Strength Training For Endurance Athletes

Unpacking Strength Training for Endurance Athletes All right, we are back. We are back just just the two of us this time, my my friend and Yaki and I and we, we are going to talk about strength today, people, something that and Yaki is very familiar with. He's he's done all, all kinds of strength training over the years. So I'm, I'm excited to to dive into this one with him and hopefully give, give everyone sort of a little bit more of a, a plan as to how they should be approaching their strength training for the coming year and how we phase it for, for endurance athletes and how that compares to what you might be more familiar with for, for a lot of strength athletes. So yeah, I think I think this is going to be a valuable one in Yankee. Speaker 2 Yeah. And I think it's important that this time of the season that we hear a lot about the anabolism, the catabolism, what that means if you are a single sport endurance athlete, meaning for example, a runner or a cyclist or a swimmer, or if you are a multi sport athlete like a triathlete, right, or even a biathlete. So I think that's an important concept that I would like you to tackle, Alan. Like what is anabolism and catabolism in that context and how that plays specifically for what I think strength is a key component for for all athletes, which is long term health, because as we get older, we start getting in a catabolic state just because we age, right? So I see strength rather than than, you know, performance enhancer, let's say it, which is to some extent, it's more like a life enhancer. So I always say this to to people that don't want to lift weights because they don't have time or because they are too tired because they are cycling too much or running too much or doing triathlon too much is like guys, what you don't do today in strength is going to cost you in your sixties, 70s or 80s and you will start to feel it probably in your 50s. So let's get down to it, man. Avoiding the Catabolic State and Offseason Mistakes Yeah, I think that's, that's a great launch point talking, talking about the importance of coming back to an anabolic phase each year. So generally as as endurance athletes, we're we're very focused on expending energy. All right, that we talk a lot about a lot about the work and we talk a lot about kilojoules and really, you know, quantifying how much energy we're putting out and at for a lot of the year that's going to lead to challenges. And one of the biggest challenges is just getting enough energy back in when we start training to high volumes, right? So, so over time, you know, when, when we're doing this sort of typical endurance training, not only are we, are we using energy that we take in from food, but our body is progressively often tearing down the, the components, the, the muscle, the, the tendons or all of that, that good stuff and is using that as, as energy. And that's when we talk about a, a catabolic state, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about the, the body tearing itself down in order to keep up with the, with the energy demands. And for a lot of endurance athletes, you have to layer on top of that, many of us are also looking to lose weight through the season, right? So there's, there's that, that tension there as well that we might not be fully replenishing everything that we're putting out because we're, we're conscious of hitting a particular Raceway. So, you know, for a lot of the year, we wind up in this sort of catabolic state where our body is focused on using what it has to create energy. And over time, if we keep stacking seasons where we're always catabolic, we get exactly what you're talking about where muscle mass starts to decline. We start to see, you know, that that fat free mass index, which is a measure of how much muscle that we have within the body, it starts to drop below those healthy levels. And you know, all of these things as we're getting older, you know, they sort of happen anyway. So while we we definitely want to be conscious of that and I think what you're talking about there is coming back to an anabolic phase where we build the body back up is so important. Building Energy Reserves for High-Volume Training And there is a important component you just mentioned, Alan, as well when it comes to the weight because also this period, which normally for the part of the world we are in is Christmas time and you know, there is a lot of energy availability in the table and not a lot of energy expenditure. There is always this misconception. And I truly believe it's a misconception. And I don't know where it comes from. Probably you know, more about the history of the sport or I don't know if it's human mindset. But when we are in the period of the offseason, there is an over focus on, OK, it's the best time to lose weight and to get, you know, prepared for the next season. So I will start lifting weights, I will basically cut on the aerobic training, but I will also cut on the caloric intake. And for me like in, in, in how the anabolic face is going to turn. Like if you are like still putting the, the work in the gym, but you are not eating enough, there will not be any, any anabolism, right? So what could you say? And, and maybe where this is coming from in the, in the offseason, is this a good time to lose weight? Is this a good time to reduce the energy availability and get into that hormonal stress and even mental stress or is not a good idea? Alan. Speaker 1 Yeah, I think something that's that's often underestimated is the the challenge of keeping up with energy when we're in the meat of our training. And that's something that you and I have talked about on on other podcasts. You know, we're, we're sort of we're really focused on getting as much work done as possible within that, that big, big volume portion of the of the year. And I think I think for a lot of folks, we really underestimate just how limiting the amount of food that we can get into replenish that becomes right. So, so having some reserve there when you, when you're going into that high volume phase, having a little bit of reserve and it, and it's not fun, you know, it's not fun to pack on fat and you know, pack on weight in in the early season. But if you do that, when you get to those higher volume periods, you, you have not only the food that you're taking in to draw on for energy, but you have some, some reserves within the body to draw on as well. You know, and and this is something that, you know, going back to, to Nils, who's someone that we bring up frequently. You know, he was talking about how he was down in cans of whipped cream and stuff in the early base period because he knew that he had to build that, build that reserve in order to deal with the energy demands ahead. And yeah, I, I think a lot of folks really do themselves a disservice by not thinking in those terms. And you know, especially if you've been thinking that way for a few years and, and you know, as you said, your muscle mass is gradually declining over time. And then you, you keep doing that year after year after year. You never have any reserve. You never have that sort of, you know that that anabolic phase where you're, you're building those reserves to draw on. So I think I think it's really important and something that's that a lot of athletes are very scared to do, but those who do it generally feel the benefit when they get to the high volume portion of the year. Multi-Year Training Cycles and VO2 Max Pitfalls And I will add, I think this is coming from looking into seasons like next year, next season and people just thinking about next season. And it's like the same with anything else fitness. It's about the compounding negatively or positively, because if you compound 2, normally two or three seasons of