swim-benches

I appreciate the distinction made by these researchers. It's reasonable that there is a difference in oxygen uptake between the swim benches and pulling or swimming.

But that wasn't the point that was to be discussed in the first paragraph above, which was less about the ability to transfer oxygen and more about neural patterning as well as anaerobic power development which might eventually manifest in aerobic fitness. The problem with swimming in terms of developing more power is in the evaluation and isolation of the muscle movements that cause propulsion. Although granted that better use of the muscles (in terms of "holding" more water for a longer or more frequent stroke) would cause a higher oxygen uptake, so would movements that had less to do with what would improve the upper body's ability to propel a swimmer. All of us agree that performance time alone doesn't isn't a sufficiently controlled measurement because a swimmer can learn to rotate better to reduce drag even if the swimmer weren't improving the propulsive power of the upper body.

This is the benefit of isolating the arms in close to the movement pattern on a swim bench. Improvements of power are isolated and real. This then increases the potential of the swimmer to perform better. We'd have to grant that the increased potential might not manifest and that there might even be less than what we would hope in terms of the ability of the swimmer to transfer this power to the whole stroke. This has been shown in studies that have found correlations that are even negative between bench press and sprint freestyle. Of course the idea of an isolkinetic swim bench is that the movements are at the speed of exercise with close to the ideal movement patterns.

Experience has told us there is a great deal of transfer however, at least on the isokinetic swim bench invented by Doc Councilman and Glen Henson. Janet Evans owned one from six years old and used it religiously at her home. Mark Spitz was among the first of Doc's swimmers to use it. Both Bob Bowman, Michael Phelp's coach, and University of Texas coach Eddie Reese told me just this month that they use the same isokinetic swim bench Doc invented in the 70's. It's because of the experience of hundreds of coaches and thousands of athletes and myself as a coach that I took an interest and improved the bench to help make it digital for more accuracy and to extend the arms to make it customizable for each swimmer and each stroke, which no other bench had ever done. I got Glen Henson to make these improvements at 81 years old because Glen had experienced the benefits of the Bench and the Leaper first hand with some many professional and world class athletes and those who train them.

What we'd like researchers to do now is test our bench to decide whether we are indeed improving the muscular power of the armstroke (and whip kick) not only in terms of the bench readouts, but in terms of the speed and power in swim events.

The important difference in isokinetics is that the movement is done at a speed in line with what will be needed by the athlete which the athlete challenges himself to get higher power and work readings at each session. The great thing is that any "slipping" of the stroke is caught in the readout, which is not the case in swimming.

There is no doubt the conclusion the researchers cited came to is true: the bench must be a supplement -- full swimming is essential to optimal success. But the bench also, we believe, gives us feedback at every movement -- which swimming does not do.

As an aside, just by observation, very poor swimmers seem to have a very high oxygen debt indeed and yet would test very poorly on the swim bench because they wouldn't be able to reach or sustain much power. Swimmers who can reach and sustain great strokes have greater power throughout their stroke length. This is the goal of the swim bench -- to isolate skills from true strength and power development. We think they do it very well and more research is needed.

Steve Friederang
Tropical Penguin