How do YOU find time for strength training in your swim/bike/run training schedule?

in season, my rest day is the day I would do strength training and I prefer bodyweight, trx type things. and then I might sprinkle core work during the week. are you training for full distance triathlon?

There's different kinds of strength training. I'm an oddball because I don't really let events dictate my personal goals, rather I like to diffuse attention to all my potentials than focusing on just one. While training for sprints I can usually schedule my days to get a couple weight lifting days as well as a day off. I might throw a little endurance in on a lifting day if my times are disappointing me. While training for Olys I usually add runs or swims in on weight training days and take a day of recovery if I do legs in the gym. I listened to a podcast a while back that recommended keeping your high intensity stuff around your weight lifting days to get some recovery in. Now, on that topic there are different types of weight lifting. High reps/low weight or low reps/high weight. I think higher reps will plug into triathlon better by engaging slowtwitch more. I also emphasize exercises which use several muscles at once instead of isolation exercises which I still do in moderation.

However, being the oddball I am, I do something completely counter productive and use high weight low reps just because of my above explanation. As much as I hate it and despite the angry preaching of my weight lifting coach going off in my head that it's throwing away hard work, I have even been adding quick runs after doing squats, well just cause... it seems i'm slowly conditioning myself to get away with it and it seems more fitting for triathlon. It's all about how you want to balance your time to fit your goals.

Well, when I was training for SBR - before the last PE sidelined and derailed my racing plans this year.
This is what I did:
Monday morning - swim Monday evening run
Tuesday Morning run - Tuesday night trainer bike
Wednesday morning swim - Wednesday afternoon strength
Thursday morning run Thursday afternoon - strength
Friday morning - swim
Sat - giant BRIC
Sun - long bike or long run

Twice a week strength was just enough.
Find a crossfit at lunch and get busy !

Thanks for your suggestions everyone, some great advice here.

To the fellow that suggested that SL 5X5 is not a great choice for during the training season, I guess deep down that's where my concern came from regarding factoring in adequate rest - it becomes very hard to do. Your point is well heeded.

Tell me this though, would your opinion change if I only swam the days after doing SL? Or do a day-after swim on two days and a full day of rest after the third SL day?

What if I just do two SL sessions - what do you think about that?

Alternatively, does anyone know of any good DVD based strength workouts that utilize dumbbells (I have these) or should I look in to a kettlebell workout?

The appeal of doing these sessions at home is very high (I work from home, so lunch breaks would be at home) - who wants to drive to the gym more than once a day?!!

Edited by Rabidrunner 2016-06-01 11:42 AM

There's a great series on beachbody.com called Tony Horton's Power Half Hour. For $3.99/week you get access to their On Demand workouts which includes the Power Half Hour series. You can stream them on your home computer or smart TV. I used this program while following an HIM training schedule. I found it very complimentary to the tri training. I used it 6 days a week up until the last 3-4 weeks of the HIM plan when the training volume got pretty heavy. It is a series of 5 workout, each lasting 30 minutes, each with a different focus. There's one for abs, upper body (dumbbells or resistance bands needed), legs, glutes/hips, and stretching (yoga-like). It's a great full body program. I saw substantial increases in core strength, as well as upper body muscle mass increase and definition. The exercises are simple but the workouts are tough. They'll get your heart pumping.

I'm more interested in how you will fit squats 3 days a week into a triathlon plan than figuring out where to put your swimming.

Like Lou mentioned, I found twice a week the compromise but I lied, looking back at my training logs I was cycling/weights the same day for my last sprint. I'm interested to see where this thread winds up.

you should check out the sites, fitnessblender.com and darebee.com. fitnessblender has videos and a ton of workout videos with varying lengths and types. you can search by type of workout, time, equipment, etc. just crazy number of workouts. darebee.com has a lot but is not videos. darebee is nice for it's simplicity. typical workouts they just give you 6 exercises and you go through they circuit training style for however many circuits.

Great suggestion, I did actually check out those sites. The workouts seem OK, but if I'm going to do something like that I may as well go back to BodyPump classes or the like. I like the SL 5X5 program as it seems to be a very true strength workout, but maybe it's too much during the season as many of you have pointed out.

When I see the name Tony Horton I can't help but think of Pam the BLAM from P90X..... You could see every time Tony called her that she would smile meekly and play along, but you could almost see her rolling her eyes internally saying "no one calls me that, has ever called me that, WILL ever call me that, except you, Tony" ha.

On that note, can I ask what everyone's opinion is on Les Mills Body Pump? I've done it in the past, just seems like a well marketed product, not necessarily a ripper strength workout. Anyone else?

Yeah I tend to agree about Pump classes. I've done Body Pump in the past, and it's OK but not really the kind of strength training I'm looking to do. Not looking for size at all (I'm a girl), more looking to build strong, toned muscles. Plus, it should ultimately complement what I'm doing with s/b/r.

Le sigh. It seems like a lot to think about. Maybe I'll just sit on the couch and eat chocolate, that sounds like a good option.

Edited by Rabidrunner 2016-06-02 3:27 PM

That's good news. Toning should be easier to work with than bulking. When I speak, I refer more to bulking in the gym which is at odds. I'm not familiar with Body Pump, but if toning is what you're looking to do, I imagine strength training that is part of a triathlon plan would result in toning. Please correct me if I'm wrong, I've never worked on toning muscles since I seem to achieve some naturally over bulk which I have to work for.

Edited by runtim23 2016-06-02 6:10 PM

For me it's actually quote simple to fit strength training in. I travel a lot for work, so I'll either use the gym at the hotel, or body weight strength training in the hotel room. When I'm not traveling, I'd rather spend more time on the bike as that's the one thing that I really can't do when I travel.