anabolism, sorry, catabolism, meaning in the offseason you keep losing weight and not actually gaining weight. Maybe you will feel great for the next season, but the following one, you will repeat it because you will think that this made sense for the previous one. And eventually in the second or third season is going to catch up in the form of injury, bone, tendon, ligament normally or just burnout and and not being able to push when you really need to push. When is the last part of the preparation? First phase for picking. But it's very entertaining to think season to season. That's why I call it the revolving door because it comes with the intensity. Oh, I did great last season. Yes, but eventually you will do worst and this is the same case with the anabolism and catabolism. If you don't see it in a four or five year cycle, if you analyze your season in a 4-5 year cycle, then you will understand and maybe it made sense, maybe didn't make sense. If you are a newbie in the sport, don't get into the trap. We all been there in, in that trap. So by listening to people like us and the experiences of other athletes in a long term view, you will skip that painful experience of throwing, you know, one or two seasons because injuries, sickness, you know, stress fracture, Yeah. Like you name it. Speaker 1 Yeah. And when you, you were talking about that, I actually, I thought of a, a paper that, that I read a little while ago that looked at elite cyclists and they were looking at who made the Olympic team versus who didn't. I can't remember the country. I don't know if it was Germany or it was somewhere in Europe. But one of the things that they found was that the cyclists who, who made that leap to the Olympic team actually had more fluctuation in their weight over the course of the season. So, you know, I, I think that's, that's exactly what we're talking about is when, when you allow yourself to build up a little bit more reserve, then you, you give yourself that ability to train harder when, when the time is right. And that little bit of difference can, can really compound in either direction, right? If you want to do it, it compounds year to year where you just kind of get worse and get weaker. Or if if you if you do it properly, it compounds positively and you get stronger and stronger every year. Speaker 2 Yeah. And of course there is sports to sports because when you have the power to weight ratio you just mentioned in cycling and the culture behind cycling or even running, yeah, I mean, it's just hard to see that you feel heavier and that you are actually power to weight ratios lower. But if you believe in the process and then you build properly and you periodize your nutrition and your blocks of actual periodization of work capacity and work rate, you will nail it. But if you try to stay flat in weight or, or any other variable of your training, well, you will plateau and eventually you plateau and then it goes the trend negative. Never. You rarely plateau and then go positive. It's normally you plateau and then starts going negatively, right. So it's just something to bear in mind. Speaker 1 Yeah, I think one of the one of the things that I really encourage athletes to do that that helps with that is is to look at your absolute VO2 Max more than your relative VO2 Max. Because when athletes start to become obsessed with relative VO2 Max, you, you've got two ways that you can improve it, right? You can improve the engine and improve the size of the total VO2 Max and stay at the same weight, or you can cut weight and you know, get get the the improvements in VO2 Max in a way that your engine is is not increasing and might actually be getting a little bit smaller. But you're still seeing those relative VO2 Max numbers, you know, mills per kilo go up. And that can be a dangerous sort of tempting thing for athletes because it's, it's lovely to see OK, over the course of the season, I improved my relative VO2 Max by 5 mils per kilo. But then you look at it and all came from weight loss, you know, So where are you going with this? How far are you going to take this? You know, you still, you still need a certain amount of muscle in order to be able to, to, to get up the hills and to be able to, to power the bike. So you know, I think that's, that's something I would encourage everyone to do if if you do those VO2 Max tests, don't only look at the mills per kilo number, look at the look at the absolute latest per minute number as well. Speaker 2 No, for sure. Building Functional Aerobic Muscle for Endurance And the other the other mistake, I mean, it's, it's the season, right. So I look at it that I see continuously when when I go to the gym and I see the community around me that it's endurance athletes and they're like, no man, I'm I'm trying to lose some weight. That's the first one we already addressed, but the second one it like, man, what are you doing? Like you are doing Max power. Like what? Like full intensity in the gym. Yes, because I'm building strength. I mean, that's not the way to build strength for a multi endurance sport athlete or, or even for for a cyclist. Like you don't need to, you know, squat 150 or 120 kilos, not even 100. It doesn't matter how what's your weight? It's about functional strength. So I think it's the time, Alan, where we need to start discussing how you periodize the strength and what makes sense for endurance athletes, multi sport and single sport, but also what are the differences with the typical approach to just strength training and why that differs from those two profile of athletes, right? Speaker 1 Yeah, Yeah. The, the VO2 Max is a really good launch point to that because when we're looking at at absolute VO2 Max, you need aerobic muscle in order to create a high absolute VO2 Max. So you can, you can get, you know, we could, we could look at say your typical heavyweight rower versus your, your typical Olympic lifter or, you know, a, a strong sort of power athlete. And they both might have, you know, similar weights and, and the role might have, you know, still a fairly strong sort of building might, might look quite, quite muscularly developed. But the difference between the two is the roar also has a whole lot of mitochondria or a whole lot of capillarization within the muscles. He, he's able to use those muscles in an aerobic way, whereas the Olympic lifter or bodybuilder or whatever it is not they, they have muscles that are a very sort of type 2 anaerobic focused. And that's how they train. And if you put them on the rower, they're not going to put out the same amount of power over, you know, over 5 minutes or whatever is, is what the rower is. So I think that's a that's a really important distinction. You really need to think about what sort of muscle you're trying to build there. And I think that that informs a lot, a lot of the sort of training that we do. And you know that for me, for, for the athletes that I work with, a lot of the years spent with that objective in mind of building aerobic muscle, as you, you know, in Yaki. I know. Well, yeah, we we can definitely go into, you know, some of the specifics in the way that you've you've built a rotic muscle over the years. But yeah, I think I think that's that's the most important thing. We talk a lot about work capacity. And one element of that is, is energetic and, and being able to burn fat and do things that are going to enable you to, to put out high power levels for a long period of time. But the other aspect is the muscular aspect and having these aerobic muscles that can, can put out a relatively high force over very, very long periods of time. You know, so I think, I think that's, that's sort of the essence of the base phase. And when we talk about sort of a lot of the aerobic work that we do, that's, that's what complements that is this, this