Pretty much the title. Curious how often everybody strength trains and their thoughts on its importance. I’m new to the sport and have been spending pretty much all my time learning and building upon the run, bike, swim that I’ve neglected strength training. I come from a weightlifting background so I feel a bit guilty about not doing any strength work because I know it will help and is important, but on the other hand will make me more sore and detract from my running / cycling? Curious to hear everyone’s thoughts
Do you strength train (lift weights, bands, calisthenics, etc.)
3 times a week, one hour per session. I alternate days with swimming, example: swim M-W-F, lift T-T-S. I don’t overthink it, and do all the basic lat/chest/ab/leg stuff. The older I get, the more I use machines. I’ve been doing it a long time, and the biggest mistake I’ve done, and see done, is serious lifting like a body builder or power lifter… and trying to look like a Chippendale model and triathlete at the same time. It doesn’t work, and can wreck your endurance disciplines. You have to find your right balance. I’ve done everything from circuit training, one rep max stuff, to 100 rep endurance stuff, to reps to failure stuff, descending sets, etc, etc. I still mix it up and do a little of everything, but for augmenting S/B/R I like 5 x 20 rep sets, using the amount of weight I could do 30 reps with, if I had to. This give me a decent workout, without cooking my muscles for tri training.
Looking back over the last 40 years, lifting has slowed me down. During time of heaviest lifting, I’ve raced the worst, but have also been injured the least, and looked my best. On the flip side, I was a skinny ass and set all my PR’s, and raced my best, during periods of no lifting whatsoever, but those periods also ended in serious injury.
Pretty much the title. Curious how often everybody strength trains and their thoughts on its importance. I’m new to the sport and have been spending pretty much all my time learning and building upon the run, bike, swim that I’ve neglected strength training. I come from a weightlifting background so I feel a bit guilty about not doing any strength work because I know it will help and is important, but on the other hand will make me more sore and detract from my running / cycling? Curious to hear everyone’s thoughts
Do you strength train (lift weights, bands, calisthenics, etc.)
What do you do?
How often (in/off-season?)
Does it affect your swim/bike/run workouts?
How has it helped you?
In season, I’ll still do 1-2 strength workouts a week.theres always some core work but most of it is body weight circuit workout type stuff to maintain strength and prevent injury. None of that has much impact on my sbr workouts as it’s not heavy stuff and not frequent.
tri off season I do more standard type lifting. Squats. Deadlifts. Pull-ups. Etc. but a lot of that is geared towards my gravel riding. More than anything I think it’s helped me stay injury free.
COVID pushed me to building the home gym I’ve wanted for years. So now I’m lifting almost every day, especially since there won’t be races to train for this year. Legs 2x a week (squats, deadlifts, lunges, bands) and upper 2-3 days a week (favorite currently is 15’ timer max rounds of 5 pull-ups, 5 dips, 10 pushups before time’s up).
Thank you Rogue Fitness for making killer products! I’ve seriously developed a love for lifting that I haven’t had time to cultivate in normal tri seasons.
Just started for the first time these past few months . I do generally 3 exercises with 3 reps at heavy weight . Mainly leg stuff then move to core workout for 20 minutes or so twice a week .
Hard to tell yet as bit to soon and no goal races have come yet but in the couple of small crits I have done my legs felt tired and the one duathlon I did I actually went faster than I have gone before on the run leg . Considering I was struggling to even hit previous pace in the run in the month leading to it and only thing that changed was I added strength workouts I anecdotally attributed it to the improvement .
Overall I’m not concerned about the crit performance as the body needed to get used to the extra workouts but generally I am sort of wondering why I have not done it sooner
I try to do some plyometrics 2 times a week. All the exercises I do are a carry over from speed skating. Lots of work from a very low position and it seems to really help with making power on a bike when you are balled up in an aero position.
I do ‘‘actual’’ strength training (5x5 heavy squats, deads, press and rows) twice a week. Usually Sunday and Wednesday. Then, on Mondays and Fridays I try to squeeze in more of the Core and band work (including things with the TRX and just general abs etc)
Sunday and Wednesday take about 40ish minutes, where the core stuff I can get done in 20 or so.
I usually try to keep the whole body relatively toned, although I’m not obsessive about it. Generally I’ll do one of the P90X series (the strength workouts only, the cardio I get from tri workouts) or Body Beast, the Beachbody videos I bought years ago, but gave me decent results.
