If I labeled myself as anything it would be a strength training purist so I get a bit worked up when definitions are misused in the context of strength training. I have read some of the more popular studies many times over and while the lifting protocol in some of the studies look legit there are red flags (big red flags) that come up. Not so much in the supposed evidence and conclusion of the purpose of the study, but that there are things going on in the short term of the study that does not line up with what I have observed from having practical experience training myself in the competitive years, training others to compete and observing hundreds over the many years (my N is not just N=1 it is more in the N=high 100's) and from studying research papers on strength training.

What I suspect may be going on in the study is the lack of the "art of coaching" and that could be potentially useful in future studies. It is if the researcher set the common protocol for strength training and I believe that protocol is correct, but there is something potentially going on that is overlooked and it would take a lot of typing here to try to explain it. What I suspect is that in the particular study is not "heavy strength" training and is potentially light to moderate weight training. The definition does make a huge difference if heavy was actually light.

I recently attempted to write down my thoughts on this topic on my blog, but I am not a great writer.

The other thing is watching forum discussions on definitions of strength training and as they play out people are talking about all sorts of things and they label a lot of things they do off the bike as "strength training" when in fact it is not truly strength training. I am not trying to criticize any type of program because there are many beneficial training systems or practices. Each has its own benefit. I like all in the list below even if I do not practice any of the following, but in formal terms of progressing 1RM these are not officially known as strength training.

Yoga - is not strength training
P90X - is not formally strength training
TRX - is not formally strength training
Pilates - is not formally strength training
Body weight exercises - are not strength training
Core training - is core training :-)
Crossfit - is a form of strength and strength endurance training
Kettle bell - can be a form of strength training if the weight is increased when a great stimulant is needed.

So it is important if a research paper is presented by a forum poster as proof or evidence that there is some sort of direct performance benefit to the endurance athlete and it follows a very detailed protocol of progressing 1RM, it does not makes sense if that is presented as proof and yet the person presenting that as proof is doing yoga instead.

The following is in my summary of the blog post. It was something I saw on a forum post years ago when a guy claimed to be doing Tabatas and I thought the response from a PhD physiologist was a great response.

Quote:

It is kind of like a post I read years ago when a guy was saying he was doing Tabatas and then he laid out what he was actually doing. A noted female sports scientist responded, "You sir are not doing Tabatas. You are doing something completely different than the study. Perhaps you may be getting good results from what you have described, but do not call it Tabatas because it is not."

So yes I will admit that I have some issues with some of the studies I have read so far. In terms of cycling performance and combined strength training I have not personally seen or experienced a direct benefit from strength training in relation to cycling performance, but that is a N=1. I attempt to do both year round and I am in decent cross fit type of shape for being 54, but it is a very difficult path and managing the training load is very difficult. Now if I was doing light resistance training I believe my cycling training would be progressing better (that is a hint of what I suspect is going on in the studies claiming heavy strength training)

I don't dismiss strength training, i just feel it has little value for someone that is training 8-10 hours a week and is not maxed out on their available training time.

What is my definition of strength training?

I follow a traditional path of using a variation of the Prilepin Chart based off an estimated 1RM.

• Strength training or stimulation to the CNS occurs in that range between 80 to 100% of 1RM.
• Greater amount of muscle activation in that range and higher amount of recovery from CNS fatigue is often required compared to muscular recovery.
• In this range it typically takes several days to physically recover and there is a motivational factor that occurs when the nervous system is overloaded.

Fun reading if you are interested:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...articles/PMC4723165/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...articles/PMC5033663/

My personal experience and trying to motivate others to lift heavy again just a few days later can be a tremendous issue. Anyone claiming to be lifting in that 85%+ range of 1RM probably do not have that 1RM estimated correctly. One of the arts to coaching strength is teaching technique which leads to a better 1RM and the most challenging leading to a 1RM is fear of the heavy load. Most new lifters will think something is a maximum lift because of the amount of discomfort. Most are really not close to their true maximum effort because of those factors. Even with 35 years of lifting I do it as well and actually succumb to that fear on most of my heavy days when the weight gets that heavy. It is at a different level of mental intimidation that one has to learn to overcome to really get a decent estimated 1RM. It can mess with you so much that you really don't want to do it again for several days. When people talk of training legs 3 days a week I generally suspect they are down in a much lighter range of training, less neural fatigue and less muscle activation. That can be still beneficial for a base type level of strength, but just not the same as true strength training that is intentionally moving that 1RM. Anyway that is my definition.

n=1, non-scientific result.