strength focus of not doing the things that you're talking about with the guys in the gym where they're, you know, squatting 150 kilos and they're resting for 5 minutes in between put in between sets. But but keeping moving, keeping that aerobic demand going as we're doing our strength work. So I think that's, that's really important. Daily Prehab Routines to Prevent Athlete Injuries But even before that, one of the things that I think a lot of endurance athletes really mess up is they they don't prioritize rehab before rehab. So yeah, maybe we maybe we can dive into that a little bit, you know, and and talk about some of the some of the issues that a lot of athletes have with with injury that are often related to under reading, but they're also related to getting these imbalances and little niggly things that they don't really take care of in the early season. Speaker 2 Sorry to interrupt Alan, but that at the same time you are carrying that after let's say your peak race and you will take the offseason and normally the offseason you pair it with the winter period where you will be running more on treadmills, which is same muscles. You'll be sitting in the bicycle without, you know, a lot of movement because you'll be on the trainer. So all those indoor sessions will overload the muscles and my own experience as an athlete and with the athletes side coach and advice is the peak of injuries normally precedes the the the either the race or it's right after the race getting into the offseason precisely because they overload the muscles and they either go to high in intensity in the gym and they don't have the rest the niggles. And I think that's a pre hop. Maybe we'll invite for this conversation later to Erin Carson. You know Erin well because she's involved as well. But something I learned from Erin is what you just said, we need to keep the strength, the the aerobic strength develop like little rest, lot of repetitions, very functional, but very functional with the movement. And normally in the offseason what you are looking for is to break the typical movement. It's always in a very linear direction. The sport we do, it's always either in, in one plane, always like the same plane frontal. So all these lateral exercises, minibans, you know, yoga for the feet, like, you know, grabbing a towel in the floor, expanding the, the, the fingers in the feet, like all these little muscles that also with the Super shoes that are super soft, they're super fast, but they're super soft and they stress a lot. The calves, the the, the, the fascia, the fingers in the foot, like all these needs to be addressed. And there is no time to address this during the season. So this is exactly the time where you do that. And it can be part of your strength routine. But few of those want to the ball the time because it's not pushing. It's just, you know, like sitting around with a minivan and it doesn't feel like work. Well, if you do it properly it will feel like work for sure. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And it did, you know, I think a lot of folks underestimate just how that becomes the weak link. So when you want to do more work, you you don't want your connective tissue to be the thing that holds you back from doing more work. And by addressing that in the early season, you, you can set that up so that it's no longer going to be the weak link later in the season that stops you from doing the, the amount of work that you want to do, you know, and I think. Everyone has their hotspots, their little niggly areas, right that, that you, you start to feel when you're when you're really pushing the load up. And for a lot of a lot of folks, we ignore those until they become an issue to the point that we can't do the training that we want to do. And just by being conscious of that and trying to address those in the early season before you really get into the hard work, before you really get into the strength, you, you can eliminate that from being the proverbial Achilles heel. You know the thing that's going to going to stop you from doing the amount of training that you want to do and. Speaker 2 What I normally advise Alan when it comes to when moving to the how to how frequently we should do and how frequently or the periodization, the strength. But when it comes to prehab, the way I advise everyone and what I do myself is then 15 minutes every single day in between sessions before going to bed. Like whenever you have the time in the office, have those minivans that towel like just like do it like that mobility foundation session from like Easy Feed Monday from Erin Carson in YouTube, which is 20 minutes. Like that kind of stuff is like an insurance for your season. It will be super valuable. Sometimes, I believe, even more valuable than the strength itself. Speaker 1 Definitely, yeah. Why Consistent Prehab is Your Best Injury Insurance I mean, you just got to look at the stats, you know, in terms of how many, how many athletes get injured over the course of a season. And, and it's it, it's the number one limited for a lot of folks is just, you know, there's an injury that's going to come up if you don't address it. That is going to be the thing that stops you from even racing the race that you want to race. You know, you're, you're a race that and it's there's nothing more frustrating than that. So I think you're absolutely spot on devoting just that little bit of time frequently early in the year to those those hotspots for you. It makes it makes a massive amount of difference. And you know, a lot of the a lot of the stuff that you're talking about is also things that are really good as sort of activation exercises or warmups prior to the training. So it's something that you know, you can, you can include to make the sessions better. So you know when in the early season before you go for a run, if you've got, if you know that, you know, maybe your IT band gets really tight and you know that over the course of a run your knee starts to turn in and you start to get a little bit internal rotation and you don't have that glute activation. You know, during the run, spending a little bit more time in the early season on activating the glute prior to doing that, you know, those sort of little things can can make a really big difference. Speaker 2 And one of the things I was discussing this with someone in Twitter recently and actually in the gym because they see me that when I have for example, a 2 hour run and it's really snowing and we are like -5 or -10 here in Poland, I'll do my 2 hour run in the gym. But I would not do it non-stop. Normally I would stop midway in, stretch a bit, foam roll, do monster work with minivan, do some like, you know, world a greatest stretch, like literally like 10 minutes of like just doing that and then jump back into the treadmill makes a huge difference. Huge difference, huge difference. Like I mean, I, I I'm really proud that it for me particularly and you know, this for me as an Utley like getting injured. I don't remember actually. And and it was massive loads what I was doing and injuries. Maybe I have one Bursitis one time because I tightened up too hard on my shoe and like very like little, little things, you know, obviously you get overworked in some areas, but you can't address it immediately. But like stress fractures or like, you know, fasciitis that I need to stop running for a month or like never in my life. And I hope it stays that way. But it comes back to everyday mobility at least two times a week strength. And it was never crazy. Maybe we can start navigating into the conversation of like frequency and how to periodize it to help also the audience to understand and it it really it's really a life insurance. As a matter of fact, 4 weeks ago, I'm doing a lot of load as you can see right now, it's like 