Right off the bat, I should say I've never done 'superslow', but I've read about it. Nearly all I've read was negative though. Old saying "lift slow, lift low."

Putting that aside, as well as the overall merits of lifting for triathlon which are debatable(see previous excellent discussions) I would say that in terms of strength, you will get far more out of lifting 3 times a week for 10 minutes than once a week for 30. You can be surprised at the kind of progress you can make by doing two hard sets of 5 reps with a longish(3 min) break in between.

I'm sure you have excercises you like already, but I'd guess that ones that would be useful would include squatting, hamstring curls, and abs. Throw in some pushups and pullups for the upper body.

Have fun.

I'm not sure I'd want to be involved with something called "superslow."

Strength/resistance training is an adjunct to endurance training, which is the #1 priority in our sport. Many triathletes don't do any strength training, so anything you do is better than that. The criteria that need to be met for an effective strength training program are as follows:

1- Actions should be sport specific, e.g., squats for biking strength should be half squats with feet close together, about the distance between your pedals, if they were both able to be brought to the same rotational point at the same time.

2- Exercises should recruit the maximum number of muscle fibers. To do this, life very heavy, and/or lift explosively.

3- Convert strength to muscle endurance by doing long intervals with high resistance, biking up hills in big gears, or running up hills, or swimming against a tether.

One day a week won't give you much, but it may give as much as you need. If you're doing sprints, strength work is highly recommended. For IM, it won't help much. During the competetive season, one day a week, or two short ones are enough for most of us.

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Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
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I used to train superslow... but not once a week. It's an incredibly intense workout that when done properly, can thrash a given body part for 3-4 days once you've fully adjusted (prior to that it will thrash you for a week, guaranteed). My trainer was a former professional pro boxer, and in order to keep his weight down his upper body set consisted of one chin-up, and one dip - 60s up, 60s down and 60s down, 60s up. I did 15s reps and it killed me. I wasn't an endurance athelete back then, so my goals were very different from what they are now. But if done properly, it can be an excellent way to build a lot of strength. I wouldn't recommend doing it in season though - I'd never be able to recover enough from lifting to actually train the swim/bike/run!

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I'm going to have to side with Cuz here, too. Sport-specific is one BIG key. Lift in positions that closely mimic the sport actions that you want to improve upon. Don't forget the core exercises that help you tie it altogether into a useable force that is connected to the rest of your body. That's just ONE reason not to do leg extensions...your legs don't work that way in real life, and if you aren't careful, you really can hurt your knees. Feet close together squats are MUCH better...one legged lunges are very good, too. Just do them correctly, and you'll get good results.

Also, I think you need to do some sort of resistance work at least every 3-4 days to get the benefits. It doesn't have to be in the gym. If you do squats/lunges today, sometime in the next few days either do them again, or do a very hard hill repeat workout (biking preferred, but running is OK) or seated sprint interval workout on your bike. Same thing with lat-pulls, flys and swimming.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
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Once a week is simply not enough to build any significant strength or muscle. It's fine for maintenance assuming you had been lifting 2-3x/wk previously.

I also agree with the other posters about specificity. Tennis is an explosive sport (nothing super slow about it) so you've got to train your muscles to explode with power on demand. That's why plyometrics, done right, would be a great compliment to lifting weights.

Hire a trainer who has experiene training athletes.

I was following Friel's Triathlon Bible and was doing one weight workout per week (For the Build phase) Maybe I was doing too much load but I found it rather painful so I switched back to at least twice a week.