This year I added a good amount of lifting, kept everything else pretty much the same. Haven't been explicitly trying to normalize training hours, but as a guy with a full-time job and a wife, I have natural constraints on training time. I do the same kinds of workouts.

This indicates I've got more power out to about 5 minutes. A lot more power out to a minute then diminishing to 5. And I've lost nothing beyond 5 minutes. And I'm not any heavier.

This would be negligible benefit to a triathlete. But as an all-purpose bike racer, this could be really good for me. Having like 30W extra for nearly a minute is huge in bike racing.

On the bike training has been similar for years. When I lift it sure seems like hours into a ride or race is when it shows for me. More of a time to fatigue thing v. absolute power thing.

Very good, but what kind of lifting in detail? That makes a huge difference in communicating on a thread. There are very many ways to approach lifting that run the full range of the force / velocity curve. Is it heavy strength training like what is suggested in some of the research papers or just a fairly respectable 60 to 70% 1RM? A lot of variations to lifting weights with different results and different impacts to recovery.

This meta-analysis seems compelling: http://wspahn.camel.ntupes.edu.tw/...202014%20Beattie.pdf

That said, I strength train because it makes me feel like a healthier and more well-rounded athlete, not because it may make me marginally faster.

There are two different issues that get mixed up in these discussions among amateur athletes.

1. Does strength training help performance in your sport/event?

2. Does strength training help you live a healthier, better life?

If you are getting paid to race, concentrate on #1 first.

If you are not getting paid, give some serious thought to #2.

This.

The OP misrepresent what the argument has been over the last 12 some years I’ve been on here. It’s never been strength training provides no benefit. It’s that instead of doing 20 mins after a workout lifting or more, Adding 4-5 miles onto every bike ride, 2-3 miles running or 1000+ yards swimming instead of 20 mins of lifting will be more beneficial to the average athlete who is training 10-15 hours a week.

No one has said it only gives the last .5 percent to pros it won’t work for me. It’s that they get that .5 percent after they maximized the time benefit on all the other sports.

The reason this always comes up is people don’t understand what the anti-lifting people have been saying for years.

If the average triathlete is running say 30 miles a week. At 10 min miles, you’re spending approx 5 hours running a week and run 1560 miles a year. Adding an hour running bumps your run training load up 20 percent. That’s huge when you’re only running 5 hours a week. You can’t replicate a 20 percent training load increase by lifting.

A mixture. Mostly pretty heavy. In the depths of the offseason Oct-Dec, I did quite a bit of the thing that rhymes with "schmosscrit". Cut my cycling from say, 14 to 8 hours, and did around 4-5 hours of that other thing per week. The workouts in the other thing were typically pretty damned heavy, particularly the "strength WOD" part of the workout. Things in the 1-5 rep range.

Now the actual racing season is approaching, I'm back up to say 13-14 hours of cycling, and 2 hours of mostly non-"schmosscrit" focussed lifting. Mostly doing squats, deadlifts, cleans. Along with some core and plyometric stuff. Still pretty heavy.

While running or biking more may be a better use of time than cutting workouts short to hit the weight room, I do think swimming should be looked at separately.

Proper stroke mechanics takes some swim specific strength. You do not need to be super strong (see 12 year old girl lapping you), but you need to have some more strength in a few key areas that is not going to show up for most people unless trained. The problem is this - unlike running or biking, you do not automatically get that work just by flailing around in the pool. Folks with good strokes can develop that strength just by swimming. Their mechanics are good enough to work the part that need to be worked as long as they get some intensity. But, with a bad stroke, you can run into a dilemma where you cannot execute a good enough stroke to really work on the strength you need to improve your stroke and go faster. The cause and effect process of swimming, getting faster, swimming harder, repeat, never gets off the ground. I do think a lot of AOS swimmers could benefit from some swim specific strength training, or at least it is worth trying it to see if it works for you.

