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Part 10: Post-Season Training

The Triathlete Strength Training Primer

Part 10: Post-Season Training

Prior to Christmas, we discussed what our in-season strength training goals should be and how to create workouts designed to reach them. We noted that our in-season workouts should be organized in a way that maintains our strength and power, while keeping the typical injuries that plague endurance athletes at bay. Subsequently, in part 9, I showed you how to manipulate set/rep schemes in order to prioritize maintenance, while selecting exercises that give us the most bang-for-our-buck when it comes to injury prevention.

As you may remember, the very first article of this series presented an overview of periodization. What is it, what are the components of a fully periodized training year, and why do we take the time to plan any of this out any way? If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve come to appreciate how vitally important intelligent programming is. You understand the benefits that come with properly structuring your strength training, and have come to see some of the holes in your current plan.

Our Journey So Far…

We’ve journeyed through the off-season, entered the pre-season with relentless motivation for our sport and training, and dominated our competition during our in-season races. Now it’s time to enter the final period in a fully periodized plan; the 2nd Transition Period. This phase occurs immediately following our final race of the season, and serves as a segway between our in-season and off-season training.

The 2nd Transition Period…

The 2nd Transition Period is often referred to as our “Active Rest” phase. It should last long enough to allow the athlete to completely recover from the brutal demands of the in-season. We want to encourage non-sport-specific recreational activities performed at low intensities, and it’s important to avoid intense training to allow complete physical and mental recuperation.

Our strength training should be extremely GPP-oriented, and we want to avoid performing any lifts that demand high amounts of muscular tension or CNS activation. This means cutting out much of our explosive and plyometric work, eliminating super-heavy squats and deadlifts, and crafting workouts that are fun, easy, and designed to keep you moving, increase blood flow, and get you as far away from your sport as possible.

These types of workouts should last between 2-8 weeks, depending on the length of your competitive season and the event that you compete in. Ironman racers will likely spend more time recovering then your average sprint-distance triathlete.

Oftentimes, a serious triathlete will be very reluctant to stop running, biking and swimming. They have this fear of losing the enormous “base” that they worked hard for during the past 10 or so months, and rightfully so. Cardiovascular endurance is a performance attribute that tends to diminish relatively quickly when endurance-focused workouts are neglected. This process occurs much faster then the process of losing strength (strength gain are normally associated with structural changes; a process that takes longer to reverse), but there is a silver lining. Gains in cardiovascular endurance also occur much more rapidly, and they can also be maintained to a certain degree with proper organization of your training.

2 Methods for Maintaining Cardiovascular Endurance

1. Using Strength-Based Circuits

Adding in strength-based circuits with weights are a great way to keep your heart rate at a respectable level, while also focusing on increased stability at your joints.
An example would be to perform 3 rounds of the following, while resting minimally in between exercises, and for 45-90 seconds between rounds: A1. TRX Rows, A2. 1.5 Rep Goblet Squats, A3. Tempo Push-Ups, A4. Deadbugs.

2. Implementing Other Methods of Cardio

Go for a hike! Go kayaking! Go play pick-up basketball at your local YMCA!
These are all methods of cardiovascular activity that are not triathlon-related! Not only that, these activities allows you to spend time with other people, keep you moving at a lower intensity that won’t excessively wear you out, and they’re also incredibly fun!

The Bottom Line…

At the end of the day, competitive athletes are just that; competitive. They don’t want to take the time to rest and recover, and instead want to spend their training sessions doing anything they can to get faster, stronger, and gain that competitive edge over their competition.

There exists this false idea that taking time away from your sport will only make you worse (read all about why that’s wrong here), when it may be just exactly what you need in order to improve your performance. There’s a reason that high-level competitive athletes take weeks to lower their intensity and volume. They artfully implement these “deload” workouts that are designed to allow the body to recover and supercompensate from the past 3-6 weeks of hard training, and subsequently hit their next cycle with increased vigor and motivation.