25, even 30 hours a week off someone basically except the swing and three guys in that week told me different guys that don't know each other. Hey man, you look too skinny. You are losing weight. Like it's like a compliment. And I'm like, oh man, this is terrible news for me. So I, I did a real effort and I, I was able to put back again 1K because like for me at this point, losing weight, it's a huge trade off. I know what happens to me if I am like 2 kilos less heavy than what I'm supposed to be now what happens in summer? Because that right now I'm burning 60 to 70,000 kilocalories a month and by summer every month I'm doing around 8095 thousand, even 100,000. So if I don't have where I will pull that from, maybe I will not collapse energy wise but I'll get sick or I'll get some kind of tendons or like hormones not going in the right direction. So yeah, just wanted to comment this. Losing weight is not always looking skinnier is not not always a good compliment, especially if you are an endurance athlete. Speaker 1 Absolutely. You know, I think that those two things go together done by the we're building the reserve in terms of the energy reserve and then we're building that that musculoskeletal foundation as well. That's going to make it so that when we do the harder training, we have this, this foundation to draw on. And, you know, even even at the sort of time level, when we do the harder training, we, we don't tend to have as much time to devote to all of this sort of, you know, prehab stuff. So during the yeah, you, you're tired, you, you just, and even if you do it, you don't do it as well because you are tired, you know, so you don't have that same sort of, you know, neurological sort of connection that you might have when you're, when you're fresh and, you know, just just starting out the year. So I think it's, as you said, it's a really good time to almost every day just do, do something that's addressing some of those weaknesses. You know it's. Speaker 2 Creating a good habit. Speaker 1 Absolutely, yeah. Structuring the Prep Phase with Physio Guidance And it's something. So, Alan? Speaker 2 You you, you recently posted what I believe it was the most enlightening periodization graph when it comes to strength I ever seen. So maybe you can pull it out from your head because I don't have it here with me and the phases and number of sessions that you advise for an endurance athlete to do through the year. So maybe you would like to touch a little bit upon that and maybe we get into discussing a little bit of the specifics of how one of each of those sessions look like in practice. Speaker 1 Yeah, I'll definitely when, when we post this, I'll I'll put the chart there so that folks can can see it as well. But the way that I, I like to look at the, the strength work is in a similar way, I guess to what we look at the endurance work. And that is that the different types of strength training will blend through the year. So, so rather than, you know, having these sort of discreet phases where, OK, we're going to do Max strength here and we're going to do sort of bodybuilding training here or whatever, or, you know, whatever your blocks are. I'm much more a fan of doing, doing a few sessions of each type through the year. So you know, when, when we're in this early phase of the year in the prep period, most of your sessions should be focused on that prehab stuff that we were talking about. So, you know, I, I recommend typically 4 sessions per week where you'll have this hotspot routine, you know, so every athlete has their own particular weakness. So just get a, get a group of, you know, 10 exercises together that are a mix of mobility work and sort of, you know, physiotherapy type strength work where where you're working on specific areas, very sort of, you know, weakness oriented sort of sort of exercises. And just just roll through that session three at least 3-4 times a week and make make that a habit. So that that's what I would devote most of the prep period to. And just just doing that really sets up a really good foundation for, for when we move into the next phase. So next phase when we're going into sort of the the base training period. Speaker 2 But sorry, Alan, for that first phase, more or less just to give a general perspective how how long it is in terms of months or weeks. Speaker 1 Yeah, prepare is usually pretty short. SO44 to six weeks of, you know, just doing you're, you're getting back into the training. So you're doing technique focus sessions. You know, as we said, they're not really energy demanding and athletes often, you know, or, or at the point in the season where they're most frustrated because they feel like they should be doing more. And you know, at that time of year, it's a good time for the more to be some of some of these sort of sessions where you're, you're spending some time, you know, you're just devoting 30 minutes on a regular basis to rolling through this hotspot routine that that is specific to to your needs. You know, and there's, there's a lot of great resources out there that you can use to help you come up with that. You know, I would definitely recommend the the book How to become a Supper Leopard by Kelly Starrett. You know, that's a great resource for athletes. I think everyone should should have a copy of that book and it can really help you identify those, those areas that that are specific to you. Yep, there it is. Speaker 2 I was I was looking into some free hub exercises for me as well so it's handy. Speaker 1 Yeah, it's, I mean, it's just the Bible as far as sort of really getting to know your body and how to maintain your body. I think it's a it's a fantastic resource. Speaker 2 I mean, maybe before you keep going, I just a comment on on physiotherapist. I mean, you can always find good resources online, but I still believe that going with someone face to face that is consistently looking to you through all the season and they can because that's like my current guys are like I have a rehabilitation clinic almost walking distance from me a gallon. So if they're listening to the podcast, because I know they do, cheers to all of them. But I worked with this group of people all the year, so they know exactly what are my problems. And I went with them when I finished the season and it like, OK guys, you really know me better than myself. So tell me what I should be addressing in this period. And they gave me a program and this is the program exactly as you said, four times a week they said you need to do, they call it the physio sheet. And then two strange routines that because they are not experts in endurance, they gave me like hypertrophy stuff that I turn into like endurance. And you know, I just modify the repetitions and the rest. And but it was really well built, right, with some caveats. So go with someone that knows you well. And physiotherapy has to be part of the your routine. If you can only afford once a month, it still is making a difference. It's 12 sessions a year. And it's better than only when you need it. It's better not needing it and visiting as preventables and building the relationship like you do with a coach. Yeah. So that's my, that's my, that's my note on this. That's. Speaker 1 That's a key point, yeah. So, so many people, they only see a physio when they're injured. And at that point, you know, you're not getting the same sort of value that you can get if, if you have somebody who can, can run you through assessments and can teach, can teach you about your body, you know, and, and they all sort of have a conversation with you that, you know, you, you're limited in internal rotation on this side, but not this side. And then when you're doing your training, you start to become conscious of that. And you're like, yeah, yeah, he's right. You know, so, so it becomes