My 'amazing' weight training program - Triathlon Week

03-08-2007, 04:59 AM

Hello everyone... the weather is getting better here and it seems like
it's time to start getting on the bike and swimming in the lakes. In
the last few months I've been doing mostly weight training and a bit
of running, but not so much due to some nagging injuries. I did the
occasional swim.

So now I am off running, doing hill walking instead. I was thinking
of participating in my first triathlon this summer, so that leaves me
a lot of time to prepare (If I'm not in a good enough shape to run,
I'll walk, damn it).

I guess I don't really want to stop my weigh training or reduce it
substantially, but if I am training hard then I'll be my targeted
muscle groups will probably be sore for 1-2 days after each workout.
Thus, if I am doing my usual 3 or 4-day split and really pushing it I
won't be able to do any swimming for most of the week. (Actually I
could swim, but like a crippled man). And I'll barely be able to do
one session of bike and one of run if I am not doing them back-to-
back. So I was thinking of having weeks were I am only one bike/walk/
swim per week and relatively easy at that, but hard weight training
sessions, and weeks were I am doing 1-2 tri sessions, one of each
hard, and easy weight training sessions.

Is anybody using this type of program?

trainDaBrain · 03-08-2007, 01:34 PM

Weight training is a great complimentary training exercise for tri's. It helps strengthens muscles that might other wise be weaker or out of balance from too much of one kind of exercise - cycling is known for this, and there are exercises one can do to help strengthen and balance key muscle areas.

The important thing to identify are your goals regarding the gym and tri's. If you are after a certain look, and you need those biceps, then there are training programs for that.

If you want to focus on muscular endurance, and build strength for sport-specific conditioning, that's another thing.

The program you are building appears to have a lot of high intensity workouts built into it. You are replacing one high intensity workout for another (intense weight sessions one week, bike hard, run hard, swim hard, the next week).

Check your weekly workload and make sure that you incorporate some recovery. It would be better - if your goals are tri-focused - to have 2-3 days max of weights, and pepper in the bike, run and swim sessions during the rest of the week.

Cheers,
-Brandon

03-08-2007, 10:09 PM

On Mar 7, 7:03 am, "Christos Dimitrakakis" <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> wrote:
> Hello everyone... the weather is getting better here and it seems like
> it's time to start getting on the bike and swimming in the lakes. In
> the last few months I've been doing mostly weight training and a bit
> of running, but not so much due to some nagging injuries. I did the
> occasional swim.
>
> So now I am off running, doing hill walking instead. I was thinking
> of participating in my first triathlon this summer, so that leaves me
> a lot of time to prepare (If I'm not in a good enough shape to run,
> I'll walk, damn it).
>
> I guess I don't really want to stop my weigh training or reduce it
> substantially, but if I am training hard then I'll be my targeted
> muscle groups will probably be sore for 1-2 days after each workout.
> Thus, if I am doing my usual 3 or 4-day split and really pushing it I
> won't be able to do any swimming for most of the week. (Actually I
> could swim, but like a crippled man). And I'll barely be able to do
> one session of bike and one of run if I am not doing them back-to-
> back. So I was thinking of having weeks were I am only one bike/walk/
> swim per week and relatively easy at that, but hard weight training
> sessions, and weeks were I am doing 1-2 tri sessions, one of each
> hard, and easy weight training sessions.
>
> Is anybody using this type of program?

If you going to really try for a TRI, I'd focus of specificity. Just
doing the running, biking, and swimming. If you going to hit the
weights, do sets that FOCUS on the the specific muscle groups used for
these activities.