Thread: Little help with a triatholon

you are going to test 1Rm's the first day out?

I wouldn't do that.

Start with assessing his movement. Look at static posture, look at how he walks (tell him to take his shirt and his shoes and socks off and walk), watch how he runs. Have him do an overhead squat test. Test his core stability (bird dogs can be good for this. planks are ookay too). Just test his quality of movement. Do an assessment of how he moves.

Also, if he is a triathalon, why would youtest his 1RM? He isn't a powerlifter and is not going to be doing limit strength in his program. While you should have periods of higher intenisty, I wouldn't be working up to 1RM's at all.

As P said, assessing movement is big. It will help make sure he stays healthy enough to compete in, and finish, the race. It will also improve his times by making sure he is maintaining a certain level of efficiency as he moves. Over the course of something really long like a triathlon, this can make a substantial impact on his time.

Also, I see no point in doing such high intensity lifting. Lifting should not even be the focal point of his training. You are probably going to be hard pressed to get him resistance training more than 2 days per week if his training volume in the endurance activities is high enough.

What these guys said is bang on so far...so I'll just add my two cents. If you are going to do resistance training it definitely does not need to be a high priority part of his training. To get faster (and this has been proven over and over again) building a solid mileage base in each sport is the key. What you can do with resistance is enhance strength in the areas where he's going to need it, ie in the shoulders and back for swimming, hips and glutes for biking and running, work on things like making sure his knee and ankle stabilizers are solid and that his postural muscles are rock solid. I also do a TON of stretching and foam roller work with my people. Then you can work on core strength as well.

But they are right, doing a 1RM test isn't very handy. If anything you would want to do an endurance based test like a bike threshold test and a run threshold test to see where those areas are at and set some baseline benchmarks for improvments in power and speed.

Nice guys much appreciated. I guess I shouldve exaplined he is kinda looking to increase lbm after the race, but since I was in a rush I didnt get to that. For now I will definitly check his posture and use a oh squat test along with checkin his core stability. I know he is currently doing things like pushing himself to run X amount of miles in X amount of minutes and simply trying to increase that each time, along with swimming and biking. Thanks guys thats helps out alot, I will probably suggest 2 days a week with resistance training. Of course take what PB, said with focusing on the focal points. Anything else to add guys?

you might be better off training him on a routine like this. at least for the swimming and running part.

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Very nice thanks PB. I am not very informed on things like this. And its definitly time to get informed about it. Its just a matter of a few months that I will be training people whose goal will be athletic performance in something like a triatholon.

How long is the triathlon?

I'm planning on doing a short one this summer. 1/2 mile swim, 15 mile bike, 5 mile run. The biking won't be a problem, and I am working on the running (just trying to build up mileage stamina). I need to work on the swimming though.