Can help for cycling, but nothing you can't achieve actually cycling. Swimming is more technique-related and the lessons will be thousands of times more beneficial. Running also doesn't really require any weightlifting. Doing core exercises will benefit all three, but actual "weightlifting" and putting on weight might not be what you want to do if you have triathlon performance in mind.

My 2 cents:
You probably need more muscles to swim and cycle fast. Most of that should come from swimming and biking though.

Will triathlon specific strength training make you faster?
Sure.

Is it a good use of time?
Well - if you do all the other essential workouts (14-25 hours per week), yes it is a good use of time.
Much more effective way of getting fast than working or shopping or hanging out with the wife.
On the other hand, if you are going to skip the core run bike and swim workouts to lift weights, it is not a good idea at all.

This.

Thanks for the input. I've just found it very hard to put on muscle doing only SBR workouts. I probably have to eat a lot more, but I've never really been able to put on lbs. Also from my limited experience, it seems that most of the guys beating me were more built, which is why I was thinking of trying to gain some.

That extra muscle mass is highly likely thanks to genetics and not time spent lifting. I am likely the biggest proponent of strength training on this entire board, but seeing as you are new to the sport and it doesn't sound like they are any signs of overtraining, if your sole goal is to improve SBR performance than the most efficient way to do this is increase your SBR training. If you want to put on some size and aren't focused solelyon improving SBR, then by all means lift some weights.

Stop2think. Not to hijack the thread, but I am in the same boat as OP. I'm 5'10" 133lbs. What core exercises/strength would you suggest for swim and bike.

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Let food be thy medicine...

When I was that skinny in high school and running competitively, I ran faster when I was lifting. My core/upper body would give out before my legs would, and when my form collapsed, my times sucked.

As a complete S/B noob, I noticed my swim workouts took less out of me when I was lifting. And it's easier to maintain a more aggressive position on the bike when lifting. But I don't have years of bike muscles, I got my first bike as an adult in January.

Also worth noting I'm not skinny any more, I started the year at 6'3" and 260+. So I'm not in the same position you are.

IMO, the best "core" exercises are raw heavy squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, etc.; there is nothing that develops the trunk like stabilizing heavy loads in an upright position. These compound movements aren't likely to directly make you faster though and do require more recovery than your more conventional plank variations. You have to decide what your goals are, putting on muscle mass is not going to directly make you faster.

You should weight train to gain strength- you may find that you don't gain weight.

This does work just based on my n=1. In high school, before triathlon, I lifted weights with the goal of becoming the best "pound-for-pound" and increased my strength considerably. My style was more to lift for a higher amount of reps than doing shorter sets of bigger loads, which meant for me that I would almost always choose the weight that allowed me to reach at least 10 reps, would then gradually build to where 15 was easy and move up. Tried to not ignore any muscle groups as I didn't want to end up like the chicken-legged guys I often saw in the weightroom. Was 150 lbs both when I started in the 10th grade and also at graduation. Not sure if this is good by actual weightlifting standards, but as I recall towards the end I was capable of doing 3 sets of 160 lbs for 15 reps on the bench press and 3 sets of 12 at 400 lbs on the leg press with my body weight of 150 lbs. As noted my weight didn't increase, I supplemented my training with cardio, usually the stairmaster and then running later on, which I always did before lifting. Now 4 years out of high school I'm still at the same weight although I don't do any lifting just push-ups and a few other things. My height is 6'1" for what it's worth, but I don't consider myself too skinny, my body composition is fine.

Strength and muscle are two different things.


Muscles make you the heavy and if you don't get vastly stronger to carry such weight it's a waste.

You want strength, power to wt ratio, high.

E.g. If you weigh 200 and can do 10 push-ups. You don't have as much strength to move you in the water as a 100 lb ten year old girl that can do 30. That's why they are faster then you not muscle size but strength per lb.

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Technique will always last longer then energy production. Improve biomechanics, improve performance.
http://Www.anthonytoth.ca, triathletetoth@twitter

If you look at the top competitors in each stand alone sport-- swim, bike, run, the trend in bulkiness (from biggest to smallest) follows the same order. Swimmers tend to be the biggest, followed by cyclists (at least semi-flat time trial type riding), and then runners. You gotta figure there is a selection process involved that favors those relative body types for each sport. I think it's gravity (buoyant>rolling>running).

I suggest strength training as an important part of everyone's training to maintain muscle balance and prevent injuries. If you have trouble putting on weight as it is, you have nothing to worry about. As a simple matter of physics, in - out = accumulation, and you can't gain mass unless you are running a caloric surplus no matter how hard you lift.

I'm 6'2", 180 lbs. I tried out 170 lbs for a while, but I felt extraordinarily weak. I was cold all the damn time, and I felt like a stiff breeze would blow me over. I don't think it made me any faster at tris, and even if it did, it wasn't worth the cost to the rest of my life. Just gotta find what's right for your body.

