On Saturday, 11/8/14, PTC offered its clients a free strength training evaluation with our strength coach Chris Brown and his wife Alicia. Chris has been working with PTC for just about a year now and is a great strength coach. As a triathlete himself, he really understands the needs and demands of triathletes. Since the out season is now upon us, I knew now was a great time to evaluate our local clients and help to ensure that we are providing the right strength training exercises to each of them. Just like with your swim, bike, run workouts, your strength training sessions should be customized to you so that you're getting everything you can out of them. Here is a link to a little video I took during the evaluations yesterday:
Maybe I should take step back and give my thoughts and knowledge of strength training. For starters, recent research has concluded that all triathletes over the age of 35 should be doing strength training. I believe that even younger people should be doing strength training as well, but as the body ages, this becomes vital. It depends on the exercise, but we typically recommend lower rep exercises and not the tradition 15-20+ reps that some triathlon coaches recommend. The logic that these coaches use is that since we're "endurance" athletes, we need to do high rep exercises to improve our endurance. However, research has proven otherwise. We're already getting plenty of endurance work during our swim, bike, run workouts. By focusing on short, explosive reps, we should be able to get the most out of each session. Contrary to popular belief, this does NOT mean you will put on more mass and bulk up. While we are recommending low reps, we're not "Pumping Iron" like Arnold Schwarzenegger used to do. We want to push ourselves during our strength sessions, but not over do it. For example, if I set of 6 is given, the athlete should be able to complete the set of 6 and still feel like they have another 1 or 2 reps left in them. By applying this method, we are focused on injury prevention, stability, and being able to properly control our bodies. This will help us strengthen the muscles, ligaments, and tendons surrounding our muscles. We also want to incorporate in as many real movements as we can. Proper technique is critical, but by doing these real movements, we should relate the most real world benefit. Since we're almost always going straight forward when we swim, bike, and run, it is very important to work on some lateral movements and work our bodies in slightly different ways. All this should lead primarily to staying healthy and avoiding injuries, but also being able to finish our races stronger. Thanks to everyone that came yesterday. It was great to see everyone and I can't wait to see how the customized strength training plans we provide help you stay healthy and become a better athlete next season. :)