UKC

if so what strokes are good.

In reply to JSH:

No.

It's probably better than sitting on the sofa watching the telly, but won't improve your climbing.

In reply to JSH:

if you were a big fat bastard, it might help you lose weight. But judging by your profile photo and current level of ability, this doesn't seem to be the case!

so, no.

In reply to JSH:

I find that light swimming does stretch out tight muscles sometimes. Front crawl normally does it for my neck, shoulders and back. That's pretty useful sometimes.

But as for its usefulness in training for climbing...it's probably as useful as climbing is for swimming training.

In reply to JSH:

I'm obviously nowhere near your climbing level, but my experience is that swimming 1km front crawl every week over the past few years has massively reduced the number of soft tissue injuries I suffer, particularly pulled hamstrings, achilles etc.

It's non-weight-bearing, so maybe a kinder form of cardio than running. It's also a great way to get fit to swim in the sea or rivers, which is a lot of fun and comes highly recommended by me!

I did read an article by a Polish high altitude mountaineer (can't remember name) living in Ireland, who was preparing for the ascent of an 8,000m peak. Iirc the main training he was doing involved lots of swimming and not much else, possibly the oxygen deprivation element of front crawl is helpful?

If you start swimming for injury prevention I would suggest mainly doing front crawl, but also throwing the odd set of breast stroke and backstroke.. Good luck

In reply to maxsmith:

it definitely helps climbing - i've gone from extremely tight and sore shoulders to having no problems at all, which allows me to climb harder & longer

It gives you a good 'well balanced' muscle structure, which stops impingements etc as it strengthens the muscles you don't use for climbing

footballers don't only train for football by kicking a ball

In reply to JSH:

No. I remember a friend who studied sport saying that swimming (spending time in cool water) can actually encourage you body to store fat. So definitely not what you want.

There is even the question if any form of cardio is useful for climbing. Some say yes to a little and some say not at all.

Since we all have limited time and energy rather that waste that going swimming its much better to use it for specific climbing training. However I'd include in such training some time working antagonist muscles too to help keep your body balanced and resistant to injury.

In reply to JSH:

I all but stopped climbing for a couple of years, during which time I did a LOT of highly structured swimming training, like 4-5 kms three or 4 times per week. When I went climbing again, I found on certain routes I was better than I had ever been and on most routes I was at least as good.

I reckon if I had not swum,but put the same effort into climbing instead, I would have been really much much better the I ever had been.

In reply to stp:


Unless you're off to Scotland this winter.

This would also explain why the Brownlees are such lardarses