this whole thing where you're, you're starting to think differently in terms of how you move and you know that that sort of thing is incredibly valuable for athletes. Speaker 2 Great. Bodyweight and Dumbbell Workouts for Aerobic Strength So we have the prep phase, then we move to the next one which is. Speaker 1 Next, next phase is the aerobic strength phase. So everything that we were talking about in the beginning with we want to increase that absolute VO2 Max and, and the way we do that is by building aerobic muscle. So that, that I think is, is the big difference between what a lot of folks do in the gym at that point and what, what we should be doing in the gym. So let's talk about what what we should be, what we should be doing in the gym and you know. Speaker 2 I remember two of your sessions that you need to describe in detail. One is the body weight session and you know the lunges, the pull ups, the negative pull ups. Maybe you want to tell the entire protocol. And then the other one was, it's one of my favorites as well as the one using dumbbells that is always combining upper, lower, upper, lower, upper, lower. And it's kind of like all continuous, not with a lot of rest precisely because it's muscular endurance phase, so. Speaker 1 Yeah, they're, they're 2, two of my favorites. And you know, one of one of the big kind of standards I guess I have for, for aging athletes like myself is, is the ability to do 50 push ups. SO50 push ups at age 50 is kind of the that's, that's the benchmark. And one of the sessions that I think really helps with that is this, this body weight session. So for that one, what what we'll do. Speaker 2 We'll. Speaker 1 Alternate upper and lower body activities and the lower the lower body activity for that one is always walking lunges. And you know, they can be done just with body weight in the beginning. And as the athlete gets better, they can, they can wear a, you know, a vest or a a backpack with some load in it to to. Speaker 2 I have my best there, I'm not going to lie. I use it the other day. Speaker 1 Yeah, it looks. Speaker 2 Tactical, but it's heavy. Speaker 1 But but yeah, that, I mean, that's an incredible workout. So so we go lunges and then an upper body exercise. And the upper body exercises vary between push ups, pull ups and inverted rows. So inverted rows I love. And that's, that's just an exercise where you have like a Smith machine or a bar, you know, on, on a squat rack or something that, that you can keep stable. You lay underneath it with your feet elevated, you know, on a stability ball or on a bench, something like that. And you're just pulling your body up. And I think that's a, that's a really great sort of, you know, posterior back work out for those, those postural muscles. So those three exercises plus the lunges and you just rotate through those in a circuit fashion. And that that's one of my my favorite kind of go to workouts. And you know, you, I wear a high ray monitor for every time I do that session, as I encourage all of my athletes to do. And you're in your aerobic zone for the whole thing. You know, it's, it's a full on aerobic workout. So it's. Speaker 2 And then you can get really far with that session because I don't like this is years ago, but I think I got to like 15 total reps or 20 total reps of this. And you are sweating like you are running a marathon or like even doing interval workout. It is. But then your heart rate is like maybe touching some too, because when you walk and it's like it stays exactly in the aerobic system, which is the the actual purpose of this session, right? You don't want it like spiking TO16070 BPMS and then dropping to the ground. You want something that you are working consistently. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. And it's just like the aerobic sessions that we do swim, bike and run, right. It's what what most people are doing in the gym is the equivalent to you go out and you blast yourself on the bike for a minute and then you rest for three minutes. You know that that's a completely different workout from an energy system perspective to, to what we typically do, which is you're going out for hours in zone one, zone 2 and just continuing, you know, continuing the output in, in, in those zones. So I think the, it's really important that the strength training also reflects that if we want those similar adaptations, you know, within, within the muscles, within the strength work. Speaker 2 You talked about one of my favorite and your favorite ones. I'll talk about the second one, which is the one with dumbbells and if someone see you doing that one early in the season, which is where I am right now, But they will be like what is like this guy is massive, like while he's holding dumbbells of like 547 kilos. And then eventually you are pushing like 40 kilos or 35 kilos dumbbells way, way down into the season. And it's like a really, really challenging and it gets you super strong decision. And it's the same principle. You are alternating pull, pushing the upper body and you are doing, for example, the lunges, but now with the dumbbells, right? I don't have it in top of my head. Exactly what are the exercises? I remember military press. I remember what's the name in English of this one that you are for the rowing? I think it's rowing. Speaker 1 Yep. So we got we got dumbbell rows, we've got lunges, we've got sumo squats. Speaker 2 Sumo. Speaker 1 Yeah, Yep, we've got, we've got the, the press that you talked about then we have car freighters and we have and. Speaker 2 Then the step UPS, step UPS, it's horrible with 40 kilos. Speaker 1 Yeah, Yeah. So just just, you know, you get a really good sort of broad base where you're doing a lot of the things that you're talking about of working in multiple planes, you know, which is something that we tend to neglect with as triathletes, even though we have 3 sports, they're all, as you said, straight ahead, you know. So we're not, we're not getting a lot of that sort of the lateral challenges that you talk about. But yeah, doing that sort of work. And as you said, it doesn't take much load at all. And the loads in a gym sense are going to be pretty embarrassing, you know. But but funnily enough, when you get someone else to try and do that work out with you who is who looks strong, they find that the, the aerobic element of it, you know, just the continuing to do it over the course of an hour is, is really challenging. And that's exactly what what we're trying to build. You know, I think think back to that, that show American Gladiators did, did I don't know if you guys had a, a similar show in Mexico and but you know, you'd see these guys come on and they're really big, big dudes, you know, like bodybuilder, bodybuilder types. And then they get to that, you know, the final, whatever, whatever the final competition was where they have to do, you know, all of these various sort of strength stuff and endurance stuff for a couple of minutes. I think it takes them to get around that course. And the biggest guys were always, they were completely gassed, you know, within 30 seconds of the thing. And, and you'd get, you know, these other guys who are maybe medium sized, you know, strong, but, but, but obviously aerobically strong, who, who did really well in that. And, you know, that sort of thing is a wake up call to what, what do you really want? You know, do you want muscle that can, can work over long periods of time or do you want to be gassed after 30 seconds? And I think that's a that's a really important question to ask yourself before you step into the gym every day. Enhancing Durability by Training While Fatigued And maybe just because it came to my to my senses, the feeling of rocking back in the day with like 40 kilos, 35 kilos backpack. It's exactly the same feeling