Swimmers were historically always a bit chubbier than runners - you simply need some body fat to be a good swimmer. Then, around 10 years ago when they were racing in their special whole body neoprene-like wetsuits, this was no longer necessary because these suits provide enough uplift. After they banned them a couple of years ago swimmers had to gain weight again.
aquadiva wrote:
They are far from fat. It is those swimsuits that make them look fat. They are so very very tight that it makes their shoulders look weird and shove their muscles up. I work at a pool that has eight swimmers at the trials and none, and I mean none of them are even remotely fat. They are strong badass girls.
I don't think that the swimmers have much fat either, but for both men and women there does seem to be a lack of visible blood vessels/definition. Even a relatively un-muscular sprinter like Allyson Felix looks more defined than your typical swimmer.
Rather than the swimsuits, I suspect that it has to do with body heat and cooling.
In other words, I suspect that if your sport requires you to shed a lot of heat (like running and sprinting)--- your muscles and blood vessels are better off close to the skin surface. If your sport doesn't require you to shed as much heat (like swimming)-- it is probably not as advantageous to have everything close to the skin.
This is only a guess...
4runner wrote:
I don't think that the swimmers have much fat either, but for both men and women there does seem to be a lack of visible blood vessels/definition. Even a relatively un-muscular sprinter like Allyson Felix looks more defined than your typical swimmer.
Because Allyson Felix lifts weights. Who do you think spends more time in the weight room - Allyson Felix or an elite female swimmer? Every other sport focuses on the weight room except for swimmers.
what are you talking about wrote:
Because Allyson Felix lifts weights. Who do you think spends more time in the weight room - Allyson Felix or an elite female swimmer? Every other sport focuses on the weight room except for swimmers.
Swimmers, especially the sprinters, spend quite a bit of time in the weight room.
I cannot believe the posts here, this is astonishing.
Keith, are you kidding me? I actually respected you. Stretching decreases definition? Are you joking? Are you an educated man?
It is apparent from watching the Trials that the men have good bodies while many of the women (not all) appear chubby and undefined. This is not an insult, we know these ladies are incredibly fit athletes.
The question remains:
For a woman to spend hours a day in the pool and in the weight room (swimmers do both), how can they still be chubby? They do not all overeat, c'mon. These are Olympic Athletes we are talking about.
I know good swimmers (solid D1) that were kind of flabby. I would not call them fat by any means, and compared to a regular person, they looked good, but they had visible fat on their bodies.
These kids would spend 2-3 hours swimming every day and hit the weights at least 2 times a week.
It seems like if someone is doing cardio for 2-3 hours a day, they are going to be thin, regardless of the cardio.
Swimming is not easy, it is hard. I swim a few times a week in the summers with a Masters Program. I lose weight each summer when I do this. If it causes me to lose weight, why not these women?
All of these girls are within the healthy weight range, a couple even slightly below: (100 lbs per first five feet + 5 lbs per inch + or - 15% ) some even are of pretty marginal BMI'S ( ie 5'8 110 lbs would be considered slightly underweight (ideally should be 120 - 160 at 5'8). The distance swimmers tend to be a bit thinner than the sprinters.
Cameras do add ten pounds, and perhaps girls tend to round their weight down (not sure if they were weighed in or self-reported) Also those bathing suits make people look heavier.
Granted these are the stats from the 2000 olympics, but I'm guessing this year's team is probably pretty similar.
I'm a swimmer as well as a runner and pretty similar in height and weight to many of these girls and definitely still rather thin (although definitely more muscular than most runners.)
Consider too that these gals are swimming ~4 hours a day in pool with 70 degree water. I would think the added fat for insulation would be very useful.
what are you talking about wrote:
Because Allyson Felix lifts weights. Who do you think spends more time in the weight room - Allyson Felix or an elite female swimmer? Every other sport focuses on the weight room except for swimmers.
What are you smoking? Swimmers spend lots of time in the weight room, any elite level swimmer has weightlifting as an essential part of their training.
nope wrote:
DO NOT WANT
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01210/rebecca_adlington_1210183c.jpg
Keith, do you know what kind of chin stretches she does?
calling bs wrote:
Keith Stone, I'm calling BS, muscle flexibility and not looking ripped because of stretching- any real evidence to back this up?
Big studies, no. But anyone that knows anything about elite level swimming knows this:
a) Swimmers competing at a high level have "long" muscles that don't tend to look "buff" unless flexed. You don't need a study to tell, just looking.
b) Flexibility is critical to high performance. Maintaining a minimal surface area means you have to be able to move your arms well in front of your body and also lift them out of the water. Most elite level swimmers can touch their elbows together behind their back. You get that way by stretching out after every workout.
c) Strength is key. Coming off the blocks, walls and being able to oscillate your entire body in a dolphin streamline is not for the weak, not to mention maintaining a solid stroke throughout. I don't know a single elite level swimmer that doesn't do a lot of weight and other forms of resistance training.
d) Endurance is gained the letrun way, mileage. When I was meeting with the SwimMAC Elite swimmers in Charlotte they were averaging 10K in the pool per day. That like a runner doing nearly a marathon every day.
Personally, I saw that doing what I listed above means your body fat is in the low single digits. Sure the gals had slightly higher body fat than guys, but we're talking 4% vs 5%, not 4% vs 10%. This wasn't measured with some caliper, but in the tank with the scale.
So we know off the bat that the assumption that they have lots of body fat is incorrect. We know they train like monsters and they are strong as oxs. We also know they are very flexible.
So putting two and two together it's not some stretch (so to speak) to come to the conclusion that extreme flexibility leads muscles to look long and unbunched, and that the untrained eye unfamiliar with the sport would assume that's fat.
Yes I swam in college. I was not an elite by any means but a mediocre division I swimmer and we lifted weights twice a week. Although, unlike many swimmers, my legs are much stronger than my arms and I only bench-pressed about 100 lbs. We also did a lot of intense interval training every day. For example we would sometimes do a set of 5 x 100 yards freestyle on 1:10; I would finish each repeat around 1:05 or 1:07 at 90% effort. We did about 500 crunches each day, and circuit work with leg lifts, medicine balls, wall sitting, etc. We had about 8 practices a week (or 7 practices and a meet) totaling about 20ish miles a week; a good percentage of the swimming was at a pretty high intensity. Definitely hard work. I would not be able to push myself nearly as hard in running, as I would end up very injured with the weight bearing associated with a comparable amount of intense running.
I remember Janet Evans winning gold medals as a very slightly built skinny young teen. Then, four years later, she was an entirely different body type, probably "fat" by many of your standards," and she won again.
Keith Stone wrote:
what are you talking about wrote:Because Allyson Felix lifts weights. Who do you think spends more time in the weight room - Allyson Felix or an elite female swimmer? Every other sport focuses on the weight room except for swimmers.
What are you smoking? Swimmers spend lots of time in the weight room, any elite level swimmer has weightlifting as an essential part of their training.
Two days per week in the gym is not going to make you ripped like a female sprinter or a football player. Especially if your weight lifting consists of a lot of reps.
Wow Unbelievable wrote:
I remember Janet Evans winning gold medals as a very slightly built skinny young teen. Then, four years later, she was an entirely different body type, probably "fat" by many of your standards," and she won again.
And she is back again this year.
Whole thread is silly. Swimmers are not fat. They are not as thin as runners but in no way fat.
They do have a good deal of specific muscle strength. Their muscles do tend to be the long, lean variety in the arms and legs, but their back/shoulders are pretty ripped in a lot of cases (look at elite butterfly women).
Yes - very surprised.
