you must be new here.

Generally strength training is frowned upon. That being said, I personally like it. I'm not a pro by any stretch of the imagination, and triathlon isn't my life. Shockingly, I'd like to have some muscle and not look like I belong on a commercial to end world hunger.

Dave Scott and Mark Allen have both written on this. I believe Dave Scott adopts more of the traditional weight (e.g., bench, squats, dead lift, etc.) approach, and even has a schedule for training during racing season. I'd look around for his stuff - I have an old paper book that I found in a used book store.

He hasn't picked sides yet.

Hell, I haven't either. I must admit, that my training plan overall, got a little derailed when I went on vacation in Feb and stopped lifting and never really picked it up again. But I think much of that was just the steady increase in training load catching up to me.

In a 4 season climate, it's easy to lift weights when the weather is crap outside and any type of variety is beneficial. But once it's warm outside, I have a hard time being stuck indoors with the regular weight room gorillas when I could be outside hammering out miles on the bike... which I know could use more improvement.

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TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com

There was a pretty interesting video that made the rounds here earlier, with a review of the scientific literature on this.

They found that once a week weights during the season was enough to maintain most of the benefits I believe. That is a convenient truth since the weight training is icing on the cake and the endurance training should be the focus.

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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

A good article here from Mark Allen, who I think has a good approach. http://www.xtri.com/features/detail/284-itemId.511713827.html

Good luck.

I know my peak years in tri I was the most injury free when I continued a 2x a week light program in season and 4x a week during the offseason. Can't say it made me faster, but the years I didn't keep up a routine year around I was plagued with injuries here and there. So, when injured I wasn't just slow I was on the sideline. Not injured raced my butt off all season.

I swim full time now and remember when 8k a week used to give me swim aches and injuries. Currently doing 2-3x a week dry land and just finished my first 30k week ever this morning and have not had so much as a single issue with my body in over a year in terms of swim injuries. I have barfed 2x at this dry land class it's 90 minutes of absolutely relentless core work mixed with lung searing stuff too. I seriously almost dreaded for some time last year, but the proof is in the pudding for me.

There is a balance in there somewhere and I think racing season should probably mean less weights and less frequency b/c the body is stressed enough already. In the offseason base building for me meant I could work on the other areas, more lifting and intensity.

Good luck looking forward to hearing back how your balance of activities works out!

I like wrights. Tho honestly I have been missing a session here and there as tri hours picked up... But when I can, 2x medium weight sessions a week is awesome to maintain strength. Also awesome for day to day life.

Weightlifting is a healthy activity for most people when done right. The debate about whether it is good for any specific sport is ongoing.

Exercise Physiology and Science says mostly no (it basically says that in order to have a benefit, the range and speed of motion must be close to the speed and motion intended to get stronger - so in other words, just do the sport).
However, lots of athletes an coaches offer opinions and testimonies that it does work (also there seems to be a high correlation between doing weights and avoiding injury, presumably from stronger connective tissues such as ligaments and tendons).

Good Luck.

I for one race better while I lift during the season. Not really heavy just more functional kind of exercises. Secondly, I need to carry some weight due to my job, I work as a firefighter and if I weighed 140 I'd get eaten alive. Sometimes I think STer's forget that not everybody sits behind a computer and punches a keyboard.

If I were you, I'd continue as much core work as you can do. I was always a fan of stretch cords for shoulder strength when it comes to the swim. Deadlifts work because they work multiple groups at once. I really try during race season to do exercises that incorporate multi planes at once, or multiple muscle groups together.

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When all is said and done. More is usually said than done
Ba Ba Booey

I think too much of this discussion tries to decouple aerobic performance from general health as if you can sacrifice general health to get better aerobic performance. Well, yes, you might for a very short duration of perhaps a few years. But if you are in sport for the long haul you need robust general health, and that would include eating well, good amounts of sleep, great organ function, excellent nervous system function, and both aerobic and anaerobic function. Humans are suppose to have some amount of aerobic and anaerobic function, so if one is neglected for too long it starts to decline, and from a general health angle the decline of any body function is a bad thing. So I've been lifting weights 2-5x per week 50 weeks a year since I was 16. Currently 48, and aside from a fairly bad crash three years ago setting me back, the weights have been like gold to get me through 30 seasons involving 24 Ironmans.

I don't lift weights but I do a lot of functional body weight exercises and have found it helps. Even then I don't do a lot (one leg, one core, one upper body per week) and don't do any in the 2 weeks leading up to or after a race.