that you are mentioning of this part of the season, right? Because the heart rate, it's exactly between someone and maybe touching some two, it's kind of burning sensation, but you can keep on going. So metabolically is exactly where it has to be and muscular is through muscular endurance, which is exactly where it needs to be. So why I'm saying this in terms of feelings, because if you are feeling in this part of the season doing the strength that it's killing you or it's absolutely super easy, you are doing something wrong. It has to feel kind of like aerobic but hard to sustain and that's why we progress over the season normally. I remember we started the sessions with 15, maybe 20 minutes and they build up to an hour or even one hour enough. I think the the the longest I was able to do with you was about almost two hours, like one hour, 45 minutes of all these stuff back-to-back to back-to-back to back, which is effectively going for a long run with Loathe. Speaker 1 Yeah, right. And it's very specific, you know, like the, the first Iron Man that I, that I did, I, I remember I was, was really fit going in and you get to the run and all of a sudden muscularly, you're just so beat up. You feel like someone has taken a hose and it's just just whipped your legs and it's just completely destroyed your legs. And you can't use that aerobic fitness that you have. And I think that's, that's an element of fatigue that's really underestimated for a lot of folks is you can be as fit as you want to be, but if your muscles are really broken down late in the race, you won't have access to that fitness. So this is, this is the sort of thing that we're trying to build with those extended sessions where you're really muscularly challenging your body and your ability to keep up with it. And it's not a little load, it's just that constant repetition that really makes makes things tough as you get into the the the longer durations of doing that. Speaker 2 And I'm super highlighting this, Alan, this part of the, the season that you are periodizing because I, I believe it's absolutely crucial to get it right because it's where you build durability. And what I personally did was always, and I do it with a lot of my high level athletes is you place those workouts, especially when you are tired after, for example, you swim, you did a 2 hour run and then you go and do your gym session already tired because it's super specific and it's building durability. If you those, if you do those sessions completely fresh, they will help you, but they will help you differently. That's my take after, you know, executing this myself and with some athletes it really in this phase starts building durability, particularly if you are an Iron Man athlete for the for the marathon off the bike. Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, and I think the what what you're talking about there with with the energy demand coming in, it is exactly right. You know, you might do a a hard swim session where you're sort of depleting your glycogen. So you're, you're on the energy side of things. You've hit that and then you do something that has more of a strength focus and you hit the muscular fatigue side as well. So you're hitting, hitting both of those limiters. And I think that's that's a really, yeah, really important element of this phase of the year. Speaker 2 Maybe, maybe I just throw for free one of our super secrets, which is like the combo of like long swim, long run, followed by a by a gym session, which is exactly what I did today. I did 7K swim, 17K run and after this I'm going to the gym for like the targeted prehab and then some muscular endurance sessions. So I mean, this stuff works, right? But let's shift gears, Alan, and move to the next phase. Max Strength Training for Improved Running Economy Yeah. So we we've built a rock solid foundation in the prehab phase. We've we've built this aerobic strength. We've got a lot of muscle and it's, it's aerobically, aerobically powered muscle that we we've built in the aerobic strength phase and then we move on to Max strength. So, so this this is the period of the year that, you know, most people are maybe a little bit more familiar with and they'll, they'll be doing this sort of work all the way through, but. Speaker 2 Me personally, I hate it. Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's the sort of thing that, you know, I think, I think it's really neurologically challenging because you're you're sort of tired from the volume, but then you're trying to do relatively high loads as well. So it's, it's a very tough period, a tough block of the year to get right, you know, and I think a lot of folks get into trouble there with, with not getting it right and going into these sessions kind of tired and not, not able to to do what they should be doing. But the main aim of the Max strength phase for endurance athletes isn't so much building muscle. You know, we're not doing high volumes of this sort of, you know, high R, high percent RM work. We're doing very, very low volumes. But the objective is we're, we're improving things like economy. So when you, when you do heavy squats, heavy deadlifts, those sorts of things, you're, you're teaching your body to be able to recruit muscles very quickly. And that adaptation transfers really well to things like being able to recruit muscles quickly when your foot hits the ground when you're running. So, so you develop these economy gains by including these blocks within, within the year. And you know, it's, it's a short term sort of game. Maybe you get 5% economy improvement with, with one of these blocks. But when you look at sort of what that means to an Iron Man duration, if you've got, if you're burning 5% less calories to go the same speed over the over the marathon, you know, that's, that's significant, significant gain. So it's really, it's an important block of the year, but a tough one to get right. Speaker 2 And I will comment on this because with many of my athletes and sometimes with, even with myself, like last year that I was just coming back into Iron Man shape, I just keep that part. I don't do, I don't do it because also what you just mentioned, the neuromuscular tiredness, it's huge. Like I remember last year I did one of the sessions and it's a barbell complex. You remember that one. Maybe you want to to describe it a little bit so the, the, the audience get a sense of what you're talking about. The barbell complex, first of all, it's super technically difficult because you need to be good with the technique, right? It's 3 weights. There is very short sometimes rest when you are building the pyramids and then you have like big periods of rest in between pyramids. But you on top of that you are doing actual threshold workouts because you are about to race. So it's very demanding because you are depleted from glycogen perspective and super tired neuromuscularly. So the risk of injury either in the session or after the session also is peaking. So it's one of those things that, yes, it can give you 5% of benefit, but if you do something wrong, it can kind of like derail the entire block. So I always sometimes just err on the safe side and just keep it completely and go for like a normal muscular endurance session. Maybe you want to comment a little bit on this island. Speaker 1 Yeah, you know, I think you're, you're absolutely right. And kind of going along with the, the theme of blending these, these things together. So you're never really going too, too different from what you've been doing before. It it doesn't take too much to just just give something a little bit more of a strength emphasis, you know. So if you've been doing, let's say you've been doing goblet squats, you know, with a kettlebell, with, you know, 45 LB kettlebell and you, you're typically