I won't deny the benefits of weights. I couldn't run back in December due to an injury and my physio noted I had weak hamstrings. 3 times a week I did a couple of exercises and boom, after three months recovery I'm running faster than I've ever imagined. (Knocked about 4minutes off my 5k from last year) But here's my point. My physio even suggested that I do the exercises as MUCH as possible. 3 main workouts but in between I could do a 50% of the load (3 sets of 10 reps). The point was to stimulate my muscles and I did it. I'm assuming you go to a gym for your swims. I would recommend you go do 10~20mins 3x a week and rather than just once. You could do it was a warmup to swimming (which I've found helps me a lot)

And I understand the time issue. I always feel like there's not enough hours in a day. But as ppl suggested there are a lot of ways of getting that strength workout without going to the gym. If you don't feel you're getting as much out of hill workouts/paddles, maybe its time to knock off one run session? I've dropped a lot of useless bike sessions, runs, and added the weights and some basic stretching after workouts and I find its helped me feel 100x better swimming (the times haven't changed too much since I'm pitiful anyway) and as I mentioned its had such a huge impact on my run and bike...

enough babbling - I think my opinion is this. try the weights once a week. According to Friel's book you're supposed to be doing that now anyway. You're racing now (I'm assuming) so there's no point in trying to break those strongman competition records, and depending on the results maybe you can better schedule weights workouts for the next year.

Its a matter of strength versus power. For triathlon you need strenght. Lower weight, more quick reps. Do you need to lift weights at all? After age 35 your muscle mass begins to decrease. After age 50 muscle mass decreases 6% per decade. Weight lifting has a place in any training program if for no other reason than perserving muscle mass.

I'd suggest talking to a good strength and conditioning specialist who understands function al training and can show you a few good exercises. Functional training is a buzzword that everyone uses today, but few understand. Function can easily be defined as "a normal or characteristic action of anything - a duty, utility or purpose." Function is what works. Therefore, functional training would train the body, or body area, for the movement it is intended for, or "exercise that trains a normal or characteristic action."

Functional training is not a new concept. It has been around since the beginning of time. If one wants to get better and stronger at an activity, one would instinctively rehearse the activity, or at least parts of that activity. In sports, the best functional training for a particular sport is that sport! ( i.e.: to be a better climber, you must climb) Although this is an oversimplification of the concept of functional training, it is its essence. "Functional Training trains movements, not body parts!" Functional training is a return to what is natural and effective. It integrates the best of all training methodologies in a simple safe and fun manner.


Functional training revolves around two very basic principles. First, the body never moves a single joint in isolation. Rather, it moves as a "kinetic chain", a series of joints working in cooperation with each other. Rehearsed, multi-planar movements, such as a golf swing, are engraved in our brains’ "patterns", not isolated muscles. By design, we are functionally integrated beings, not groups of isolated muscles.



The second principle of functional training describes the physical world we have to prepare our bodies for. Our environment is composed of elements such as gravity, momentum and ground contact forces. These three physical factors act upon all movement and should be considered in a training program. Functional training addresses these elements of our existence and trains the body how to utilize them to its advantage.

Here are seven criteria that I use with my clients that I train when using function: They are the basic criteria for functional training, although the explanations may vary from coach to trainer etc, the basic principles are the same.

1. Progressive– progress through gradual safe effective steps
2. Multi-planner– training must take place in all three plans
3. Specificity- activity specific to human movement
4. Velocity specific– speed and power of movements are based on activity
5. Balance dominated– patterns become reflexes
6. Integrated– acting on muscle systems, not individual muscles
7. Trains controlled chaos- life is not composed of 3 sets of 10 repetitions, so why should your training be? Variety is the spice of life!

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Jason Goldberg
FIT Multisports

I find it largely depends on the body part being trained and if it's being further stressed by other training. I've had fantastic results doing legs once a week... especially squats. When I'm going heavy and "all out" I'll be sore for at least 3 to 4 days afterwards.. throw in 5 days a week on the bike.. I'm barely able to recover with my 2 off days.

My goals include minimal upper body training.. but speaking from experience, I needed at least 3-4 weight days to gain significant amounts of overall muscle mass. I usually hit every muscle group once a week, with minimal overlap. Areas that lagged got the twice a week treatment.

Super-slow.. dunno.. but sounds like a muscle-mag gimmicky cover story to me.

mike