You might consider adding some excercises to target the triceps to your routine. I forget where I read it, but your triceps should be able (ideally) to move 3/2 what you can with your biceps. If you have access to a cable station you could do some pulldowns/pushdowns (regular vs supinated grip), and use different handles (rope grip, single hand, pushdown bar) to hit the muscle from different angles. If you do the same exercise the exact same way you're mostley training the muscle to do that exercise/movement; switching handles, grips, dumbells v barbells etc keep the muscles guessing and gives better results.

<Imagine your favorite disclaimer here>

I agree with adding in triceps. I would be careful with the leg extension. It causes knee problems in some people (might want to research this more). I was told by several PT's (and also read this) to specifically avoid leg extensions, don't really know more about it than that. Instead, you might want to add in some single leg, leg presses, or some two up, one down leg press. These are killer, and I also find they work most of the entire leg and buttocks (at least on the machine I have been using). If you are going to do single leg, I usually do half of my two leg. For two up, one down I usually go at 75-80% of two leg, leg press (not squats). If you do the two up, one down leg press, be careful the first time, as it is very easy going up, but once you bend that single leg coming down, the weight can get away from you.

Seeing as how you are looking for endurance, maybe consider increasing the number of reps you do to something like 10-20 reps with short 30sec - 1min breaks in between each set, this may change your goal weights.

As far as goal weights go, the only one I have any reference to is for the legs. According to a PT who sees the athletes at University of Michigan, each athlete is required to take a leg strength test before they can compete. They have to be able to single leg press their own weight 15 - 20 times. I am not sure if this is after an injury, or exactly what type of equipment they are using, but it gives you a ballpark if you're interested.

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"What the mind can conceive and believe, the mind and body can achieve; and those who stay will be champions."

Just a couple thoughts.

If your primary goal is Triathlon performance you can probably live without the Dumbell curls or the Tricep specific exercises that the previous poster recommends. I don't think they will hurt, but those muscles already get a lot of work from your other exercises (Back exercises=Bicep work and Pressing type Chest/shoulder exercises=Tricep work). Of course if you want to make sure you have some good "Guns" for the beach, more power to you.

You didn't mention if you do any type of periodization for your weight training, but you may want to add a phase in late winter/early spring where you do higher reps to enhance muscluar endurance and help you combine that strength you're building now, with the staying power that you need in 1/2 IM races. Besides, I think its good to periodically exchange exercises and rep ranges as it keeps your muscles off guard and constantly forces them to adapt to new stimulus.

You've probably read it, but I think Friel's book has great weight training guidelines.

Strength coaches look at "critical" lifts as squats, deadlifts and power cleans. Those are the primary or core lifts. Vanity tokes over on the others and people are easily motivated to do biceps ,chest, lat and tricep work. The core lifts are the way hardest lifts, and three lift sets are the norm. Not saying this is what you need to do but that is probably the most correct answer to your question. G

While I am a Frank Day disciple and I do use powercranks I also believe in weight training. One thing I've learned is "iso-lateral" weight training, where you are using machines and free weights to do these exercises and balance the strength in your body, rather than train the imbalances. Most machines (Leg extension, leg press, leg curl) are not configured for iso lateral exercise, but you can still use them as such by doing one set on your right leg, one on your left, etc. I find this to work well for me.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

I'll admit that my approach is less than scientific, but I easily become bored with routine. For that reason, I think of the major muscle groupings in the body and do 1-2 exercises for each. Chest, back, ab, lower back, arms, legs, etc. That way I'm not tied to any specific machine or exercise, I can vary it up, and if the weight room is busy, get out of there a whole heck of a lot quicker.

Don't know about Goal Weight, but my routine...

Squats, deadlifts, chin ups (NOT pull downs), and dips...then core work

excercises will vary, but will focus on: quads, hams, lats/back, chest

I also use free weights whenever possible, and even dumbells, that way, if I'm performing DB Bench, if the right is weaker than the left, I discover it VERY quickly.

3x12 of whole routine = 35 minutes, and all groups are thoroughly worked/taxed for me

set/reps will change per coach's instructions, though.

