Example of Strength Training for Triathletes

Dynamic effort squats for speed and power

Romanian deadlift (RDL) - the best posterior chain exercise

I really believe that. It is the best big assistance exercise for your whole posterior chain. Traps, middle back, lats, lower back, abs, glutes, hamstrings.

I found out lots of endurance athletes are quad dominant. They suffer from knee pains, strained hamstrings, lowe back chronic pain. Enter the Romanian deadlift.

Hypers for lower back? GHR for hams? Leg curls for hams? Hip extension machine for glutes? GM for lower and middle back? Nope. You do not need all these exercises, you can get all in one, the Romanian deadlift.


I personally use Romanian DL once a week for volume work. I also pull conventional the same week. Yep, pulling twice a week. I really think it is the bare minimum. With Romanian DL I do 4 heavy sets of 5-8 with roughly 50-65% of may max pull or I do 2 sets of 20 with roughly 40-45% of my max pull. I do the Romanian DL as my last exercise of the day because I am tired as hell after. The 4 set of 8 are heavy and taxing but those 2 sets of 20 are the real treat. You'll be puffing as a locomotive and the next day your hams, glutes, mid back, lats and traps should be fried. But not the lower back. I will explain this later when discussing proper form.







Set-up
Closer than shoulder width stance, shins against the bar, knees slightly bent, no belt, overhand grip. Use straps if you must. Your upper back slightly rounded (yes, it's ok), arms gripping exactly when they fall from shoulders, lower back flat (not arched, not rounded), ass waaaay back.

Pull
Brace your core, pull in air, inflate stomach incl. obliques, pack your shoulders and start pulling by rocking back even more and putting all the pressure on your hams and glutes. Lower back must not round or arch, it must remain flat during the whole pull. You do not pull the bar up, you pull back towards your body. During the whole pull, the bar grazes your shins and thighs. It is your ass that travels backwards. Once above the knees, thrust your hips forward, squeeze your glutes and mid back. The next day your hams, glutes, lats and mid-back should be sore. Your lower back might be tender from doing the static work but never sore. If your lower back is sore, you did it incorrectly. The rotation axis is in your hips, not lower back. You return back the exact same pathway and pause the plates 2-3cm (1 inch) above the ground, wait there 1 sec and pull up again for another rep. Your lats will fight like hell during this pause keeping the bar where it should be and if you do it right, your lats will be sore as hell the next day. I personally think the Romanian DL is the best lat exercise out there. Yes, I just said that.

Romanian deadlifts boost your pull and squat and pack slabs of muscle on your hams, glutes, mid back, upper back, lats. Your whole posterior chain will get stronger. No more low back pain, no more strained hams.

I do not understand why so many people treat it as a fitness exercise using 2 x 10kg plates on each side and going for an exaggerated stretch. C'mon, put some weight on the bar. If you want stronger posterior chain you have to pull heavy. Period.


Now pull some damn weight!

plantar fasciitis and how to fix it

One of the most common injuries among endurance athletes. It really sucks. I had it twice during 3 years. I read lots of athletes' stories how they stop training for many weeks, how they go to massage therapists, etc. and so on.

It is all useless. You have to understand the human body is one huge kinetic chain where all muscles are in coordination and interconnected and our body has lots of tools for compensations. If something does not work the body will find a way to compensate creating overuse and too much stress somewhere else. The evolution equipped us for survival, not athletic performance. So, your body will not care about your 10KM PB but will create too much stress in area B if you have a weakness in area A in order to compensate.

Understanding that, we now can look closer at plantar fasciitis. It usually happens after tons of running and the thick wide fascia in your foot gets painful as hell. It gets painful and inflamed. Why inflamed? Inflammation is a defensive mechanism to protect weak and overused tissue against too much stress and overuse. Your body simply does not want you to contract the tissue forcefully. The pain and inflammation will prohibit you to do that.

So if the fascia is painful; is your foot the problem? Nope. Your inflamed fascia and the pain in your foot is just the symptom, not the cause. The tendon is stressed too much and overworked, it takes too much beating. Why?

Usually because of three problems, very often all of them at the same time:

1/ your gluteus medius is weak = does not stabilize the pelvis properly

2/ your leg goes into inner rotation destroying the ideal biomechanic pattern of your run (read = weak and tight glutes and weak and tight adductors)

3/ your calves are tight and weak

Because all of the above, the fascia in your foot must do the job of the weak muscles with stabilizing the foot arch. If not, the foot arch gets a bit lower and the amortization function of the foot is worse.

What to do? Yes, you can roll the foot with a lacrosse ball but it will only help a little and not solve the problem. Strengthen your glutes, strengthen your adductors, strengthen and stretch your calves. 

Quite often, strength training is the correct answer :)

Tempo Squats

tempo squats.

3 seconds down, pause and up. fantastic exercise for all athletes. it works quads, glutes, core, adductors, hams. if you are like me and are glute / ham dominant, this lift is for you because it awakens lazy quads. bigger neuro-muscular activation as well. do as your second squat session of the week or prior your main squat session to prime quads and glutes.

Core Loaded Exercises

I see all over internet how athletes want stronger core, stiffer core, strong backs, abs, etc. Yet most of the corresponding programs advice bodyweight movements like planks, crunches, leg raises, band twists, etc. This is not ideal strength training for your core. The mechanics for building strength will never change no matter what sport you are involved in. If you want your muscles get stronger they must work against increased resistance otherwise they adapt and stop progressing. If you always do planks, 4 sets of 1min or so, you are just spinning your wheels and not getting stronger.

Core muscles are no different than any other muscles. They must work against external resistance (load) to become stronger. Bodyweight provides very little resistance, you need external loading (barbell, dumbbels, kettlebell). And you do not need high reps, actually for optimal strength building it is much better to go for lower reps and heavy loads.

We should as well remember what are the main functions of the core muscles. It is not flexion of the trunk during crunches like we see in dumb bodybuilding mags; the key functions are: supporting of the trunk, supporting against twisting and bending of the spine.

Two million years ago, people did not do crunches or sit-ups while they moved in nature; they carried and lifted heavy objects, they dragged heavy objects, they ran, they pushed, they carried stuff. The trunk was designed to be rigid and help with stabilization of the whole upper and lower body while under load.

Two great movements you can do for steel core if you are an athlete are: 1/ paused deadlift, 2/ one-arm farmer's walk.


Paused deadlift
Hugely popularized in the Western world by the greatest powerlifting coach Boris Sheiko, paused deadlift will brutally strengthen your whole middle and lower back, your ab muscles and your glutes (all super important muscles for strong core and trunk and pelvis stabilization). Perform them as a regular deadlift, stop the bar on the way up at mid-shin height, pause there for 2 full seconds and then finish the lift into lockout. Your trunk will have a natural tendency to bend under the load during the pause and your core muscles and back muscles have to work extra hard to prevent this. If your form breaks down, the load is too heavy, leave your ego at the door and lower the weight on the bar. do 4-5 sets of 3 reps with about 60-65% of your estimated max deadlift.



Source: powerrackstrength.com


One-hand farmer's walk
This one is very easy to do: take a heavy dumbbell or kettlebell and go for time or distance. Keep the other arm close to your body, do not use it as a counter-balance. You trunk will have to work extra hard in order not to bend to the loaded side. Works brutally hard everything on your side of the trunk plus front abs plus all stabilizing muscles around your hips. Plus your grip and traps and mid back. Take a medium heavy kettlebell and go for time or a very heavy dumbbell and go for several sets of a short distance. If you are a male of 80kg (180lbs) or above, you would use a 40kg (88lbs) or heavier dumbbell. Yes, it is supposed to be heavy and uncomfortable. Sorry, a 20kg dumbbell is not heavy.




You do these two exercises for 4 weeks with progressive overload, I guarantee you, your athletic performance will go up, no matter what you do.

Good luck! :-)

Triathlon Strength Training

I will probably receive my fair share of hate mail for this post but I'll risk it.

I think most of the strength training programs recommended for triathlon athletes are wrong. Low poundages, wrong intensity ranges selection, wrong off-season and in-season training, wrong exercises selection, wrong muscle groups focus.

How do I know? Before entering the triathlon world I spent 20+ years in the world of powerlifting and strength training.

For triahlon, you want strong muscles, faster muscles, more neuromuscular activation, strong tendons, all while not increasing the muscle mass because you do not want excess bodyweight when racing an Ironman.

So, how do you do that?

1/ you forcus on main multi-joint exercises which stimulate muscle coordination, work many muscle groups at the same time and increase power output: squats, deadlifts, power cleans, bench presses, heavy overhead presses, drags, carries, etc.

2/ 80-90% of the work are multiple sets of low reps in the 70-85% intensity ranges. So, if your max squat is 200 lbs (90 kgs), your main sets during squat are going to be 4-6 sets of 3 with 160 lbs. These intensity ranges have been proven over and over in the powerlifting world as the best to increase strength while moderately increasing muscle mass (or staying at the same weight class). Multiple sets of triples and doubles. These intensity ranges have been tested by the infamous powerlifting coach Boris Sheiko, who produced 40+ world champions in powerlifting and his methods influenced hundreds of thousand athletes worldwide.

3/ In triahtlon strength training, your priority should be glutes, core, hams, quads, upper back. All muscles should be trained, of course, because human body is a fantastic coordinated unit of 600+ muscles but glutes are the most powerful muscles. It is your power engine for the bike and run. If your glutes are weak and not firing properly, you are done. Core as well; if your core is weak you will not be able to hold proper position during the long bike course and during the long run.

4/ year round training. I know how most of triathletes approach strength training. From October to March. Sorry to tell you the hard truth, but unlike endurance fitness, you lose strength after 10-14 days of zero strength training. So, when you stopped strength training in March and hope your strength will last well into your summer race season; well, it won't. Now I get it, the volumes, intensities and focus on tri training in the main season are way bigger than in the off-season. But you should still do the strength training year-round. I recommend 3 strength sessions in the off season and 2 sessions in the racing season. You will not get stronger on 2 sessions a week but the strength loss is going to be minimal or you might keep all your strength gains well into your race season.

If you want to improve the strength element of your tri training; listen to powerlifting coaches, not triathlon coaches. Yep, I just said that.

Example of off-season triathlon strength training:


Day 1
squat: 3-5 warmup sets, then 5 sets of 3 with 75-80% of your training max
one-hand KB overhead press: 3 sets of 6 heavy
DB lunges: 4 sets of 6 heavy
dynamic side plank: 3 sets of 12

Day 2
deadlift: 3-5 warmup sets, then 4 sets of 3 with 75-80% of your training max
close-grip bench press: 4 sets of 4
DB farmer's walk carry: 3 trips heavy

Day 3
pause squat: 3-5 warmup sets, then 4 sets of 2 with 60-65% of your back squat (2 sec pause in the bottom position)
DB renegade rows: 4 sets of 8
Pallof press: 4 sets of 8





(pictured is a powerlifting legend of the 90's: Chuck Vogelpohl)


Stay strong! :-)