What you need to realize as a competitive endurance athlete is that this period of training (the 2nd Transition Period) plays a crucial role in preparing you for a successful next season. This is the king of all deloads; a period of time that allows your body to FULLY RECOVER, and prepare itself for another intense season. You shouldn’t be worried about maintaining your peak condition, because the time to peak is before your race, not during the off-season. The entire process of periodization is meant to do just that; peak you for competition.

In conclusions: After your season, REST. It’s only going to help you in the end.

The Triathlete Strength Training Primer

Part 1: An Intro to Periodization - Seeing the Bigger Picture Part 2: The Repetition Maximum Continuum Part 3: The Preparatory Period a.ka. the Off-Season Part 4: Off-Season Periodization Part 5: Off-Season Periodization, cont. Part 6: The First Transition Period Part 7: The First Transition Period, cont. Part 8: The Competition Period - In-Season Strength Training Part 9: In-Season Template Part 10: Post- Season Training

Sarah Walls 12/31/14 Sarah Walls 12/31/14

The Lifts of 2014

One question I like to ask people is “What is your favorite exercise?” You never know what kind of answer you might get. Some people might reply that they really love working out with a Shake Weight (conversation ends there) while others may tell you it’s a toss-up between mixed grip pulls or snatch grip deadlifts. I wish I could say there was a cool psychological theory that I was trying to uncover when asking this question but it’s i'm usually just wondering. Although you, the reader didn’t ask, the year is coming to a close and I want to tell you about a couple of my favorite exercises that I had the honor to perform a set of this year. It was tough for me to compile this list because I tried a lot of different exercises this year. Some of these exercises are American classics like cheeseburgers (or cheesesteaks) and some of these exercises just sounded fun so I figured I’d bang out a rep or two. So without further ado I bring you 5 fantastic exercises to try before years end. Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEBhQL1ntVo

Regardless of the implement used to perform this exercise (barbell, dumbbell, etc.) this is unilateral exercise is a classic and favorite of the masses. This exercise trains a ton of muscle in the lower extremity and even provides some active mobility work for those with shortened and cranky hip flexors. The RFE is also a great choice for athletes whose sports frequently put them in a single leg position (#anytimeyourun). Additional causes of me falling for this movement is because it’s relatively simple to perform and it can be progressed and regressed in more ways than you can shake a stick at.

Farmers Walk

http://youtu.be/qAix9MxjOk8

This is another exercise that has a lot of carryover into athletics including the obvious development of strong legs and hips. The benefits don’t stop there though as this exercise has been shown to add strength to the back, midsection, and grip strength muscles. When performing this exercise focus on taking short rhythmic steps to avoid having the weights bang into your knees or thighs with each step.

Pull Throughs

http://youtu.be/xVTkZXUOsow

The effects this exercise has on the hips, glutes, and hamstring make it and its many variations a staple of several effective training programs. Some lifters tend to reach very far through their legs and get into a ton of spinal flexion but I prefer to keep a neutral spine, get a solid hip hinge, and finish with a powerful extension of the hip and knee.

Brettzel

http://youtu.be/GopIp5ZIRPI

The brettzel, from the moment I learned it became one of my favorite exercises. This exercise has the ability to expose and attack a number of muscle groups that may be tight and cause some movement restrictions. Included in these areas are the thoracic spine, piriformis, quads, hip flexors, and glutes.

Z Press

http://youtu.be/WHx1g_9f740

It wouldn’t be right to finish off this list without an upper body exercise. With that being said I think the Z press is a very underutilized multidimensional vertical pushing movement. The exercise can be performed with a variety of tools like every other exercise featured here minus the brettzel. One thing I really like about the movement is that it is a self-limiting exercise and you aren’t able grind through it with crappy technique. This exercise requires a heavy dose of core stabilization and hamstring strength to remain upright throughout the movement. To make it even more

Go on and utilize these movements to bring you gains in what’s left of 2014.You’ll be setting off the lunk alarm in no time. Also, if you’ve taken the time to read to this point please leave a comment below with your favorite exercise or five because I really really want to know what they are.

