Read the link I posted on page 1. probably not much if you are 20ish. Probably a lot more when you are older and are going through natural strength decrease.

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Ian

Understand that, but are we talking about staying healthy when aging or going faster in tris. Those are two very different lifting scenarios.

No, as per the link:

The addition of a strength training program for the knee extensor muscles to endurance-only training induced a significant improvement in strength and cycling efficiency in master athletes. This enhancement in muscle performance alleviated all the age-related differences in strength and efficiency.

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Ian

You probably noticed that performance was not measured on that study. Increased efficiency doesn't mean increased performance.

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When you do your stretch/strength stuff, what are you doing? It's entirely possible that by stretching on cold muscles you are limiting the benefit and increasing the risk of injury.

John

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For tri, probably not much, if anything. If you're someone who has to do pullups or pushups in a fitness test at work - there's a benefit. If you're someone who like the appearance that resistance training helps provide - there's a benefit.

Not looking like a skinny, wimpy triathlete.

Which is not the topic of the thread, which is going faster in triathlons with weight training. But some people still seem to think the anti-weight lifting group here means you should never weight lift in your life or your body will explode. If you can make that distinction it will really help out in understanding the issues involved with the weight lifting threads.

Triathletes that don't swim at all/enough need to supplement with weight training not to look like wimpy duathletes.

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Lifting weights makes you a faster triathlete at all distances for all athletes. Period.

Argument over.

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Civilize the mind, but make savage the body.

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I agree with this, the problem is if you are actually doing any lifting it will become detrimental to your next day as soon as you do. If you are going to lift for 20 mins watching tv then that is going to be detrimental, if you are pseudolifting for those 20 mins just putting in the motions then why in the world are you doing it in the first place just rest.[/quote]

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Sorry, I should have defined what I meant by strength training (at least in terms of what I'm doing). No weights and really not even breaking a sweat. Exercises like planks or rotator cuff stuff.

Mostly trying to remind these muscles that they exist and maybe build a little strength and balance too. Final goal is to be injury free so I can SBR more.

I'm over 40 and dealing with injury prevention while still trying to get faster.

My thoughts also. Some pretty good physiques out there on many top swimmers. Mindyou I do hear that doing some weights is part of many of their programmes these days. especially if a particular weak area is identified.


The other part not touched on in all this discussion is having a strong 'core'. There are some good basic apparatus that can help build your 'core', and I find it more easy to do core strengthening at the gym as I like doing a variety of exercises to achieve it. Gyms don't just cater for weight lifting so it is an interesting mix of people in mnay gyms also.

G.

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Very good point! My warm-up is pretty brief and includes stuff that you'd do on deck before a swim. I follow that up with the strength stuff. Again, it's nothing hard core (many of the exercises are things that a previous chiro had me doing).

Since we like to support our discussions with some peer reviewed scientific data, here is the abstract of a study published this year. I bolded the take home message of the study. The question you would have to answer for yourself is whether or not weight training or resistance training in the gym would improve the contractile capacity of the muscle during a long race. You could argue that the contractile capacity is a function of neuromuscular adaptation and not a function of muscular hypertrophy obtained by weight training. Hypertrophy does not equate to a greater neuromuscular improvement.

Let the discussion commence....



In this study, we used tensiomyography (TMG) to assess muscle status immediately after an ultra-endurance triathlon. Maximal radial displacement or deformation of the muscle belly, contraction time, delay time, sustain time, and relaxation time were measured for both legs, and dependent t-tests were used to compare means between the beginning and end of the race. The 19 men assessed (age 37.9 ± 7.1 years; height 177.5 ± 4.6 cm; weight: 73.6 ± 6.5 kg) participated in the 2009 edition of the Lanzarote Ironman. Deterioration in the neural response was observed for contraction time (P = 0.008) and relaxation time (P = 0.011), with a moderate decrease in the response time (sustain time) and a loss in muscle stiffness (deformation of the muscle belly). The effect of muscle fatigue on the rectus femoris and biceps femoris was different. Barely any changes in contraction time, relaxation time, sustain time, and deformation of the muscle belly were observed, while only the contraction response time decreased to a significant extent (reduction in delay time; P = 0.003). The considerable loss in contractile capacity induced by a long-distance race was reflected in changes in the neuromuscular response and fluctuations in the contractile capacity of the muscle. These modifications, derived from a prolonged, exhausting effort, can be assessed in a simple, non-aggressive, non-invasive way using tensiomyography.

Assessment of muscle fatigue after an ultra-endurance triathlon using tensiomyography (TMG).
J. Sports Sci. 2011, 29(6), 619

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The contractile capacity is a function of neuromuscular adaptation and not a function of muscular hypertrophy obtained by weight training. Next question!

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From Mark Allen....

Strength training will help us strengthen those muscles that we generally do not use in triathlon. . I recommend strength training year round. However, I know that many athletes cannot seem to find the time to do all three disciplines and also hit the weight room. The off-season is a great time to get back on some strengthening program. It will improve your power, and help with injury prevention.

Craig Alexader.....To strengthen my body for the grueling swim, ride, and run, I regularly blast my quads and hamstrings with incline leg presses before moving on to compounds lifts like squats and power cleans for a full-body workout.

But hey, this just means they obviously don't know Paulo Sousa. If they did, they would of course stop this nonsense immediately.

Glad you chimed in SpeedCrazier1!

http://en.wikipedia.org/.../Appeal_to_authority

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You're welcome! ;-)

I see your Appeal to Authority, and I raise you by Celebrity Endorsement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/...elebrity_endorsement

Fixed it for you. Don't know about you but the fast triathletes I know don't look skinny or wimpy.

Sometimes the goal of strength training is neuromuscular adaptation, not hypertrophy.

I asked you a question, are you going to reply?

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From Andy Coggan's piece "Strength Versus Power"

Craig Alexader.....To strengthen my body for the grueling swim, ride, and run, I regularly blast my quads and hamstrings with incline leg presses before moving on to compounds lifts like squats and power cleans for a full-body workout.

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I think Craig Alexander was just trying to get into Macca's head. :)

From the Macca Speaks Volumes Slowtwitch interview:

"My specific goals during the Winter—funnily enough this is summer in Australia and usually is from between October until January 1 for me—I work predominantly on strength and power and recently added weights to the equation. "

Actually, Craig said that in 2010 before Macca's article. Maybe Macca is lifting now to try and get in Craig's head again since he can't use "the bike is Craig's achilles heel" trick anymore.