So the local tri season is about to finish but the majority of us are still training for events beyond the UAE over the summer months and into next season.
One of the things that endurance athletes tend to neglect at times is strength training. It’s not swimming, biking or running so it’s easy to convince ourselves that it’s not as important. So here’s a little case for it!
STRENGTH TRAINING FOR TRIATHLON
Triathlon as we all know is an endurance sport. It’s swimming then cycling then running... pretty simple. So why add strength training into your routine. The quick answer is that strength training makes your muscles stronger and stronger muscles will perform better and will last longer before fatigue kicks in. The basic difference in very simple terms between endurance training and strength training is the load exerted on the aerobic system and the level of oxygen required to perform the exercise, usually of varying degrees of repetition. Endurance training requires more oxygen and the heart and lungs to work hard to deliver this to the muscles. Strength training doesn’t (usually) place that level of stress on the heart and you can perform it with little demands on the cardio respiratory and circulatory systems. So why do strength training? If you consider strength training to be just lifting weights, which is what it typically may involve and you try to relate that back to triathlon you’d be forgiven for not seeing the connection. Lifting weights in the gym... vs lifting weights in triathlon. What do we lift exactly in triathlon? Your bike off the rack in transition maybe... it’s not quite as simple as that. Step away from thinking of weights as iron plates and bars... your body is weight. And you have to shift and carry that weight over a certain distance in triathlon. And you need strong muscles to be able to do that well, efficiently and injury free.How does strength training help exactly?
MUSCULAR ENDURANCE
have you ever found yourself reaching muscular fatigue (that leg burning sensation) before you’ve reached cardiovascular fatigue? So your muscles were hurting but you didn’t feel overly out of breath of exerted? This is where muscular endurance comes in. The more muscle you have (within reason) the stronger that muscle is, the longer it will take it to wear out!SPEED
yes strength training can lead to speed gains. Endurance training primarily relies on slow twitch muscle fibers but in strength training, with short sharp bouts of energy and power you are engaging your fast twitch muscle fibers. Now these fatigue a lot quicker than slow twitch ones do, usually 5mins is the window but the more you can train them the more accessible they will be in endurance training and racing to provide you with a burst of speed when needed and more importantly, although you can’t rely on them for too long, a major training adaptation is that they recover quicker so you can use them again, more often.MUSCULAR POWER
the amount of anaerobic energy and power needed to produce force quickly. Strength training can help by reducing the amount of effort required to reach a given power output or for the same level of effort generate a greater force. Think about going uphill on the bike or the run, think about having to speed up on the bike to overtake someone within the given legal time window that doesn’t lead to a drafting penalty. Endurance athletes still need this.LEAN MASS
endurance training burns fat, a lot of fat, but it doesn’t necessarily build lean muscle mass. Strength training can do that. A careful combination of the two can help with some weight loss and fat loss without negatively affecting performance in training and/or racing.Things to consider with Strength Training: