Why Triathletes, Cyclists and Runners should always be Strength Training
The majority of endurance athletes, which include triathletes, cyclists and runners, don’t do enough (if any) strength training. The majority of coaches in these sports will tell you to swim more, run more & bike more. There’s no doubt that you need to train the specifics of any sport to be good at that sport, but a focus on strength training will do wonders for your performance and your body!
I’ve been strength training for the last 20 years, starting in an old school bodybuilding gym when I was 14 years old. I hated running anything further than 200m when I was at school and when I joined the military at 19 I had never done any consistent running. In fact, I would never choose to do any form of running, swimming or riding myself up until about 5 years ago. Since then I’ve done marathons, Ironman’s and multi day bike races.
Being immersed in the endurance world through the many events I’ve done, I’ve seen just how little strength training is done by people who participate in these sports.
In the 2008 Olympics there were 30 World Records broken and in each olympics since then, that number has been getting lower with only 17 records broken in Paris. A majority of all the records broken in each Olympics are from swimming, cycling and long distance running events. In Paris alone, 9 records were from swimming and cycling (53%).
I believe a lot of this has to do with these sports increasing the amount of strength training they incorporate into their training. Swimmers have started to hit the gym a lot more over the last 10+ years, a sport known for doing hundreds of laps to only race 100m!
So, theres proof at the top level that doing more strength training will improve your performance but we are not at the top level, we are ‘recreational athletes’. We want to do our best at these events but other than personal pride, a 4 hour marathon and a 3:30 doesn’t change anything in our life.
So we shouldn’t be focussing all of our energy & training time on these pursuits. The biggest reason that Triathletes, Cyclists and Runners should always be Strength Training is the fact that those sports are very repetitive, they place load on certain muscles only & use very limited ranges of motion, and they will not help you build muscle (in fact, they will help you lose muscle). All of this I would consider bad for our overall health and will make you much more prone to injury.
The benefits of strength training are well known. You will be better at your sport if you build stronger, more resilient muscles. Being able to do more pull ups will help you have stronger lats for swimming. Stronger hamstrings will translate to more efficient running and so on. Strength is never a weakness!
You will get injured less if you have better joint protection by the way of stronger muscles, tendons and ligaments. Knees, hips and ankles take a beating in these sports. I’ve seen lot’s of progress doing what I would call ‘injury preventative’ strength training for those areas.
Without turning this into a psychology piece, it seems that as people get set in their career, their family life and have some stability – we search for these personal rewards and a lot of the events revolve around feats of endurance. I get it, I’ve been on this path myself for the last 5 years. It’s great, challenging and it’s been very rewarding.
But it’s been important to remember that I’m a ‘recreational athlete’. I do this for my personal gain. I know I may have been able to shave some time of the events I’ve done if I had focussed only on those sports for 6-12 months prior. But at what cost?
In 2021, I lost 15lb of muscle training for Ironman Lake Placid. This happened even with 2 strength training sessions per week and doing as minimal as possible swim, bike, run training. Imagine how bad it could have been.
And that right there is the main reason strength training should be the basis of every pursuit. It’s the basis of living a healthy life. We know that maintaining muscle mass is so important as we age and will directly relate to how well we live in our later years. We know that being strong, having control of our body in many different ranges will allow us to complete the Centenarian Decathlon.
I’ve always adopted this theory of ‘two months’ out. Functional Fitness (which is basically doing a wide variety of training) will keep me at 80% fitness across the board. Whatever event I sign up for, I know I’m only two months out. Two months of hard work, with more focus (not getting rid of 1-2 strength sessions) on the demands of that event and I can give a good showing.
I urge you to have an event that you train for at some point in life, or even something like a Misogi – but don’t ever stop strength training. There is nothing better for your health and longevity!