Sarah Walls 12/29/14 Sarah Walls 12/29/14

Circuit Training

With the holidays and travel and gyms being closed, I figured regular trainees might have limited time to work out. Thus, a post from the archives on circuit training hopefully will provide a few useful ideas for training with limited time. Enjoy!

Picture this:

You got out of work later than ususal... perfect timing to hit rush hour at its height and extend your normal 20-minute commute to the gym into an all-out 45-minute crawl full of frustration.

By the time you get to the gym, you only have about 25 minutes before you need to leave.

What do you do? Do you literally throw in your towel and just go home? How can you possibly salvage a decent training session out of the train wreck that was the afternoon?

Circuit Training is waiting to save the day! Well, so are Time Turners, but us Muggles don't have access to one of those things...

What is Circuit Training?

The possibilities are limited only by your imagination (and your physical capacity. I know from personal experience that performing box jumps after a barbell sumo deadlift is a baaaaad idea).

Typically, circuits are comprised of 5-8 exercises and you want to work with weights about 75-80% of your max. Translation: pick weights that you could probably perform for 8-10 challenging repetitions. String them all together, and work through the circuit with minimal rest between exercises.

In terms of time, you can set up your circuit a couple of different ways:

1. Set a particular rep goal per exercise and then have at it for 15-25 minutes and see how many rounds of the circuit you can perform.

2. Pick a number of rounds to complete and try to finish as quickly as possible. Usually, if you have about 5-8 exercises, 5 rounds will be around 20-ish minutes.

Benefits of Circuits:

1. They're a great way to improve overall conditioning without watching your hard earned muscle mass wither away. Two recent research reviews (abstracts here and here) have found that steady state cardiovascular training can a) decrease power output (yikes! Not good for athletes that need to produce power aka: everyone) and b) compromises muscle mass (and thus strength) gains. This effect is seen most prominent when aerobic training is 3x/week for greater than 20 minutes- so one jog here and there won't hurt you. The metabolic pathways that aerobic and anaerobic (that is, strength training and sprint/interval training) are conflicting. It's very hard to maintain a large amount of muscle mass and be a long-distance runner!

Circuit training is similar, metabolically, to sprint/interval/hill training in that it preserves lean muscle mass.

Steady state cardiovascular training, on the other hand, can lead to elevated levels of cortisol (stress hormone) which can decrease the effectiveness of muscle-building hormones such as testosterone and insulin-like growth. It also encourages muscle protein break down. Again, based on the research, this was steady-state cardio training 3x/week at 20 minutes or more.

While strength training too breaks down muscle tissue, the anabolic (building) environment produced by strength training encourages repair more than the catabolic (break down) environment of aerobic training. Strength coach Charles Poliquin says:

Whereas endurance exercises compromise anaerobic performance and body composition, anaerobic training modes such as sprint intervals and weight lifting will benefit endurance athletes if programed properly. To improve endurance performance, do a strength-type resistance training program with loads of 80 percent of the 1RM or heavier. This will train the type IIA muscle fibers so they increase the rate of force development and get faster.

Type IIA muscle fibers = strong, powerful muscles. We want those!

So if you're still with me, we'll move on to the second point.

2. It's time-efficient. After a quick dynamic warm-up and maybe a warm-up set or two of the planned exercises, the total time of a circuit should be no more than 25-minutes start to finish. 15-minutes would even be sufficient depending on the intensity of the exercise selection and weights used. Nice huh? It's just long enough to make you feel like you've worked out but not too long that you're home late for dinner.

3. (but really 2.5) Not only are they time-efficient but they're efficient in the sense that a circuit can hit a lot of muscle groups, through full ranges of motion, in one fell swoop. While a jog will really only get your legs (and, I would argue, not very well since the range of motion is small, the force production is low, and the intensity isn't that high either) and maybe some low level core activation, a circuit can be full body. Take a look at this sample:

Goblet or barbell squat x 6-8

Pushup x 8-10

Step back lunge x 6-8/side

3 Point Row x 8/side

Kettle bell swing x 10

Can you see the total body genius in that? We have lower body (both bilateral and unilateral movements), upper body (push and pull) and a delightful amount of full range of motion exercises. All of which, if one wanted, could be done with just one kettlebell.

