weight lifting

What are your goals? Are you already a lifter with good lean muscle or are you trying to develop it? I basically do heavy weight and few reps. You have to have a strong back and arms to pull you through the water while swimming and doing sets for endurance isn't going to help you get stronger, only build your endurance. I only do two exercises per upper body part. I do plyometrics for my legs. I keep the rest inbetween sets to no more than :20 seconds. Unless someone at my gym bothers me.

I did weight training for some time before turning to tris, although you wouldn't know it anymore by looking at me. I lost that lean muscle pretty quickly. In a strength training plan for triathletes, you are looking to gain strength to help prolong your endurance and prevent injury. What is your goal for lifting?

Traditional tri strength training is at odds with a strength training plan where you would want to bulk up, mainly because the requirement differences of the diets.

i guess my goals (before i became interested in a triathlon) were to tone my muscles rather than bulk up. now though, i'm also interested in lifting as a means of helping me get in shape for a triathlon.

Here are some basics that I would suggest for strength training assuming that you are currently in the prep/base phase of training and you have several months before you begin racing.

• Stick with compound movements that work multiple muscle groups and simulate the type of mechanics our bodies are designed to do...consider these "structural" exercises. Isolation exercises like bicep curls and leg extensions might be useful for bodybuilders who lift for appearance but don't comapre to "structural" exercises that use lots of muscles in a coordinated action for building strength that can be directly applied to our sport.
  
• Avoid the machines as much as possible and chest/shoulder (pressing) machines should be avoided at all costs. Most "pulling" machines are actually okay. Most "pressing" machines don't allow your joints to choose their own range/path of motion and force both shoulder joints to have the exact same movement path. Some people will suggest machines for inexperienced lifters to avoid injury using free weights but in reality, free weights are only dangerous if you are trying to lift too much weight so start very light and you'll be fine.
  
• Allow plenty of time for recovery between lifting sessions. Depending onwhether you decide to do total-body workouts or "split" workouts, 2-3 sessions of 30-45min per week is plenty to build strength. To be effective, muscle-building exercises must inflict some damage to yourmuscles...and then you need to stay away from the weights long enoughto let your body to repair that damage. The result is bigger, strongermuscles. I try to hit everything once per week with the exception of abs/core which I work 2-3 times per week.
  
• Try to make progress every single session. This might be a higher volume of repititions (add one rep to each set or even one rep total), heavier weights (same sets/reps but with 5lbs more weight), or (more likely) some combination of the two for each exercise. For example, I do pull-ups a couple times a week as part of my strength training. Istarted with 3 sets of 6 reps (6,6,6) and have been adding a single rep each session for the past few weeks (7,6,6-7,7,6-7,7,7-8,7,7...) last week I was up to 10,10,9 but I decided to change things up a little the other day and did 5 sets of 6 reps (6,6,6,6,6) instead. I still only added one rep to my total but changed the stimulus my muscles got and I can honestly say I feel sore from pull-ups for the first time in a couple weeks.

So with those basics in mind we could build a very simple strength training routine that you could do 2x per week and get a great total-body workout. Squats, deadlifts, lunges, bench press, pulls-ups, and shoulder press.  I personally split these up into 2 sessions (back/chest and legs/shoulders).  Squats, deadlifts, and lunges are great for your legs, back, and core. They are typically done with a barbell but if you don't have experience with free weights then go ahead and start without any weight or just use a light bar without any additional weight for a couple of sessions to get the feel of the technique. Bench press works the chest, front shoulders, and triceps. Pull-ups work the back and biceps. Shoulder presses primarily work the shoulders (duh). If you can'tdo more than 2-3 pull-ups then use the lat-pull-down machine instead..keep the weight light enough so that you can pull it down to your chest with a slow controlled motion and don't need to throw your weight into it. The bench, shoulder press, and pull-ups are basic push and press movements but there are many variations that can be done in a gym, orat home with some dumb bells and a stability ball, including chest press (flat, incline, decline...BB and DB), dips, and rows (bent, seated, and upright...BB, DB, and cable), and shoulder presses (BB and DB). I like to switch between barbell and dumbbell for the presses from week to week. They provide a different range of motion and change the stimulus slightly.

A clissic 3 phase periodization plan would go something like this:

Start with 3 sets of 15-20 reps of each movement 2x per week for the first 2-4 weeks. This is a  called anatomical adaptation and it basically conditions your muscles to start lifting heavier weights and building strength and power later. Remember, the goal is to make incremental progress everysession so try to add either a rep or some weight each time.

Once you get comfortable with the exercises and your muslces get "broken in"you'll want to start increasing the weight and decreasing the number ofreps. Generally speaking, heavy weight and low reps increase strength most effectively. The next phase is hypertrophy. Here you'll increase the weights and decrease the reps per set to 8-12. I like to pick one exercise to focus on each session (bench press for example) and do 4X10 and the 2 sets of 10-12 for another 2 exercises like dips and db incline presses. Add 4X10 deadlifts, 2X12 pull-ups, and 2X12 rows and you've got a great upper body session. Stay in the hypertrophy phase for 4-6 weeks and continue to strive for incremental progress every session.  This shouldn't bulk you up significantly since you'll only spend4-6 weeks in the hypertrohy phase and then move to strength/power.

Finally you'll move to the strength/power phase. Weights will increase again and reps will decreas to 5-8 per set and you might be doing 4-5 sets per exercise. Here we're no longer focused on bigger muscles but improving power by starting to lift a bit faster with more explosive movements. This is where that strength you gained in the last phase gets transitioned into something useful. Again, go 4-6 weeks with this phase if time allows.

Once you've gone through this basic periodization progression you should be getting into the higher volume part of your triathlon training and you might even be picking up some more intense bike and run sessions. From here on out you'll want to move to a maintenance phase for the rest of the season where you move back to moderate weights and lift 2-3 sets of 12-15 reps once or twice a week as your training schedule allows. I personally back way off the weight room from mid summer on out because I just don't need any additional work for my legs and I can't afford to use my lighter days for something strenuous like lifting.



Edited by TH3_FRB 2006-01-09 11:10 PM

wow--thanks for all of the suggestions. i'll check it out