Hi Tom

I use a periodized approach and primarily use the TTB system with my own modifications. You can find the whole program here:

http://www.d3multisport.com/...les/weights2003.html

Hope this helps,

Mike Ricci

www.d3multisport.com

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Mike Ricci
2017 USAT World Team Coach
USAT National Coach of the Year
Coaching Triathletes since 1992.

Mike, hope things are going well for you...

One legged squats...oh those are just awful. One legged deadlifts are terrible too.

Take care!

i would vary your number of repititions, anywhere from 8-12. If you are lifting only for triathlon, i think you may get to bulky with only 8 reps. Also, I would cut down your number of exercises a few. All I do, is a chest press, bicep curls, tricep press, squat, and some abs. This seems to work for me, but my only purpose is for triathlon. I also don't have a lot of time to lift, so this fits my limited schedule. Just, find out how much time you have, and work from there.

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"My strategy is to start out slow and then peter-out altogether" Walt Stack

I've really enjoyed reading the various posts debating even the applicability of strength training to cycling and/or triathlon. There seems to be a great weight of evidence against it, though.

Nontheless, I would add a few things.

- As regards reps, if you're looking for maximal strength gains with minimal size(hypertrophy) gains, stick with 2-3 sets of no more than 5 reps with 3-5 min rests.
- The 8-12 rep range will have a stimulating effect on muscle growth. I'm sure folks will present personal evidence to the contrary, but evidence does support me on this. High repetition(8-20) is good for building mass, low reps/heavy weights good for building strength. A strength athlete will balance both, but if you want to minimize changes in body composition, stick with low reps heavy weights.
- An exception to the above rule is if you start doing very high repetition lifts on the order of 20-100. This, then, becomes an aerobic activity and mass gains are minimized. Perhaps the best excerice to do this with is the dumbell snatch. A popular approach is this: 20 right hand, 20 left, 15 right, 15 left, 10, 10, 5, 5. This will get you doing about 100 swings. Even with a light weight like 25lbs, this is very tiring, and gives you a great all-around workout.
- For strength, use heavy weights, but never train to failure. There's a saying, "training muscles to failure teaches them to fail."
- Avoid isolation work, bicep curls, etc... Stick with lifts which utilize as many muscle groups as possible. As per a previous post, deadlift, squat, dips, pullups are all great examples. These will simultaneously work much of your body. The deadlift is arguably the best all-around lift to perform, especially if you don't have much experience. It is not as technically demanding as squatting.

I encourage you to visit www.dragondoor.com, with which I am in no way affiliated, join the discussion group, and read the excellent articles there. It is a community dedicated to no BS strength training.

Have fun.

Don't forget to stretch... I highly reccomend Yoga... Long and strong mucles = power which is essentially the end result we are all aiming for.

So get stronger but stay flexible!

If you think Yoga is BS. try going to an advanced class (most gym yoga classes kinda stink) and see how much pain they can put you through

My gym time is very limited and I figure that the 3-4 hrs long ride every weekend gives me plenty of muscular endurance. So I basically do power cleans, dead lifts only. At home 3-4 times a week I'll do core stability work on the physioball. If you can apply more power consistently over time you ride faster.

I absolutely agree, Yoga is wonderful and I'd never acccuse a serious practioner of being anything other than a serious athlete.

However, I don't think too much stretching BEFORE activities is a good idea unless that activity really needs it. The reason being that stretching actually shuts down and inhibits motor units. This is at least the case for static stretching in which you 'hold' the stretch.

This is what I've read at least.

Joe Friel's book the 'training bible' has a good section on weight lifting with the exercises and body weight percentages. One point he makes is that many exercises attempt to isolate a muscle because they're developed by body builders or people interested in muscle definition and size versus usable strength. To that end, he has some good sport specific exercises and the list is short but incorporate the a large amount of muscle. He recommends an initial phase of higher reps, 20-30 I think, followed by a higher weight lower rep phase. One thing about squats vs. leg press is you need a lot more weight on the leg press machine to match a squat since you don't have your body to lift. Platform step-ups need even less weight since you do it on one leg at a time.