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

I didn't see the video but I've personally found it to be true. I like being well defined but the endurance aspect is more important to me, so I just do upper body strength work once a week to maintain and it has worked well for several years.

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Loud pawls save lives

I don't do that at all. I used to before triathlon many moons ago so I came into the game with some upper body muscle to begin with. The answer is probably going to be: is your swim limiting factor your technique or weak muscles? For most people the answer is probably the technique.

I don't strength train. But I strengthen the core and glutes and hips regularly. One leg squats, rubber band between ankles, that type of thing. It's pretty important for maintaining proper running form and avoiding injury. Muscle imbalance between quads and abdominals or glutes may even lead to hernia.

Well said Dev. I think it came be summed up by saying that general fitness is a great thing for the body. Which goes way beyond endurance

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When all is said and done. More is usually said than done
Ba Ba Booey

I come from a powerlifting background and I'm brand new to triathlon so take my opinion with a grain of salt...

All I did was reduce volume while maintaining intensity. I lift 2/week instead of 4/week and I switched from 5x5 to 3x5 (sets x reps).

From what I've been able to find this is consistent with most of the more sensible information I've read. The general idea is that an in-season athlete should focus on maintaining maximal strength while avoiding specifically training for hypertrophy. Low reps with heavy weights and no unnecessary exercises. Think of the 20:80 rule... 20% of your effort produces 80% of your results, so ruthlessly evaluate your program and eliminate anything that isn't part of that 20%. For example, you can't really afford to do 5 sets of 5 different curl exercises for 250 reps total... so pick the 1 exercise you think is most effective for 30-50 reps total and move on. Remember that soreness isn't a measure of a workout's effectiveness and that if you're excessively sore it will negatively impact what's actually important, training for your primary sport; which in this case I assume is triathlon.

And for what it's worth, I've gone for months without lifting with only a very minor loss in strength, most of which I attribute to reduced neuromuscular efficiency and not due to muscle loss. Most new lifters seem to get paranoid that if they miss a week or two they're going to lose all their hard earned gains, but unless you're built like Steve Erkle it doesn't really work that way.

Anyway... that's my perspective as a lifter doing triathlon instead of a triathlete who's lifting, so YMMV.

Lots of good discussion here. I have whittled down from lifting five days per week to three and am going to reduce further down to two days per week. My focus will be mostly on power exercises and doing sets of 3x3 with heavy loads.

When I first started serious lifting I went from finishing 4th-5th in my age group at local races to finished 1st-3d.

I like the idea of the 20/80 rule...

I go to the gym 2-3x per week year round. I have 45min routine that includes some lifting (medium weight, 2 sets of 8-12 reps), core, stretching and PT/theraband exercises. These sessions, in and of themselves, probably do not contribute to faster times. They do, however (IMO), keep me injury free. Which in turn allows me to train with consistency, which does make me faster.

I would say cross fit is probably the best bang for your buck. Do that twice a week and you will see a lot of strength gains which will increase your ftp.

45 minutes, once a week for me has been enough to keep me strong. Might increase that to 2-3x a week during the off season. Full body routine with lots of core built into all my exercises. If I do a pull-up, I raise my knees to the bar. If I do a push-up, I do it with one foot off the ground or bring my knees to my elbows. All standing exercises are done on one leg to work on balance and stabilizing muscles. Also... TRX and balance ball included in everything.

Probably won't make me any faster, but keeps me healthy, keeps my core strong for the bike and run and my wife is happy I don't look like a scrawny triathlete suffering from anorexia or bulimia.

x2 on your routine especially the one leg stuff. But rather than do 1x per week for 45 min, why note 3x per week for 15-20 min....just cut your runs short by 5-10 min and shower faster and you can get it done in basically the same time without having to allocate a 45 min block for it...use that 45 min block for a run so now you actually ran more and did more of the strength stuff by being a bit more efficient and also getting the benefit of frequency. Also a lot of the stuff you point out can be done daily without having to take a shower.

I have set of 10 lbs dumbells in my office and sometimes, if I am on a conference call, I'll do the routine while standing on one leg at a time and doing a variety of exercises when I'm otherwise wasting time while people talk about stuff that I'm not involved with, but I have to be on the conf call for the parts that I am responsible for....sometimes, I can get 30 min of exercise right in that time slot of 60 minutes...all body weight or light dumbells on one leg. Of course, this depends on your work environment. I can close the door and blinds :-) Of course most meetings, this is not possible....just depends on the agenda and what part I have to really drive and what parts I am not required for.