Run through that baby 5 or 6 times and try to tell me that's not cardio. Oh wait, you can't. I can't hear you over your screaming lungs and gasping breaths.

4. Because circuits demand so much from your muscles and cardiovascular system, they're pretty calorically expensive, which means your body will be burning calories longer post-workout than they would after a lower intensity training session (aka: low-intensity, steady state cardio). On those above-linked research reviews, it was found that athletes reduced body fat when they performed high intensity exercise (sprints or circuits).

So, if you're looking for an efficient way to reduce body fat, preserve lean tissue, AND improve your cardiovascular fitness, circuit training is definitely a tool you want in your toolbox!

I feel obligated to note that strength training, solid strength training sessions, need to make up the bulk of your training week. Picking up heavy things repeatedly is the best way to build muscle and get stronger. Circuit training, while it won't make you weaker and can aid with strength gains, is inferior overall to 80-90% max lifting in terms of producing maximal strength gains. While I don't recommend basing your entire training plan around circuits, they are beneficial and even fun (yes, fun.) to throw in every once and a while.

Sarah Walls 12/23/14 Sarah Walls 12/23/14

Keep It Regular During the Holidays: Eat Your Fiber!

Oh, the Holidays...between Thanksgiving and January 2nd, there is a LOT of food rolling out of the kitchen. Considering all that delicious meats (turkey, ham or, in my family’s case, crab), sweets (pies, cookies etc.) and higher fat foods (which are fine in moderation) fiber tends to get pushed aside and then we end up with not-so-regular bathroom habits. And we all know what that feels like…

What better way to prevent all that than to make sure your fiber intake is still high? (I know, that’s a grabber of an opening sentence). This is from the nutritional fitness person who believes that poop is important and I want to ensure the SAPTstrength readers are prepared to be comfortable this holiday season.

Fiber comes in two flavors, insoluble and soluble.

Insoluble: fiber that does NOT dissolve in water. This is found in things like corn, carrots and some nuts and seeds (any fruit/veggie with tough cell walls that don’t break down easily), and it bulks up the stool. Gives it some heft, one might say, so that gravity can do it’s job of pulling it down and out.

Soluble: fiber the DOES dissolve in water and forms a gel-like substance to help ease the passing… glide, slide or shoot through, however you want to think of if. Soluble fiber is found in oats, beans, apples, peas, lentils and psyllium husk (Metamucil anyone?).

Why eat fiber?

1. Regular bowel movements -> Need I elaborate?

2. Maintain healthy intestines -> Those regular bowel movements ensure that stuff doesn’t just sit in your intestines (ewww…) and can help prevent ulcers and other unpleasant things like that. There also seems to be a connection between the fermentation of fiber and gut health; more research is being done in that area.

3. Lowers blood cholesterol -> Soluble fiber may help lower LDL (the “bad” cholesterol). I’ll let an article from How Stuff Works.com explain:

When fiber interferes with absorption of bile in the intestines, the bile is excreted in the feces. To make up for this loss of bile, the liver makes more bile salts. The body uses cholesterol to make bile salts. So in order to obtain the cholesterol necessary to make more bile salts, the liver increases its production of LDL receptors.
These receptors are responsible for pulling cholesterol out of LDL molecules in the bloodstream. Therefore, the more bile salts are made from the liver, the more LDL cholesterol is pulled from the blood. There is more to be learned about the relationship between soluble fiber and cholesterol, however. It is also possible that one of the short-chain fatty acids produced by the fermentation of soluble fiber in the large intestines may inhibit the amount of cholesterol produced by the liver.

Cool huh?

4. Helps maintain a steady blood sugar levels -> Fiber slows the absorption of glucose into the blood stream thus preventing wild spikes and dips. And we all know that the holidays are laden with super-sugary foods can lead to these spikes; these aren’t great on the body.