General guidelines for stretching...

warm up before you stretch unless you like tearing your muscles... So in this case you should not do stretching as the first thing that you do...

What in the world do they mean by shutting down motor units? a motor unit is the muscle fibers innervated by a single neuron. the only way to "shut them down" is to either exhaust the neuro transmitter in the neuron terminal, kill the cell, or do either to the neuron supplying tha neuron, kill the muscles in that motor unit, deplete the energy supply of the muscle...

The thing that they may be referring to is an alteration of the response of the intrafusal fibers or the golgi tendon bodies which would affect the muscular reflexes which prevent you from tearing the muscle off of the bone...

The point of this blabbering is that I hae to disagree with your satement that stretching before an activity is not a good thing... and I am not sure what you mean by shutting down a motor unit

I suggest you go to the latest Outside Magazine and check out the article on slow lifting (the article is actually available online, http://outsideonline.com/...0212_bodywork_4.html). Seems that sloooow lifting of lower weights is showing much, much better results than a lot of the more complex routines we all grew up on. Moreover, those results are showing up on only about 30 minutes per session, with 1-2 sessions per week.

While lifting less weight much slower and less often for better results may seem counterintuitive, the whole concept is based on the theory that you get increased time under load, which combined with the increased rest, results in increased strength. Bike or run-specific work can then translate that new strength into power.

Under the slow lifting regimen, for example, you'd only do leg press, leg curl, chest press, lat pulldown, and abs 2x/wk for the first couple of weeks. For the next couple of weeks, you'd do one session of leg press, chest press, shoulder press, and tri extensions alternated with another session of leg curl, calf raise, lat pulldown, compound row, and biceps curl. The goal would be one long set of each exercise, with two minutes of time under load.

The flip side of the coin is that slooow lifting is very hard mentally and physically. It takes a lot of discipline to stick with; while that's a problem for a lot of athletes, triathletes probably bring more discipline to the mix in the first place, enabling them to benefit from a program like this.

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Ben H

Christian, Husband, Father, Ranger, Triathlete

Perhaps I misspoke and should have used the term 'decrease in motor unit activation'. Your question forced my to do some research, and replies from other forums are pending.

What I was referring to was a subtle suppression of the stretch reflex, through static stretching, which can be detrimental to certain activities/lifts
which require explosiveness. All the power lifts and many track and field events come to mind. This is, admittedly, an effect on peak strength performance and, as such, may have absolutely no bearing on the kind of training we're talking about here.

Here's some science:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10956367&dopt=Abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=8850574&dopt=Abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9864760&dopt=Abstract


A very good article discussing various research related to stretching is:

http://www.ups.edu/faculty/gcrowther/Misc/RBC/stretch2.shtml

Some other articles I found that discuss or refute the traditionally accepted benefits of stretching are:

http://www.ups.edu/faculty/gcrowther/Misc/RBC/stretch2.shtml
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:5z6p_lYN97oC:exercise.about.com/library/weekly/aa080497.htm+stretching+before+weightlifting&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0816.htm

In my experience, single joint exercises like biceps curls and triceps extensions are a waste of time. They only work one particular muscle, and train it to move the weight, not to perform a movement. You would be better off using multi joint exercises that train muscle groups to perform movements that closely mimic the movements of your sprt, i.e. sport specific training. If you're doing bench, curls, and triceps presses, where are your back exercises? The bench targets the triceps before it targets the chest, so that would be a multi joint exercise you should keep. A better alternative to curls would be a seated row, which uses most of the muscles of the back and trapezius, as well as the biceps, and cuts the time required.

Deadlifts use the hamstrings back, abs, glutes, and calves to a small degree. Cleans use the trapezuis, glutes, and shoulders, and develop power and quickness other types of lifting can't. Bottom line, use olympic lifts that are multi joint, keep the number of exercises small, use low reps early in the season to build maximum strength (you absolutely will not get big as long as you aren't neglecting your other training), progress to higher reps like 20 later in the season. Keep the core work, and progress to on the bike or run strength work by running hills and riding in a big gear later in the season to make the new strength work in your traiing. Hope this helps.

tommy