I don't think strength is the right definition for what you're describing but either way, swimming is one of the hardest sports to do (dry land) specific strength training for that transfers to actual performance gains. That's true even for sprinting where a lot of it benefits starts and turns only. I'd bet most people who go to the gym to strength train for swimming get zero benefit because they do traditional exercises that are not nearly specific enough to the demands of swimming.

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BA coaching http://www.bjornandersson.se

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8371657


Takeaway: in-season collegiate swimmers got stronger, but not faster.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

What program gives you that chart? Very useful plot.

X2

I didn't post it but at least the last two incarnations of WKO give you a mean maximal power curve.

Eh kinda.

"No one has said it only gives the last .5 percent to pros it won’t work for me." has actually been stated to me on several occasions.

But yes another part of the argument is what you stated about the extra time. Can you back this up with evidence based research that more time improves results? I would also say that 20% increase is fine line, yes its athlete dependent but I would also say (for amateurs) that the training load balance is better to focus on then just increasing volume.

I've noticed similar results in my less than or equal to 5 minute power. I have gained some muscle weight, but thus far the increase in my power has more than offset it. My sprint and 1 minute power absolutely dwarf what I was doing previously. I can hit my previous years 5 sec max sprint while seated on the trainer.

I don't do triathlons anymore. Instead I race XC and weekly road races on mainly flat/rolling hills where weight isn't a big penalty. Having this more explosive power is certainly helpful in those sports and in my location.

What about strength training when you have, fro example, weak medial gluts that cause an imbalance in your hips. It seems like most triathletes have poor balance. I mean, the accumulative hours spent hunched in aero, the pounding out of 30 miles a week, and the reinforcing BAD mind-body connection in the pool seems to warrant the need to strengthen the stabilizing muscles.

Or is this not considered "strength training"?

This is why I do strength training. Having said that, I do the same heavy weight strength training, such as squats, deadlifts, and leg press. I've found this works way better than the body weight exercises coach gave me for years

(Quote) "the reinforcing BAD mind-body connection in the pool" (Quote)

Where did you get this from??? Should this be in pink??? I'm not aware of any "bad mind-body connection" that occurs when swimming. Au contraire, I would say swimming promotes a great mind-body connection.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

WKO4

Is that true?

If someone needs to take a corrective action for issues like you describe it may not necessarily require strength training. But that goes back to one of the OP's questions of what is your definition of strength training. I gave my perspective of that definition in post #4. Which is training intentionally to improve 1RM and is also what is used in many of the studies being presented in these discussions. This assumes the athlete is healthy and if they are not healthy or limited they may want to first take a corrective action or include a corrective action to help them get to a point of being able to perform normally.

Here is an example of me going through my own physical therapy at the tail end of a PCL tear after a cycling crash last June.


http://thecyclingaddiction.blogspot.com/...ek-19-pcl-rehab.html


I am lifting weights, but am I necessarily improving strength?

At the time of this post last October I was getting closer on the leg press to using weight that stimulates strength for me, but on hack squats and smith machine squats it was pure physical therapy trying to regain range of motion. To some of you it may look like I am strength training, but with the injured knee and still a lot of pressure from fluid I could not do a regular bar squat for lack of stability and I did not want to step back out of a squat rack with an unstable knee. Therefore I was not using weight on the smith machine squat or hack squat in this post that has any positive effect to my 1RM. It does have a positive effect in therapy to get me back to a point where I can use a training weight and it helps slow down the loss of strength from not training.

One can use resistance exercises, yoga, stretching, balance boards or a variety of other tools as corrective measures and at times it could cross into strength training. It is a fuzzy area of discussion and people often tend to use the word strengthen when talking about preventative injury training or physical therapy. IMO - there is no foul in using that term I guess. I used it in my blog post at the link above in the first sentence. Kind of hard not to use that word.

How often have I said, "He is a strong cyclist." .....ugh

At 5:15am in the Y pool, my mind is telling my body "f*** this s***" during warmup.

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"Go yell at an M&M"