doing 2020 reps of goblet squats. You know, it's part of your circuit. If you just move that to front squats and with a barbell and you take it up to 60 lbs, you know, like not not a super challenging level, but something that's a little bit more neuromuscular and give a little bit more rest, then you can bias the work out that way without going super duper heavy. So a lot of folks, you know, they, they think to get the Max strength gains, I've got to be 90 to 100% of 1 RM and I've got to be taking it to the complete limit of failure, you know, and, and that's where, where people get in, get into trouble for sure. Speaker 2 Yeah, definitely, definitely. Race-Specific Muscular Endurance and Long-Term Planning So we almost get to the end of the phases. So what happens afterwards? Speaker 1 So the, the final phase, you know, and I think this is something that we've, we've talked about a bit with some of the rocking and those sorts of things is muscular endurance. So this is this is sort of putting that final transition on how we move from strength to how we're going to combine the strength for the strength side of things, the endurance side of things into something that's race specific. And you know, for for endurance athletes that's doing things that have a little bit more of a force component, but in a really specific way. So we're doing, you know, long hill reps on the bike, for instance, that are in an over geared state. So we might be doing, you know, 40 to 60 RPM, fairly low RPM, high force demands relative to what you're going to be doing over the race, but still not, you know, you're still going for 20-30 minutes per per Rep. So it's not like what you've been doing in the gym sort of thing. So it's gradually extending out the duration of of that, that long stuff. And you know, a lot of athletes will say, well, can I do that as my strength work all the way through the year. But I think when they do that, what it really misses is a lot of the the balance that we've talked about where we're working muscle groups that we don't work when we just do our swim, bike, run stuff. And you know, I think that's that's kind of where the while the muscular injuries is super important, you also want to be developing muscles that you're not going to be using in your event because that's what's going to stop you from becoming imbalanced and getting injured. Speaker 2 And just a comment on this, we are I think we as endurance athletes, we tend to love all that face of muscular endurance. Like if you would tell me, I would do muscular endurance the entire season forever in some one and some 2 and that's it. That's, but the problem is exactly what you said, it's creating a lot of imbalances and then you plateau with the adaptation. But you can also think about if rather in one season, me personally, how I see it now for myself and for many athletes, like in four years like an Olympic cycle. So how you will periodize and sometimes you can go through our nine months of like just, you know, prep or like it doesn't this general guidelines, they don't need to fit into one season before your Iron Man. That's my point. It can be like use the first and second Iron Man in a two year period as a, you know, aerobic capacity phase where you will basically just do prep easy stuff. And then on your third Iron Man, maybe you start incorporating thresholds. So what I'm trying to give you is just perspective time wise and then what end up happening is what what happened to us back in the day. I remember you mentioned repetitions of 30-40 minutes. At some point we were doing like over Gears of like 2 to 3 hours. Like it was insane. Like in Mont Le Monde or something like this, like triple TS that from beginning to end, you know, like seated the standing 3 minutes until you get to the top and the power was like some for most of the time for like 3 hours. So I mean you can get to that level, but you can get to that level in one season. So remember guys and and always looking further than a season. I think this is very important also when you plan the strength side of things. Speaker 1 Yeah. Prioritizing Muscle for Lifelong Health and Performance And, and looking at your own weaknesses in, in determining that, you know, I mean, a lot of a lot of older athletes, they, they have a real limiter in terms of just that aerobic muscle, you know, that they don't have enough. I mean, that's, you know, I'm certainly that's, that's my focus right now is just building up that aerobic muscle and doing it right can take a long period of time. You know, if, if you're looking to add four or five kilos of aerobic muscle to your frame, that's not something that you're going to build within a 2 month block. You know, it's something that you might have to spend a year, you might have to spend two years on and really making that the focus of your year. So, you know, I think it's, it's super important when you're, it's always, you know, it's, it's fun to have these paradise plans and have a lot of variety and a lot of, you know, a lot of transitions between the blocks and, and athletes love that. But at the same time, I think you have to be sort of very conscious of what you're trying to build as an individual. And yeah, for, for a lot of, if you're 40 +, a whole lot of that you hear should be spent on this aerobic strength work where we're gradually building up that that fat free mass of your body in an aerobic way. Speaker 2 Yeah. And just bringing up a conversation I had recently with two high level cycling coaches, one of them matters. The the guy from nutrition that we talked to in in one of our podcast, I think it was second or third podcast, is the fact that to actually build lean mass in a proper way without gaining fat. Because one thing is I'm getting very stronger and my weight. Yeah, but how much of that is actually free fat mass, right. And he said to me something in the lines of like, for every, I think 2 kilos of free mass you need, I think it was eight or nine months of proper gene periodization and proper nutrition. And obviously you are not an endurance athlete. So the, the thinking behind of like, oh, I will devote these three months to gain muscle. I don't buy it because it's going to be more like I'll devote what I did like I devoted 2 years to gain muscle and I caught basically tremendously my, my, my cardio, let's call it cardio. I hate that worth my, my aerobic load. And then my metabolic efficiency went to crap and I was super strong, but it was inefficient. So at some point everything is starting to fall into place 450 days later. So it takes a long time to see those changes. So don't rush it. Don't rush it in a season. See it time. See it with time. Speaker 1 The other thing that's very tough, you know, and, and speaking from, from my personal experience, you're, you're always from a mentality point of view swinging between what I was talking about earlier, where you, you want to run fast and you want to have a high relative VO2 Max. And it's very, very tempting to devote some of you year, every year to, to getting that, you know, so you're constantly swinging between OK. And in the winter, I'll do a strength block and I'll get, I'll hit a certain weight, but then I, I can't handle being at that weight for a long period of time. So you know what then, then I need to trim down and I need to, need to kind of, you know, be in a deficit and bring, bring the relative VO2 Max back up. And that becomes a really dangerous cycle because you never give yourself long enough to build enough mass. So I think that's something to be conscious of and, and even be conscious of in terms of your race selection. Like if you pick a marathon, that's the you're, you're almost guaranteed that you're going to reach a point within the cycle where you're going to try to lose a lot of weight, you