Strength for Endurance Athletes

There is a difference between completing an endurance event and being able to do it well. Training constantly at one tempo during your training will ensure that you don't go any faster come race day. Improving your anaerobic system will pay dividends in improving your racing speed. Strength training is one of the keys to improving performance and reducing injury.

1. Debunking the Myth:

It's a myth that endurance athletes should train with light weights for high repetitions. In a round about way it seems to makes sense, but endurance athletes are already getting enough endurance training outside the gym! Strength is the neglected link for getting faster, reducing injury risk and improving economy. Strong athletes uses less energy with each running stride or pedal stroke as they propel themselves. Proper strength training also corrects muscle imbalances making strong athletes more resilient to injury.

The fear of most endurance athletes is that strength training will slow them down due to increased muscle bulk. A properly designed strength training program will focus on neuromuscular adaptation (the body's communication to your muscles) rather than hypertrophy (increasing muscle size).Training for strength involves heavy loads, low repetitions and perfect technique.

2. The Right Exercises

Squats, Lunges, and Deadlifts (and variations of these) are great for improving strength. These are the big bang for your buck exercises that should be included in any strength program. As these exercises are complex and use multiple joints it is important to have proper instruction, feedback, and practice before using heavy loads. In general all exercises should be executed in a neutral spine position (that is if someone put a wood dowel on your back it should make contact with your head, mid-back, and tail bone).

3. The Right Program

The needs of each athlete will vary but there are many similarities I have come across in my experience as a strength coach working with endurance athletes.  Generally this population has stronger thighs than gluts and need to double up the work on the backside to balance themselves out. Sometimes the best balanced program is an imbalanced program.

Resistance training is one component of a gym training program. It is also necessary to spend time improving muscle tissue quality, joint mobility and flexibility, core stability, and muscle power and elasticity. These components are taken care of preceding resistance training (and each component is it's own topic).


Until next time.

Train Right, Steve.




Friday, April 29, 2011 // Labels: , , , , , , // 0 comments //

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Co-owner of Sport Synergy. Strength coach, triathlete, and exercise enthusiast.

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Content is written from observation and experience of the author as well as literature review. It's a glimpse of what the author believes to be true at the time.