Swimming as a HIIT Workout/Cardio training for combat sports.

Discussion in 'Health and Fitness' started by Gripfighter, Feb 12, 2012.

  1. Gripfighter

    Gripfighter Sub Seeker

    is swimming good for this purpose and do you have any recommendations of how to structure this workout ?
     
  2. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    I haven't researched this at all so am just talking off the top of my head after recent swims to help with my knee problem. I did find a routine of a few lengths of front crawl with more lengths of easier strokes in between gave a pretty good cardio workout.

    That and the fact that my swimming style had deteriorated into attempting to batter the water into submission with my arms such that I was getting overtaken by ladies from the over 50's class in flowery rubber swimming caps doing breaststroke whilst casually chatting with their friends.

    MItch
     
  3. Gripfighter

    Gripfighter Sub Seeker

    Cheers for the bump mitch, hate to say it but MAP really seems to have went downhill when it comes to advice and getting Martial arts questions answered outside of "which martial art will help me become a badass, street fighting, nightclub warrior but also lead me on the path to inner piece".
     
    Last edited: Feb 13, 2012
  4. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    I think you could the the standard rules of any exercise protocol and apply them to swimming. Tabata would be pretty difficult, but you could work HIIT using a heart rate monitor the same as you would with runnning or other cardio work.

    Swimming does seem to be something that MAP has few exponents of.

    Mitch
     
  5. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    Sorry for the delay in replying to this thread (I got side tracked with other stuff and forgot about it). I was trying to find the information about comparing interval training is swimming and running and finally managed to find an article on it (I really should bookmark these things when I first see them).

    The general view is that to convert interval distances from running to swimming you divide by 4. So a 100m running sprint would become a 25m swimming sprint.

    Some suggestions for sessions can be found in the link below:

    http://www.exrx.net/Aerobic/IntervalTraining.html

    This is how I was doing my intervals when I was swimming regularly for cardio.

    Hope this helps and sorry for not posting sooner! :)
     
  6. Gripfighter

    Gripfighter Sub Seeker

    thanks
     
  7. Ular Sawa

    Ular Sawa Valued Member

    Swimming on a regular basis is also a fantastic way to keep weight down without having to go through the cut process for MMA.
     
  8. Knobhead

    Knobhead Valued Member

    what I tend to do when swimming is to crawl 2-3 lenghts and then breaststroke one (repeating the circle 8-9 times or until really tired)
     
  9. slipthejab

    slipthejab Hark, a vagrant! Supporter

    You're going to need to decide are you going for your aerobic or your anaerobic goals with swimming (which means start to get your head around your resting/max heart rate and you anaerobic threshold). Swimming isn't used much as training for fighters - could be any number of reasons... but I suspect the mechanics of it don't really lend themselves much to the fight sports. While it can be a great workout... the mechanics required to swim efficiently and therefore fast take a certain amount of time themselves to learn... perhaps most fighters aren't willing to take the time out of the ring/gym in order to learn proper swim/stroke mechanics. To really fine tune them requires a good coach. Everyone thinks they swim good until someone who truly knows how to swim takes a look. Maybe most sports are the same.

    It'll be a fun experience to give it a go. Not sure what level of swimming you are at. But for me I found that in order to get the same anaerobic intensity that I get from wind sprints or hill sprints the only way swimming I could get them would to do 50m sprints with a water to shoes transition - sprint down beach and back into water. Similar to what I do in prep for splash and dash races. Fun to try... tough... but not so sure I'd ever totally use it to replace my more traditional roadwork.
     
  10. Knobhead

    Knobhead Valued Member

    I do swimming because (mainly butterfly strokes and crawl) hinders a regular breathing which forces the body to make due with whatever air you have. this is great while preparing for something like competitions where you have 2-3 minutes of intense mayhem and 1 minute to recouperate.

    ****
     
  11. slipthejab

    slipthejab Hark, a vagrant! Supporter

    Which is exactly what I'm referring to when I say 'anaerobic'. Fight sports are anaerobic in nature primarily... something around a 70/30 anaerobic to aerobic split.
     
  12. Gripfighter

    Gripfighter Sub Seeker

    that's a very good point about how most people probably aren't even skilled enough swimmers to actually be able to get the speed you would need for a proper HIIT workout. I think im just going to visit the pool every now and then for its injury prevention and flexibility benefits (plus the fact its fun) rather than try to kill two birds with the one stone and do my HIIT training while im there. Looks like you can't beat the old exercise bike for Intervals, shame its so bloody boring.
     
  13. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    It's not about swimming speed though is it? It's about heart rate. It doesn't matter if you're cleaving the water like a shark on an attack run or thrashing around like a dhervish without actually going anywhere. As long as your heart rate hit the right levels for the right periods of time your swimming speed is irrelevant.

    mitch
     
  14. slipthejab

    slipthejab Hark, a vagrant! Supporter

    Mitch does bring up a valid point. I do tend to confuse efficient stroke and slicing through the water with a hard workout. Though in order to increase the difficulty of a swim workout many swimmers will wear a drag suit that intentionally slows them down by creating drag to increase the difficulty of the swim... ugh I can't even imagine... but anyhow it would be down to a few quick calculations of your age/weight/resting heart rate to figure out what you need to be firing at 80-85* of your max heart rate.

    Not that you can't get out of the water gasping... you can. Transitions will wreck anyone. I was blown away when I experienced just how bloody hard it is to get a pair of trainers on with my heart rate creeping towards my maximum threshold.

    So you can get wrecked. It might be worth a go... repeated short laps and check the heart rate versus what it would be on the bike. Yeah I'm not a big fan of the bike. A couple gyms I train at have these Schwinn bikes with the handles you move as well. Ugh... but boring too.

    Pretty much any day I'm looking to wreck myself I'll head out for hill sprints. I've yet to find a way to make that harder. Well I have... but a tad more dangerous.. sandbag hauls into open rough seas. I did it as a video workout... but then realized it'd end up getting people killed so I shelved it. It almost got me killed... lol. :p
     
  15. Mitch

    Mitch Lord Mitch of MAP Admin

    On the upside you'd be well drilled in dragging their carcasses into the sea to hide the evidence :D

    Mitch
     

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