Clubbells for swimming/surf life saving

[Ben Waddell]

Just a thought, the other day I came across a VERY old training manual for Surf Life Saving in my Club house (so old it's no longer printed) but the thing that interested me the most is that waaaaay back when this thing was published (early nineties/late eighties I think) it suggested that for sports such as swimming, standard weight training was not considered ideal as it produced excess bulk (which combats flotation) and may also promote the growth of slow twitch muscle fibers to that of fast twitch muscle fibers resulting in a decrease in speed despite an increase in strength.

However, it suggested the use of resistance such as cables or "spear gun rubber" travelling through the plane of movement similar to that of "freestyle" (Australian Crawl). That is the pull section of the stroke underwater.

Not only this, but it also suggested that greater gains would be seen by trying to move through greater resistance faster. Obvious of course to have something that provides a greater resistance than water so that the act of travelling through water becomes easier.

My question is, would an exercise such as the Swipe (which mimics the action of paddling a surf life saving board on your knees) or Alternating Mills (which mimic freestyle to a degree) result in the same effect if you concentrated on swinging the clubs faster. That is, is swinging a club faster the same as pushing a greater resistance faster?

[rbibbs]

Ben... much as I know... there are much higher authorities... in Clubbell training, speed is more proportional to neurological sophistication, and weight is more proportional to "force". The crossover point, is where the speed is pulling the Clubbell away from you hard enough to activate your core to counterbalance it. The way I view arm-strength, is that shoulders must support arm motion, and core must support shoulder motion. Does that help, at least somewhat?

Rick

[Ben Waddell]

Kind of, but I'm not sure if I follow you exactly :( . Are you saying that by swinging clubbells faster I'll achieve neurological sophistication, but it won't necessarily result in a direct impact upon performance in an event such as board paddling. Ok. Would clubbells then be more useful for beginners in board paddling if they wanted to sophisticate the neurological patterns associated with paddling a board. That is, would performing swipes aid a beginner in learning to paddle a board faster? :?

Thanks for the suggestion! :D

[Dan Chomycia]

Ben,

I don't think that it would hurt so long as you do the exercise correctly and don't cause any joint trauma. In any activity there is a groove that you want to settle into.
The clubbell exercises help to develope functional Strength overall which will definately help to a degree but we won't know unless pioneers such as your self don't test it out and come up with some data.
You could post in the training logs your research and findings.

One of my teachers used to say, "A test is worth a thousand theories"

[rbibbs]

We may have to refer to a higher authority Ben. It's my understanding that benefits from strength-training are proportional to time-under-load, so just between us, I don't see an advantage to doing the bungee-stretch faster. That doesn't mean there might not be one, just that I don't see it. Assuming you do the same number of reps both ways, your time-under-load is shorter when you do them faster... and you may have noticed that momentum substitutes for strength in many motions... and "stroke-rate" is only one parameter in board-paddling. You know what might bring about the biggest, fastest increase in performance? (If you're not already coaching this, that is.) A big, forceful exhale coincident with the power-stroke, when your chest and abdomen are naturally contracting. Umm... let me be a little more detailed... not "forceful" as if you were diverting energy to blow air out... but more "free", no restriction, as much of an exhale as happens naturally when you're not epiglottal-stopping, trying to "brace" for the exertion (very inefficient habit, and unfortunately somewhat instinctive).

On the speed vs strength thing... howbout this... you tell US... do the bungee stretch you were describing... 50 reps as fast as you can... then 50 reps as slow as you can. Do the test again another day, and do the slow part first, to cancel the effect of rep-fatigue. Then tell us, which ones gave your arms/shoulders/lats more "pump"? I'm hypothesizing that doing them slow is harder, and more productive in terms of strength. But again, "strength" is not the only parameter in board-paddling either.

I like what Dan says, test it, discover. I picked up another "saying" along those lines: "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is."

(Incidentally, I paddled, prone and knee, for 9 years, and I doubt I ever "got it right", but that was a long time ago.)

Rick

[Ben Waddell]

Wow. I've got a lot to think about and work on now. And even more to try out. I'll be moving in a few days but after that I'm definitely going to start a training program designed around experimenting with this. I'll have to go back over my textbooks to figure out all the parameters to look at. Stroke-rate. Stroke-Volume. Race Duration versus Training Duration. I'm going to have to get stuck into this one as it's got me excited. Thanks for the help guys.

[Dan Chomycia]

Ben,

Your welcome!
Let us know if you run into any problems.