Endurance cyclists do not need or want increased muscle mass. Just take a look at all top cyclists.

Running and swimming is a different case but for cycling, do all your training on the bike.

Don't confuse a strong muscle which can apply a big force with a powerful muscle which can sustain a wattage.

+1 on the strength training for injury prevention. To me this is one of the best reasons to do it. As others have said, increasing performance at S/B/R will come from doing those things. The right kind of strength training will help keep you injury free so you can keep doing S/B/R training.

These are the fastest oly distance athletes in the world, or 2 of the 3 fastest anyway.

They are especially strong on the bike, and the swim, and also the run.



It is an aerobic sport
you do not need muscles

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

We are not talking about you competing as a swimmer with top swimmers. Go look at your average girls that swim at 12. They are faster than the majority of triathletes and dont have a whole lot of muscle. .....Biking tops are thin. ....Just s/b/r
for the guy who said weights and swimming was best......................I am an above FOP Tri swimmer, I could not do weghts and hit my swim workouts

This is something that I say very often to people that are thinking they need more muscle to swim fast. Of course I do know a guy that may have less muscle than a 12 year old girl, so it may be a good idea for him.

It's funny you mention the Brownlee's. What actually got me thinking I need to gain a few pounds was googling some of the best olympic triathletes. Both the Brownlee's have 5-10 lbs on me with similar height, as does Gomez...not that I'm even from the same planet as these guys athletically, and their weight is probably 100% genetics (they didn't 'bulk up' to that weight). I just thought it was interesting that many an elite triathlete seems to be 5'10-6'0 and 150-160 lbs. The other reason I was thinking of strength training/lbs gain is to prevent injuries (as someone had mentioned)...when I did competitive sports in HS and college I was injured a lot, mostly overuse type injuries, and I think my low weight didn't help.

Might not be 100% accurate either if it's just from Google or Wikipedia.

ok if you are skinnier than they are, sure, go eat a burger!

injury prevention? maybe, maybe not.
maybe you get more running injuries from weighing more?
of course you can do strength training without gaining wieght too, weight comes from food.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Hate to break it to you, but what you were doing is the exact opposite of what you should to develop strength without the side effect of increasing muscular size. Hypertrophy does not occur (to the same extent) when you are doing low repetitions with close to maximal loads, there is a reason why bodybuilders (who aren't anywhere near as strong as powerlifters, but have significantly more muscle mass) live in the 8-20reps/set range; that is optimal for hypertrophy. What you were doing was a bodybuilding routine.

If you want to get stronger and minimize hypertrophy, you need less time under tension: heavy loads, low reps, and lots of rest. You did not gain weight because of a variety of factors: you were not eating enough, genetics, it is hard to gain size when you are simultaneously doing cardio...not because your strength training routine was optimized to increase strength without hypertrophy.

For their benefit, endurance athletes should be either doing specific movements to address identified muscular weaknesses or movement pattern dysfunctions or focus on gaining strength/power through low rep/high load compound movements during the off-season; nothing could be more contraindicated than a bodybuilding routine.

I have to admit that is news to me. At the time I wasn't necessarily not trying to gain weight but it worked out that way. Puberty being mixed in probably is another factor but I don't think that would be affecting the OP now.

I know Wikipedia might not always be the best source but this is what it has to say "Strength training typically produces a combination of the two different types of hypertrophy: contraction against 80 to 90% of the one-repetition maximum for 2–6 repetitions (reps) causes myofibrillated hypertrophy to dominate (as in powerlifters, Olympic lifters and strength athletes), whereas several repetitions (generally 8–12 for bodybuilding or 12 or more for muscular endurance) against a submaximal load facilitates mainly sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (professional bodybuilders and endurance athletes)."

That summarizes what my thoughts were/my reasoning for training in such a way. I was doing some endurance stuff and playing rugby and thought that would be most suitable for what I was trying to achieve in terms of muscular development. If possible could you point me towards some literature on this?

I'm in the same boat as you are, 6'2" and 149. Started cycling from scratch this spring. I'm time crunched and only did 700 miles on the bike this summer. Always very hard. I definitely gained a little in the legs as I see more definition. Only did SBR, no weights. Stayed at the same weight, lost some more of the tiny bit of fat I still had. Meanwhile my 40k TT time went from 1:09 to 1:01. Probably half of that from equipment improvements though: wheels, tires and helmet.


I think a good plan is just to keep biking hard until it doesn't work anymore.

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Pain is inevitable. Suffering is up to you.

On the top level, most of the guys are not so "muscular", except maybe Richard Murray..
Good idea to check the top athletes of your sports and see their shape.
e.g: if you want to run a marathon: check the marathon runners ;)

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