Common training mistakes - strength training

Endurance athletes (e.g. runners, cyclists, triathletes…) often focus on sport-specific training and tend to overlook the importance of strength training even though they stand a great chance of injury during their career. Adding strength training into your routines can play a crucial role in enhancing performance and preventing injury.

Let’s have a look at some common strength training mistakes, endurance athletes make.

Problem

Strength training is one of those issues where most athletes go to both extremes.

They spend a lot of time, usually termed, functional training where they do light exercises on unstable surfaces in order to increase balance or exercises to correct some weaknesses (usually after an injury).

On the other end of the spectrum, some athletes avoid it altogether because they don’t see the benefit in it.

Cause

When looking at elite long distance runners or cyclists, you will see they are mostly lean and don’t seem to carry a lot of muscle mass on them. This has a lot of athletes worried. They don’t want to put on too much muscle which can hinder their performance on race day.

However, avoiding strength altogether will negatively impact how well you can execute during training sessions and races.

Symptoms

When strength training isn’t incorporated properly into a training program, athletes can get injured more often because of overuse issues. They also tend to fade more quickly at the end of a training session or race. Strength training is also linked to greater running economy which, again, puts those who avoid it into a disadvantage.

All of these symptoms can be linked to stronger athletes having little more breathing space when it comes to using a smaller portion of their maximum.

Fix

There are quite a few things endurance athletes can do to increase their strength. The most obvious one is strength training in the weight room.

As the season starts athletes start by doing various lifting exercises that include 8 to 15 repetitions. As the season progresses they slowly start increasing the weight but reduce the sets to only 3 to 4 repetitions.

The numbers of sets, reps, and weights depend on many factors like the athlete’s response to the training program, where in the season they are, the number of competitions in the near future and so on. It’s advisable to consult a coach that specializes in strength training.

Another thing that can be incorporated are explosive or power exercises. These type of exercises include jumping, plyometrics and explosive weight lifting can help increase tendon stiffness which in turn enables athletes to store and release more energy into forward motion which increases efficiency.

If you are already training 10, 15, or 20+ hours, it can be hard to incorporate dedicated strength training into your training routines. Your best solution could be to use some of your regular training sessions as a strength workout. Instead of running in the park, go for an easy trail run. You can spice up your long bike ride by choosing to go through a hilly sessions. If you are swimming a lot, use paddles to increase the amount of water you can grab and thus have to push a little harder with every stroke.

Whatever you do, try making adding more strength exercises into your training program as it will greatly increase how you will be able to perform on race day.