Do weight session or extra bike session in season?

If your goal is to be faster in a triathlon, I would vote for an extra bike (or run or swim) session.

Shane

If your focus is getting faster in triathlon, then the extra bike session wins out easily over lifting weights.  'Strength' is a tricky word, because you can do strength training on your bike or when you're running by doing hills or high resistance, etc.

Where's the popcorn?

Weight training is one of the contention points around endurance types.

There are those who demand it's required and there are those who have never done a day of lifting.

we really gonna have this argument again today?

If you have time to do weights then you ain't s/b/r enough.

IMO if you want to avoid potential injurys from muscle inbalance then keep the strength training.  What your doing now time and amount wise is sufficient, but you should focus on muscle inbalance, not getting big biceps.  Course, if you don't care about the potential for injury then sbr.  I for one will be lifting and staying injury free this coming season. 

Plenty athletes lift and yet struggle with injuries through the year. Many don't lift and rarely (ever) get injured. Some lift and avoid injuries, some don't lift and indeed end up injured... perhaps it isn't about the lifting? Perhaps it is about managing load? Perhaps it is about resistance training though without lifting? Perhaps some people are just more more injury prone than others in spite of lifting? Glad to see the "lifting prevents injuries" myth alive...


Edited by JorgeM 2010-10-27 2:49 PM

weights can be very good to hitting weak spots etc..

for example.. running can leave hamstrings, glutes weak which can cause pronation, or other issues...

def not a bad idea to mix a few here or there...

I love how feisty this discussion always gets.

Perhaps.  Or perhaps not.  I can only speak from my own experiences and tend to not think I am a myth.  Nor do I think I did a poor job at managing my workload.  But gosh darn it, I pronate slightly on one leg and it causes a muscle inbalance.  So I'll do what I have to do to prevent that. 

I never did say though that just cause you lift you'll never get injured.  And I never said if you don't lift you will get injured.  And I specifically called out muscle inbalance.  So, if you never get that then go swim bike run and leave me to my strength training

Edited by bzgl40 2010-10-27 4:04 PM

The problem is that you cannot compare yourself as a strength trainer to yourself as a non-strength trainer to determine whether or not you prevented an injury through the incorporation of strength training.

Further, you mention a specific muscle imbalance that you have that you do strength training in order to address.  However, since most athletes do not know what imbalances they have, strength training in an attempt to address imbalance is often simply a shot in the dark.



You may not have said that if you don't life you'll get injured but you did say that if one doesn't care about potential injury then just SBR.



The problem with this is that while many believe that strength training will prevent injury, the literature is far from definitive on this issue.  There are studies that would suggest that it might prevent injury and there are other studies that suggest that it does not.  The bottom line IMO, is that if you want to strength train, then by all means include it in your program.  However, for someone with the sole goal of getting faster at SBR, then more SBR is likely the better option.

Shane

I don't disagree with your last statement too much Shane.   No doubt, to get faster at running you gotta run, etc etc etc.  And I don't remove any of that from my schedule.  I add strength training in.  But, it amazes me how many people who say don't strength train and then do core work.  to me that is strength training. 

Once again, "strength training" can have various meanings.  A hill workout on the run is a strength workout.  A big gear workout on the bike is a strength workout. 

A lot of people do core work or even lift weights for overall health, realizing that it's replacing a workout that would otherwise make them faster at triathlon.  You say you add weight trianing without removing any s/b/r from your schedule, but I would make a bet with you that if you added an extra s/b/r session instead of a weight lifting session, it would help you more with your racing.  I support weight lifting, but am under no illusions that it's better for racing triathlons. 

Perhaps, but I follow plans and I would rather trust the plan.  That being said, I just spent months doing extra running since I was training for a marathon (with more hill work then I ever care to do again as the marathon had 6000ft vertical gain) and well, I am still slow.