kini62 wrote:
Mr.Pie wrote:
Heya guys,
Just wondering what kind of upperbody strength workouts do you guys incorporate into day to day training?
I haven't really done any....but I figured its the next logical step to increase my performance further.
Any pointers on where to start?
PS: I don't really go to the gym....the days I do its spin bike/treadmill, core stuff or some form of non weight lifting activity.
Did you look at the top 15 men finishers article? Does it look like any of them do strength training?
They might, but certainly not much.
Size is not indicative of whether someone is weight training or not. Take for example 2:08 marathoner Mo Farah...Double gold medalist in the 5000m and 10000m at the London Olympics. Salazar had Mo on a fairly aggressive program that incorporates a lot of core work and dairly explosive dead lifts with fairly high weight. In fairness, Mo closed the 5000m with a sub 4 mile and 53 second final 400m lap. Mo is also a 3:3x 1500m runner. The guy is the size of a tooth pick so don't confuse his size with strength. Having said that, he underachieves at the marathon, probably because he has more fast twitch muscle fiber than 2:03 marathoners, but his fast twitch which is a liability at the marathon is a massive asset when he has to close in 53 seconds.
All this to point out that you can do weight training and not gain weight and at the age group level if you keep your weight low and do enough SBR (which I do...usually more than 700 hrs per year of SBR) then it won't really hurt the endurance end much. And the benefits for overall health, neural function and anti aging are fairly decent. The forces and range of in SBR at the paces we need for tri competition are just too low to really push the the human body sufficiently in terms of sustaining one's abilities as an all round athlete/human.