5. High fiber diets aid in both weight loss and weight maintenance -> How? a) See #4; wild blood sugar highs and lows lead to insulin spikes which wreck havoc on the fat-loss biological pathways (insulin isn’t evil, but constant spikes can hinder fat loss). b) fiber keeps you full longer and generally high fiber foods are lower in calories. c) High fiber foods also tend to be high in antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds which, while I can’t point you to any studies, anything that reduces inflammation and stress in the body is going to help promote healthy weights.

So, if fiber is SO AWESOME… how much do you need?

The American Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medecine recommends for men under 50, 30g and women under 50, 25g. Men and women over 50 should shoot for 30g and 21 g, respectively. Active folks need up towards 40-ish grams. (not sure why that is.) Anyway, the average American eats about 4-11 grams…fail.

How much to you eat, realistically? Think about that…

Anyway, how does one get more fiber? Pretty easily actually. Just eat more vegetables and fruits. It’s not terribly complex. I also take Metamucil (as does my husband… but don’t let his experience deter you!). I know, I know, you should always go for the whole food sources first, and I can tell you: I do. I eat a LOT of vegetables and fruits (kale, 2-3 apples per day, and a lunch and dinner that’s 60-75% vegetables). Unfortunately, I have a very sensitive system. If I’m even just a little stressed (as in, I only got 7 hours of sleep instead of 8), I won’t poop. (More info that you wanted, but I know I’m not the only one who struggles with that.) Which in turn, stresses me out a bit more because I’m uncomfortable and the cycle just continues. Metamucil has made my life much better as it just helps give my system the extra budge it needs.

So, while I say first reevaluate your vegetable and fruit intake and only if you’re eating a lot at every meal and still struggling… add in some pysllium husk (which you can also take by itself).

Anyway, for a healthier and happier holiday season, don’t leave fiber out in the cold!

Sarah Walls 12/22/14 Sarah Walls 12/22/14

Set/Rep Schemes: Is 3x10 King?

“What’s the right formula for number of sets and number of reps for an exercise? I’m so used to hearing '3 sets of 10,’ is that right or wrong?” On the heels of Jarrett's post on Friday, I thought we'd talk about the common 3x10 set/rep scheme and why it's ok to NOT follow it.

Excellent question, especially since the coaches at SAPT rarely program 3 sets of 10, at least not on a regular basis. Has this been a burning question on your mind? Of course it has, so let us dive in.

First, a brief history lesson. The famous “3 sets of 10" actually came out of the brains of two fellows named Dr. Thomas Delorme and Dr. Arthur Watkins. Both were Army physicians during of WWII, and towards the end, there was an enormous backlog of soliders with orthopedic injuries. The recovery time was slow due to lengthy rehabilitation procedures. They were the first ones to develop a structured weight training protocol based on progressive overload, which, they theorized, would speed up recovery time. They wrote a paper (1948), and later a book, Progressive Resistance Exercise: Technic and Medical Application (1951), detailing their research findings. One quote I thought was rather lovely:

“The number of contractions per bout is arbitrarily set at ten. If fewer repetitive lifts were required, the resistance could be increased. Whether ten is the optimum number for rapid increase in strength has never been established in terms of criteria other than the empirical practice of weight-lifters. It is probable that the number closely approaches the optimum.”

See? 3 sets of 10 reps is not set in stone; it’s just the numbers the good doctors worked with and recorded their results. You can read about it here, if you want.

Now, moving on to why we’ve expanded upon Drs. Delorme and Watkins’ work. Subsequent research has provided insights on muscle inner-workings and strength building. In the effort of remaining true to the KISS principle, I’ll list a small snippet of the knowledge out there since the Drs. created their famous set/rep scheme.

Keep in mind that this is merely a scratch upon the surface of what goes on physiologically during weight training. (to include: energy systems used, hormonal responses, and what types of conditions elicit the various physical responses of the body. It will blow your mind. Mine is continually blown up every time I read about muscles. )

Ahem,

- As load increases, reps decrease and vice versa.

- As total exercise volume increases, intensity will decrease and vice versa.

- Muscles will adapt to the demands placed upon them (SAID principle).

So how does that help us coaches (and self-trained folks) determine set/reps. Well, as always, it depends.