Lately, I’m combining the BB videos into 2 days. Back and Chest on Tuesdays, Arms and Shoulders on Thursdays. It maintains some mass and doesn’t take up too much of my time. Legs I generally skip…if I don’t get it from running and cycling, I probably don’t need it.
Do you strength train (lift weights, bands, calisthenics, etc.)
What do you do?
Lifting free weights & core.
All in, 30-40’. Doing either triple or quad sets. It’s a combination of Matt Dixon’s & Scientific triathlon (tons to read).
1-2 weeks 3 x 6 reps
1 week 3 x 4 reps
1 week 3 x 5 reps
1 week 3 x 3 reps.
And then back to the start, etc.
Most of the time same exercises, with KISS approach (Keep It Simple St****d) and just trying to increase weight.
From time to time I might do some band exercises
I also started to learn how to rope jump, after reading a blog post from Brett, but this has my lowest priority.
How often (in/off-season?)
2 at minimum, 3 if time permits.
Two-three weeks before Race A, cut to 1 session. For B or C races, I simply don’t care.
Does it affect your swim/bike/run workouts?
Can’t say it either affected in a negative or positive way, but…
How has it helped you?
… my main issues were always injuries: IT band, back & shoulder pain, achilles.
After taking serious the strength part of training, aka consistency, most of the injuries disappeared (took some time though).
Now, every time I neglect the strength, “injuries” will pop up here and there so I back off a little bit from bike or run and try to re-gain my strength consistency.
I shoot for 5 days of weight training but am happy to get 2-3 most weeks. I do a mixture of CrossFit, P90X, body building, powerlifting, etc. I like it all. My wife tries to crush me with yoga and pilates. I hate core but try to do it.
Weight training to maintain a squat of around 300lbs helps my legs feel so much better. My deadlift is about the same and I like my bench around 225 for reps. I do lots of pullups and try to keep the rest between sets to a minimum. I always run after lifting if I’m running. Having a garage gym really helps with keeping the family happy but as I live in FL I do keep a gym membership so I can run on a treadmill when I feel like sleeping in or the heat is crazy stoopid.
Being able to tackle any type of physical challenge is paramount for my programming of training. I do Ultras, adventure races, long distance navigation trail hikes, and also GORUCK.
I have a few friends who have told me that I have to strength train in order to do long distance swimming. However, I really hate it - I would rather put the time in the cold water pool which is just next to the gym instead.
How does strength training help swimming? Are there any people here who are good in long distance swimming and don’t do any strength training?
TRX and planking once a week in season and 2-3 times a week in the winter. This type of workout benefits your s/b/r.
It’s important to train your stabilization/injury prevention muscles. As you get older you lose muscle mass, especially in the legs. TRX also helps with shoulder mobility.
Ditto, but I have no desire to place in my age group. I’m hoping to do tris (if races ever start again) because I like swimming, running and biking. I like the training too. If I ever got serious about it, I have no doubt that strength training would make a big difference.
Ditto, but I have no desire to place in my age group. I’m hoping to do tris (if races ever start again) because I like swimming, running and biking. I like the training too. If I ever got serious about it, I have no doubt that strength training would make a big difference.
…
The older you get the more it matters,not for placing in triathlons but for everyday life.I would suggest the less you care about placing in your age group the more time you can take away from SBR training and more time you can spend in getting stronger for life.
single leg squats 3 x 15 each side - no weight
single leg deadlights 3 x 8 each side - no weight
bear crawl, 3 x 10 forward and back
plank 3 x 30 secs plus
push ups 3 x 15 plus
theraband standing rows 3 x 15
theraband rotator cuff external and internal rotations 3 x 15
Used to do them all in one go, but now split so one day is legs and core, next is shoulders. Usually aim to do 2 x of each session during week so 4 sessions all up. I don’t like giving up big chunks of time to strength/core so this way i can easily do it in front of tv after dinner.
I’ll add weight to the single leg work once I can balance myself perfectly for all of the deadlifts. Pushups and planks increase to a max of about 30 pushups of 60 secs of planks.
neverIf I ever got serious about it, I have no doubt that strength training would make a big difference.
I have no doubt that strength training would make little difference in your speed (as opposed to swimming, biking, or running more)
To answer OP, I strength train once a week. I only do it to help maintain muscle to help avoid injury, which, helps me get faster because I can train SBR more. My legs only have so many workouts per week that cause breakdown. I honestly don’t understand how other can lift 3 times per week and still run/bike (what I can only assume is a combined 5+ times per week)