How far out from an A race should you stop strength training?
I do 2 sessions a week, a weights session and the other session body weight and plyometrics
Jonboy
How far out from an A race should you stop strength training?
I do 2 sessions a week, a weights session and the other session body weight and plyometrics
Jonboy
I’m sure you’ll get a few differing opinions but I think if it’s complementary to training you really don’t need to stop. Depends on the race but just skipping it for a week or two should probably be fine.
I’ll do some the week of the race. Not a lot. It’s probably more mental to keep me active. I usually do three sessions a week. But cut it back to two race week. No later in the week than Wednesday.
It depends on why you’re doing it.
If you do it because you like it, need functional strength or rehab then keep doing it up to your race
If you are doing it to be better triathlete and aren’t training 20+ hours a week then stop now and swim, bike or run more
If you are doing it to be better triathlete and aren’t training 20+ hours a week then stop now and swim, bike or run more
Didn’t you read the fittest man thread? Top Triathletes can stop training, lift for 3years to put up weight matching rich froming and not lose any performance in tri!
I think you should stop a good 2-3 years before your A race.
I won’t do any intense squats/deadlifts the week of a race.
2 points!
I think you should stop a good 2-3 years before your A race.
I think you should stop a good 2-3 years before your A race.
I disagree somewhat. It depends on your age. Come back when you are 50 and racing IM’s and you may have a slightly different response when all this aerobic training is eating into your body and general health.
To the OP, I don’t stop weight training all year. I’m not as fast as the fastest guys on ST, but I am on the start line of every race and get most of them done reasonably well (this year, 3 IM’s 4 half IM’s, 3 XC ski races, 2 running races, 1 sprint tri, 1 Olympic tri). Almost all my buddies 50+ are doing a decent amount of resistance training all year.
So the answer really is, ‘it depends’
As a general rule, if you choose to supplement your training with weights, then cut out the weights when you start your taper, or a little before. At least, that’s what worked for me when I lifted for swimming.
Two weeks.
You will probably lose nor gain strength in a 10 day period, so that would be my suggestion. I would error on the >10 day side because strength training takes a lot of recovery for the limited number of reps you probably do, which could compromise your taper.
You will probably lose nor gain strength in a 10 day period, so that would be my suggestion. I would error on the >10 day side because strength training takes a lot of recovery for the limited number of reps you probably do, which could compromise your taper.
I actually would be curious to see a well designed study to see the impact. There are some positive outcomes from resistance training that generate things like growth hormone etc whose impact might be interesting to measure as the body rebuilds during a taper. The question is how hard to lift to generate the subsequent growth hormone which may help overall body rebuilding vs how much this might tear one down.
Perhaps there is an angle where unloading on the aerobic training but increasing resistance training has a positive impact on growth hormone during the taper…by the way, this is the concept behind the intensity taper anyway…dial down on aerobic volume, and do a lot of sprints in all of your sports well above lactate threshold. I am not sure that unloading on aerobic volume alone gets one to an optimal “rebuilding of the body” during taper. The work above lactate threshold has positive effects on growth hormone generation. This can be done through sport specificity or through resistance training. At least for me, the only sport I can routinely access is running. Often during taper I cannot get to the pool or on the bike because I am on the road on biz travel. Doing run sprints to jack up growth hormone is not that safe for an older athlete, whereas lifting (even with body weight) is pretty easily done.
Likewise, after big races, I hit the weight room with upper body weights…again, for the same growth hormone generation catalyst, not so much because I want to get bigger (raced most of this year between 136 and 142 lbs anyway) but to get my body generating some of the positive hormones that will accelerate recovery…more so than sitting around. Couple that with extra sleep and it is positive cycle.
People ask me how do I recover so fast between races? My experiment is sleep more, lift weights, only do short endurance training, eat well. No long stuff between events. I just came off a cycle of 3 months with:
half IM10K race + sprint trione long training weekend (16 hours training in 48 hours) Olympic tri NationalsIronman Whistlerno eventno eventIronman Tremblantno eventno eventhalf IM (70.3 WC)
Basically been either lifting weights, recovering doing shorter endurance training with lots of intensity on my bike commutes, or run hill intervals (30-60 seconds) on steep treadmill hills and polarized 25 m sprint, 25 m cruise (repeats) in the pool. Longest ride in this period was 3 hours. Longest run was 50 min. Most importantly I feel very healthy and not dragged out which one might expect looking at the above line up. Could the results be better if I did not lift? I think so early in the “sequence” but not so later in the sequence. Of course, I don’t need to train long, because the events are the long sessions for each other.
Sami Inkanen had some really interesting points in an interview a while ago about studying what weight lifters do and applying some of the Load/recovery principles to us. My experiment of N=1 and so far I am very happy with the outcome in terms of the balance between race results and general health and being productive in my life outside of training and racing. One of my best workouts this week was 20 min treadmill run with 8x1 min 7.5 mph @ 10% grade with 1 min recovery, and then a bunch of 10 mph accelerations on the treadmill for 20 seconds each. Then hit the weights for a 10 min circuit with fairly heavy dumbells (for me). If nothing else I am enjoying this type of training and it does not take much time and the body can make some really good physiological adaptations.
By the time the 70.3 WC’s came around at the end of the cycle, I had my strongest bike (NP watts) and run legs of the year and best swim split over 2K. I felt the key was all the training above lactate threshold through all three sports and the weight training. Normally at the end of a tight sequence of racing like this, most 49 year old triathletes will feel completely flat.
Again all N=1.