If your goal is strength- which, by the way, it should be- you’ll want to stick to lower rep ranges (1-5) with weights closer to your 1 rep max. I shall NOT be diving into percentages and what percentage matches with what rep scheme as I’ve found they’re wildly different person to person. Generally, the closer you approach your 1 rep max, the less repetitions you can perform, as noted by Dr. DeLorme observed in his quote. As a coach, the exercises that mesh nicely to the heavier weights/lower reps thing, typically, are the money-makers: squats, deadlifts, chin/pull ups, and presses.

If your goal is strength, which it should be, (no, this is not a typo. Strength is the KING of physical adaptations.) using the 6-8 rep range lends itself well to assistance lifts such as single-leg work, rows, pushups, anything-that’s-not-your-main-lift, again, you can lift a heavier load for 6 reps than you can for 10, so… strength means picking up heavy things. This rep range affords a longer time under tension (meaning the muscles are working longer than say a 2 rep deadlift set), therefore building up their strength-endurance a bit instead of, say, a max-effort strength.

Now, this is not to say that you can’t get stronger using the 3×10 protocol (assuming you’re increasing the load), but it tends to only work for a little while, and it works best with beginners. In order for muscles to adapt to lifting heavy things, you have to impose that demand upon them by lifting heavy things. It would be more effecient to lift a lot of weight a few times than a little weigh a lot of times (this goes back to the energy system and hormonal response thing I mentioned earlier. This will be a future post… but for now, from a physiological standpoint, you’ll get stronger faster lifting a heavier weight a few times.)

Another reason, outside of the strength reasons, SAPT coaches use sets composed of less than 10 is technique. We’ve found that having someone, especially a beginner, perform sets of 10 squats just ends up in fail. Form goes out the window as muscles get tired and attention wanders. There’s a lot going on in the big lifts (chest up, butt back, toes up, on your heels, brace… etc) and it’s difficult for a new athlete to keep it all in his/her head for extended sets. Thus, sets of 5, for our beginners, works out nicely. Our more experienced athletes stick with this rep range as they progress, well, because they’re lifting heavier things.

We do program sets of 10, but usually it’s a corrective or mobility exercise, such as a facepull or wall slide, or sometimes we’ll throw in some reverse crunches so our athlete’s can “feel the burn.”

In the end, we stick to the lower rep ranges to either practice technique (beginners) or elicit strength adaptations (experienced). As the smart Drs. said, the reptition number was arbitrarily set at 10. Later, research found that strong people lift heavy things a few times. The set/rep combinations are endless; train for strength, keep it simple, and have a fun workout!

Guest User 12/18/14 Guest User 12/18/14

Part 9: In-Season Template

The Triathlete Strength Training PrimerPart 9: In-Season Strength Training, Continued.

After another brief hiatus, we’re back with Part 9 of this series! In part 8, we discussed what the goals of a triathlete’s in-season strength training program should be. It’s important to understand that the time to focus on gaining strength, power, and endurance was in the off-season. Now that competition has begun, we need to structure our strength work in a way that allows us to maintain the gains made in the off-season, and negate any of the repetitive, tissue-stressing forces that result from sport training.

Before we dive in, let me state that what is provided below is strictly an EXAMPLE template. It’s a snapshot of one day of training, crafted from the templates that have been created during the last 8 articles in this series. Your training may look slightly different, and should be tailored to your own individual strengths, weaknesses, and whatever chronic issues that you personally deal with. However, when all is said and done, your training should follow the principles and concepts that have been laid out in this series. These include, but are not limited to, specificity, progressive overload, reversibility and the periodized goals of the current season.

With that being said, let’s take a look at an example template and break it down into something a little more digestible…

- Volume and Frequency

You’ll notice that the session’s total volume is much lower then any given pre-season or off-season session. Sport-training should be at it’s highest during the competitive season, and due to this, we need to compromise by decreasing our time in the weight room. Our focus has shifted to maintaining performance elements, and this requires less total volume then if we were looking to build strength or endurance. In this case, we have decreased the number of sets that we’re performing of each exercise in order to decrease our volume.

