all cardio workouts. peace

 

oh 1 more thing b4 i go i meant to say those 2 friends of mine could barely lift what i was lifting at the time a yes they both were bout twice my weight at time also.

 

Well Mr. Circle thanks for telling me I don`t know squat, very nicely put.

You are wrong. Hate it when someone come`s on here throwing around insults when they do know jack shit, maybe you should stick to your day job whatever that is and i`ll stick to mine the very boring job of making athletes stronger and faster.

 

Any excercise/activity with very little to no resistance at all done for long periods of time will increase cardio. BUT to say that swimming is better cardio then running is absurd.

As for your other analogies its like you comparing apples to oranges it dont make sense lol.

 

These are my exact thoughts, sorry i couldnt put it like this myself, ElJayBee has summed it up the way i was trying to. cheers

 

But it seems like i can run a mile faster and easier than i could swim one ya know? I can run four miles non stop, not fast or anything but four miles of swimming ... i dunno man. Plus the harder you push anything in the water the more resistance it gets, so you try to swim faster will just make your muscles fatigue way faster, then say ... air would lol

 

Thats probably because you dont know how to swim good lol. To swim better and or faster you need to learn how to swim with the least amount of resistance in the water. The better your swimming technique the less effort you need to put out to reach your goal. Of course humans were never made to be water dwellers we are not stream lined like fish and or sharks in which they have virtually little to no drag/resistance at all in the water thats why they can swim so fast for long distances with little effort. A sea lion can run circles around the best olympic swimmer in the world yet will exhaust him self with in a minute or less of moving on dry land even if the air has less resistance then water lol. Get it? If not I aint explaining it anymore lol.

 

the better your running tech the faster and farther u can run.same as swimming.dont mean cause u learned propper technique that makes it less beneficial.BS. Some one point me to where anyone has ever stated that walking or running could give as good a cardio in the same amount of time as swimming. a scientist or study or something cause ive learned otherwise.Like i said i used to do all 3 sports and i can personly say what worked 4 me.To each his own though. Id suggest doing your own research cause as u can see we all feel diff about it.But like i said do your research and see if u can find a better whole body exorcise.I doubt u will.