Strength training. Why is important?

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.

Melina Timson-KatchisTriathlon Coach

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:

SPECIFICITY

Just as with any training, for it work and benefit your performance in your sport it has to be specific. You have to focus on muscles that are called upon in swimming, cycling and running and the movements have to mimic this. One of the added benefits of strength training is that you can activate muscles that although should be engaging in running for example they don’t and let other bigger muscles take over. The Glutes are a good example of this. Our quads tend to be so much stronger that often our glutes don’t fire up (wake up) as they should when we run. The result, overuse of other muscles and joints and injuries. Strength training can focus in on those muscles, wake them up and help prevent injuries.

INTENSITY

This isn’t just about how much weight you can lift or move in a single movement. It’s how well you can maintain a load, move it safely and delay fatigue. And it’s ok to start with lower weights to ensure better form for example. To get the most out of it you need to be engaging the right muscles. So a good program will consider things like sets, time between sets and repetitions (or work time if using time).

TIME INVESTMENT

Lastly one of the biggest things from a practical point of view is time investment. Think about how many hours you have to dedicate to swim, cycling and running. None of us are pros. We all have to juggle this hobby of ours with work with family with other life commitments. Often adding strength into the mix it’s just a training session too far. But is it really? If you’re short on time strength training can give you added benefits. Don’t have time for an hour long run? Spend 15mins doing squats, lunges, box jumps, push ups and then run off the back of that for 15mins. The legs have been loaded to simulate the fatigue and effect of longer running. Short on time for a long bike ride. Stop your ride and do some on the spot strength training to increase the load on the legs in minimal time. If you have to drop a session every now again, think twice about dropping strength, the benefits of it in time alone will be worth it.

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