Since the in-season involves a much higher volume of running, cycling, and swimming, we’ll transition to programming only one or two strength sessions per week. This is really all we need in-season, and scheduling any more will simply be taking up time that could be spent refining your running technique, or recovering from your last long-distance ride. I would suggest getting in the gym twice a week on lower-volume weeks, and maybe only once a week during high-volume periods or in the week leading up to a race.

- Exercise Selection

Looking at exercise selection, you’ll notice that the movements have all been performed previously in this athlete’s training. The competitive season is not the time to introduce new movements. Programming a new movement will stress the body in a way that it has not previously been exposed to, and, oftentimes, you’ll experience unwanted soreness as a result. On top of that, adding a new movement and then performing it with a challenging load is a recipe for disaster, and your sport-training will most likely suffer. Your sport-training should be a priority during this time of the year, and trying new things in the weight room will only undermine from this approach.

On top of that, you’ll notice the exercises are very specific. The main movement is a safety squat bar split squat. This was chosen because this split stance more closely mimics gait than a traditional bilateral back or front squat, and it doesn’t contain the element of absorbing force the way a barbell lunge does. With all the running volume, I would personally steer away from using a lunge variation in-season, as we’re getting plenty of deceleration and impact-absorption during our sport training. We could cycle in lunge variations throughout the competitive season, but I would be mindful to use them during times when your running volume is lower.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plb8z9oBoG4&list=UU5TxLuwpeMisc6vJuPAmZ2w&index=6

- Exercise Intensity

Now let’s talk exercise intensity. We shouldn’t be trying to move the heaviest weights we possibly can during these movements. The safety squat bar split squat is programmed at 8 reps/leg, but I would coach this athlete to use a weight that he can hit for about 12 reps. This way we’re not overloading the body too much, but the intensity isn’t so low that our muscles are not being stressed. You can certainly vary the number of reps you are programming. Early on in the competitive season may provide a good opportunity to bring back sets of three or four in order to train strength, but as the more important competitions approach, the athlete should be working in the rep range that is the most specific to their event which, in this case, is higher repetitions in order to train local muscular endurance.

- Cycling in isometric work/removing the eccentric portion of the lifts.

The eccentric portion of any given exercise is where most of the muscle tissue damage occurs. By removing this portion from our program (as in the chin-ups in the template above) we’re removing the portion of the lift that is going to cause soreness, but still working the desired musculature. Looking at this template, it might be a good idea to cycle between safety squat bar split squats, and safety squat bar ISO holds. A savy program designer could up the intensity on the ISO hold weeks (while still being mindful not to over-do it), and lower it during the split squat weeks. This way, we’re varying the intensity of our main movement and maintaining several performance attributes throughout the season.

- Piggy-back off of your Off-Season plan.

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ll notice that the early off-season and competitive season share a couple of similarities. Specifically, the goals of both include preventing or reversing injury caused by the sport. Last time, we talked about triathlon landing on the far left of the “Speed-Strength Continuum,” and the inherent lack of stability that this can cause at our joints. Due to this, we want to ensure that we are programming in a way that minimizes this effect. The Turkish Get-Ups, TRX rows, and lateral lunges are in this program for that very reason. The get-ups are a fantastic “catch-all” stability exercise. Using a suspension trainer for the rows will shift the focus more toward scapular stability, while also pulling the athlete out of the kyphotic posture that they are sure to develop on the bike. Finally, programming lateral lunges will help stretch out our adductors in a dynamic movement, demand stability at our hip joints, and get us out of the sagittal plane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ6BT0X4nJQ

Wrapping Up

Hopefully this article has caused you to think about your in-season training a little more methodically. The past two articles have laid out exactly what a triathlete should be focusing on in-season, and then provided examples with detailed explanations and more. As always, please reach out and leave a comment if you liked the content, or have any questions or concerns. I'd love to be a resource for all your endurance athletes out there, and help you make the most out of your gym time. Next week, in what should be the final post of this series, we'll discuss what to do immediately after the competitive season ends.