know, because it improves your, your time, You know, when you're, when you're focused on running, it improves, improves your time a lot. So really be mindful of what do you need as a person when you when you pick your your races for the season. Speaker 2 And, and also ask yourself a question, are you overweight or are you over fat? Because are different things, right? A weight is not necessarily a bad thing. And weight will take care of itself as you age, right? As long as you are taking care of the fat, weight will take care of itself. Because we just mentioned this at the beginning of the podcast. We are, as we decline because we are all declining, we just try to prolong the decline is we are in a, in a catabolic state as, as we age. So all these young folks trying to accelerate that catabolic state because they want to do good in two or three races in the, you know, in their 40s and then they really sacrifice their overall health because they will get old and they will be walking with a stick or they will need a hip replacement. I don't, I don't think it's worth it for a few minutes and you know, for, you know, putting in your, in your LinkedIn that you're on a super 3 hour marathon. I mean, it's OK to, to have all these goals and we all have them, but just enjoy the process and, and, and try to get there, but be very, very careful. What are you putting on the line when it comes to your future self, particularly with health, because I think 99% of us are doing this because we want to become healthier. And if you really want the absolute performance, you will neglect health. And that's why you shouldn't be looking to performance, especially if you are an amateur athlete because it will hit you in the face. If you have a family, you will regret not carrying your, you know, grandchildren because you were running sub three hour marathons in your 40s. And then you are like destroyed because you neglected strength, right? All those things is really we need to consider now. And lastly, what you are not doing in your 30s, at least in your 40s and beyond in strength is going to take a toll on you. It's not reversible, it's irreversible. So you better start and keep doing it until you are gone from here. Speaker 1 It's, it's definitely something that's easier to maintain than it is to, to go back. You know, and if, if you have a period in your 30s where you are focused on getting really light and you're racing underweight and you might be potentially racing fast by the end of that, when you get to your 40s, getting that muscle back is a lot harder than if you had of, you know, been conscious of that and tried to hold on to it through your 30s. And, you know, the, the, you can still get very fast with a good amount of muscle, but it just takes longer because then we're, we're building the engine, right? We're not just getting, getting lighter and lighter and lighter sort of thing. So it's yeah, it's always tempting to take that easier route, but I think the the better route for your long term health is definitely to try to hang on to that muscle. Speaker 2 Particularly Ironman athletes, even triathletes in general, maybe a Sprint can be a little bit different, but even Olympic distance triathletes, weight doesn't really matter that much as long as it's free fat, right? There is a lot of big guys, me including that in that equation that can go really fast for the weight and we are. Speaking the as of many, many much lighter people and we stay in the game much, much, much much longer and healthier. So don't neglect that weight performance, not doing strength for like few results that you can have in a couple of seasons because it will hit you in the in the face. Speaker 1 I think that has a lot to do with why you've been able to go so many years with so few injuries. You know, you, you just have never fallen prey to that. I'm going to starve myself and, you know, neglect the strength training and, and you know, you've never really had those periods within your prep and because of that, you, you haven't really had the injury problems that a lot of athletes have. Speaker 2 I mean, I, I had one time in my life and I learned from that experience that I went super light and it was right before coming to you. Key Takeaways: Strength as a Lifelong Investment It was 2014, 2015 and it was, I mean you can see pictures of me, I would like for magazines, I look amazing, my performance and hellware sheet. So it doesn't matter how you look it. It matters how you are internally and how well you can live and perform not only in sport but also in life. Speaker 1 Absolutely. I mean, that's, that's what it's about in there, you know, and I think all of these adaptations that we're we're looking for, you know, the, the right ones transfer to that they they give you the sort of muscle that you need when you're 60 and 70 to be able to do all the things that you want to be able to do. Speaker 2 So Alani in in one sentence, what would you would tell to someone that is listening to us been doing the sport for long enough 4-5 years and then kind of do the strength, but don't take it too serious. What's your recommendation I. Speaker 1 Would I would say you really have to internalize the fact that muscle moves things. So whether that whether that thing is a barbell or whether that thing is you are the distance, it's the muscle that's going to be able to do that. So first and foremost, we need that muscle. If you don't have enough muscle to produce the power required to be able to do what you want to do, you're just not going to be able to do it. So you know, it's, it's the ground floor, it's where what everything else is built on is having enough muscle to be able to do what you want to do. And you know, beyond that, obviously we've talked about the quality of that muscle, the aerobic quality of that muscle, but you just, you have to have enough muscle to be able to do the task that you want to do. Speaker 2 On my end, contrary to what many coaches recommend of not doing strength because it's a waste of time, maybe if you just allocate your focus in triathlon, cycling, swimming, running, maybe it could be seen as a waste of time. But I think it's an investment for your future self and you shouldn't neglect it. So don't overcomplicate it. You had a few of the sessions that I've been using for the last 12 years or 10 years. They are very simple and they can get really challenging. You don't need a lot of entertainment or variation. You just need stuff that works and that you can repeat and that you can benchmark yourself against. So that will be on my end so. Speaker 1 Good stuff, good stuff. Yeah, I will. I'll definitely link up the, the chart that we've been referencing, you know, when, when we post this live, because I think that, you know, it's useful to, to have that sort of model in your head of how you're, you're going to periodize things. But you know, as in Yaqui said, unfortunately it's, it's a lot like endurance training. The simple stuff is really effective. So just just get your sessions together and do them over long periods of time and you'll go a long way towards maintaining the the muscle and the strength that we want as we we get older. Speaker 2 And if you want something powerful, useful and simple, follow Erin Carson in Easy Fit will bring her in for a conversation to the podcast. She's one of the best strength coaches I ever met. She has helped everyone in Boulder and beyond in all sports. So 35 years of experience across the sports. So we'll bring her in and I'll also link. I'm finishing the sub stack, but we'll be ready if by when we have this one on on my view on strength and a little bit of a blueprint on what you can use. Speaker 1 Great. Speaker 2 Thank you. Speaker 1 Thanks everyone. We'll we'll be back again for the next one shortly. Speaker 2 See you.