Hey Reader,
First I have to apologise for the break in newsletter content. I had too many things on the go but I'm back to writing more regular editions of this newsletter.
I plan to shorten them up and attempt to make them actionable so you can train more sustainably.
I’m going to kick this reboot off with a little strength training series since that was highly asked for in my survey this week.
The big 3 benefits of strength training for triathletes
1. Overall Health and Wellness
One of the core aspects of overall health and wellness is regular resistance exercise.
Strength training has a direct link to metabolic and mechanical health. Your joints, muscles and bones (and other systems) adapt to the load placed on them. Strength training is the best way to maintain and improve your health.
As you age, you need continued strength for things like getting out of chairs, walking up stairs and carrying groceries.
Don’t neglect it in your earlier years.
2. Movement and Load Capacity
As an endurance athlete, most of your training will be in a straight line.
One foot (or arm) in front of the other.
Which means there are limited changes in direction.
Strength training allows you to vary the movements that you are doing every week. You can break out of the straight-line movements. This encourages an increase in your overall capacity to move well.
We don’t want to get stuck never moving in different ways.
The other aspect of this is that your tendons, muscles and bones adapt to the load that is placed on them.
The tissues will become stronger and have a greater capacity for load after strength training.
3. Injury Prevention
This might spark some controversy but the evidence is not clear on the role of strength training in injury prevention.
Most studies seem to show little to no impact on the prevention of injuries.
Instead, it appears to be from the secondary effects of increased health (benefit #1) and increased capacity of the tissues (benefit #2).
By having a healthier metabolic system and a greater capacity to load the tissues. This should limit your overall injuries.
Minimum dose for injury prevention
Now, what does this mean for a minimum effective dose for injury prevention?
In other words, how little strength do you need to do to reach these benefits?
It appears that 2x per week of full body strengthening is all you need.
With the right programming you should be able to achieve that in as little as 40 mins per week (I break it into 2 x 20-minute sessions).
You could certainly do more but with an already packed schedule that might be a challenge.
I'll show you my templates for this in a coming email (stay tuned).
That’s all for today!
Chandler
Ps. What questions do you have about strength training? Reply to this email and let me know.