Thread: swiming

Originally posted by HeavyLineBacker
how thinks swimin laps for about say 10 mins is a good cardio exercise?

You will get more educated responses than this. However, swimming is great for burning calories but the muscle development is not helpful for sports. I remember my football coach despised swimming b/c it did not help on the field and actually made cuts take longer to heal.

From your name, I take it you play football, so you might want to consider this.

When you're training for sports, it is much better to follow the principle of specificity...meaning you perform whatever acts you have to on the field to maintain or improve your levels.

Since you're running on the field mostly, I'd tell you to run/jog if you wanted to do cardio, personally. It will help you more with your chosen sport. Also doing intervals because you're often going from jog to explosive run when you're playing.

Swimming is great exercise, and will burn a lot of calories...plus it's a lot harder than you think it is. But if you're training for football I don't think it's your best choice...just my .02.

HL, what you might want to do is set up an obstacle course for football. This will also help you with coordination and footwork being a linebacker. For example, go to the practice feild at your school. Take 4 cones, doesn't matter how big, and set them up in a square shape with 10 feet between each one. start behind the square off to one side. Get in your lb stance, chest out, head up feet inside, hands ready etc. Start by staying low and shuffling from the right cone to the left then dead sprint forward from that cone to the one in front of you, as soon as you reach that cone, shuffle back across to your right, while keeping your hands up. As soon as you reach the next cone, back peddle as fast as you can while under control. Have more than one station. See if you can get a tackling sled with some pads from your coach, preferably one with 3-5 different pads, the big sled. After the cones sprint over to the sled which you should position about 20 yards from the cones. Start from left to right or right to left, hitting each bag and dropping to your stomach, getting up, and hitting the next one. Next sprint to another single cone set up 20 yards away, and drop and do 15 or 20 push ups. Finally sprint 20 more yards to a station with 5 or so of those big 4 or 5 foot ball blocking pads, you know, the ones that are about a foot wide and a foot thick. Lay these flat on the ground parallel to each other and about a foot and a half apart. Start at one of them and sprint forwad, then back peddle around the the next one, then sprint forward again, weaving through the bags. Set up all these stations in a bigger square so that the last station is about 15 yards or so from the first one. Run through it twice full sprint without stopping then stop and rest for no more than 30 seconds. Do it again two time through. Do this cycle as many time as you can before you either collapse or vomit. This obstacle course makes lineman lose their lunches and linebacker huff and puff like they're riding Pam Anderson. Cardio anyone?

Supposedly for any cardiological benefit you need 20-25 minutes or more.