Please share what you recommend as the best way to improve fitness for example focus on volume or strength?
Focus on each individual discipline in 4-8 week spurts?
Focus on body composition over SBR. Most AG’ers could stand to lose 10-15 pounds and drop 5-10% Body Fat. Much easier to do with strength work and HIIT sessions in the off season than it is during training cycles.
Why is that? In my experience, hitting weights has always made me heavier. SBR has always made me lighter.
Off season workouts prescription will vary for each and every individual and to answer the question the right way someone would need to work with you for some time to develop a set of limiters to be addressed through the non-competitive season.
As mentioned above a large proportion of age group triathletes do have a body composition limiter. I also see a large degree of postural/movement dysfunction that can become problematic and turn into an injury which may erode consistency, this is a great time of year to clean up some of that stuff and take care of your tissues. A focus on Skill development can also be enhanced during this time period and focus areas will vary per individual. If you are an average long distance triathlete (really any distance for the most part) significant focus should be placed on improving your AEROBIC threshold and moving your lactate profile as far to the right as possible. Setting up and stressing your peripheral system to make some positive adaptations this time of year can pay huge dividends when the specificity of your training comes into play and things start to get serious.
So to sum it all up… It all depends. Hopefully you get some fun workout outs from this post and keeps you excited about the sport. If you want to truly improve “speed and efficiency” start doing a self assessment of your strengths and weaknesses or find someone to help you figure this out with you.
Strength does not always mean hitting the weights. I like to start with a heavy emphasis on core strength through Pilates and TRX suspension trainer work. If you have any room for improvement in your diet, off season is the time to focus on that too. Three days a week of strength, two days a week involving sprinting (short/fast efforts) and two off days to spend focusing on non-sporting endeavors that I miss during the training season. If I can get away and XC ski from time to time that is some really fun cross training too.
Sufferfest.
+100 on dropping weight for run speed. My best running (pace:HR ratio) was when I was at my lightest last season.
I personally found it harder to lose weight in the middle ground of training load. At really high volume weeks, I’d lose weight, but anything lighter and it was coming back on slowly. To really diet well, I need to cut carbs and overall calories. This means that I’ll have more limited glycogen stores and risk bonking during workouts with intensities over zone 1. Best workouts for weight loss… lots of slow running and LONG rides. Higher intensity stuff just makes me killer hungry… and if I’m dieting…as I heard a pro say recently “H-A-ngry”.
Thanks for the advice. Can you expand more on a body composition over sbr?. I.E ratio of fat to muscle? I am already pretty lean 160 and 6 ft.
I did my first IM last summer with no interval work at all. I had a great base, had some nice high volume weeks and most importantly did not get injured.
I have started a focus this fall on introducing some interval work in both the bike and run.
I ran a 10K last month and will do a 1/2 mary to get a few data points. I plan on doing 2 sessions per week of a longer interval session at 10k pace and a short session at 5k pace. For example, 4-5x4:00 w/2:00 recovery at 10k pace and 12x1:20 w/1:00 recovery.
If you are not used to this type of workout, back off the pace a bit and make sure you recover well between intervals. These are easy to do on a treadmill by adjusting speed and grade. Build on these and be consistent. Make sure you don’t finish completely exhausted as you should stop with a feeling that you could do more.
I will be doing the same on the bike trainer.
Keep it simple and increase speed gradually. A good way to do this is monitor HR and when she drops 5-beats, average rate for each interval, increase speed/power.
Good luck.
So, speed, efficiency, strength.
What you really want is just speed right?
More speed over the race distance. That is the goal. Simplify your life and just target aerobic fitness.
How much have you been training over the last 6 months?
Do you have time to do more?
What has the distribution of your training intensity been like?
Do you feel good psychologically and physically? Or are you worn out?
First off when you are talking about running it’s economy not efficiency. When talking about power on the bike it’s efficiency. There is no need for strength in endurance sports. You are either working on increasing aerobic capacity (fitter/faster) or you are working on getting slower and fatter.
There are a few ways to improve economy: run more miles, run longer long runs, run more frequently, run uphill(s), run fast, do plyo’s.
Efficiency doesn’t seem to be as trainable. I’d work on neurological/anaerobic efforts
Brian I am asking this because after years and years on this board, I have found in training that you are one of the most knowledgeable and practical. Your statement of not needing strength in "Endurance " sports. So this question is taking this out of the context of swim, bike and run.
I am doing Ultra’s right now. I got pulled on my last 100 miler due to not making a time cutoff. I believe my greatest limiter was strength. Now from a lack of weight work, but simply due to the steepness of the climbs. I was putting 80-100 mile weeks in but had no where to replicate the climbing. Leg strength I believe was my limiter.
So is your comment on not needing strength due to the context of s/b/r that the question was asked? Know this year I am trying to build strength through stair work. Steep incline repeats, ect…thanks
Volume.
Strength is a broad term, but also is a supplemental approach for more of a “quality of life” need or occupational need- if we’re lumping plyo’s in as strength, that would be a good approach, but that can be readily accomplished with 4-6 second all out sprints up and incline, and have good transfer to the run. If you’re in an occupation where strength is important (i.e.- leo/mil)- S&C is a must. If you’re in it for the PR and have a job that does not require the ability to ventilate someone/something with a projectile, then hit the road and do some work.
As others have said- frequency/consistency, volume, and recovery for specific disciplines. And believe me, I’m 100% for strength training and conditioning, but there is nothing that will transfer to better speed from the majority of common strength approaches out there for people to use.
Being stronger, ie being able to squat more/leg press/calf raise more &more wouldn’t have matter. basically it came down to not having the ability to maintain pace. That’s a fitness issue.
Your training wasn’t as specific as it needed to be for the demands of the event.
Ok, thanks, I agree then with the definition you just gave of squats, calf raise, ect…
Thanks for tips everyone. your insights are greatly appreciated.