It’s Almost Strong Season!
The mornings are dark. Long sleeve tech Ts are calling your name (except for this past week…hello, climate change…). You are dreaming of your post-workout pumpkin spice bevvy or snack of choice. These are all signs that fall race season is upon us! This is an exciting, nerve-wracking time and the culmination of months of hard work. But when the dust settles from your A-race, how will you lay the foundation for a strong 2024?
The off-season and early build stages of your macro training cycle is a great time to hit the gym and get strong. Usually training volume and intensity goes down at this point, which means you will have more time to fit in 2-3 gym sessions a week, and you will be able to recover from the inevitable DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness). While I understand most endurance athletes try to avoid the gym like the plague (too soon?), there are benefits to building muscle that will pay off next season.
Before we begin, let me start by saying, no, you will not become the hulk. We are not looking to train you to be able to enter a strongman/woman competition. It is worth noting that the obsession around being skinny in endurance sport is a harmful stereotype. Many professionals have openly discussed this, including Olympic marathon bronze medalist Molly Seidel, who recently posted about this being the “year of the buff girl”.
So why lift?
1) It can improve neuromuscular characteristics, which manifests as increased force production, sharper coordination, and better recruitment of muscles
2) If the VO2max between two athletes is the same, anaerobic capacity can serve as a predictor of who will do better. Lifting can boost your anaerobic capacity, which is your ability to generate top end explosiveness.
3) Increases your time to exhaustion at a given workload. Who doesn’t want that! This happens because your total strength increases, so you are using less of your capacity when you are stronger at a given workload.
4) Improved running economy, which looks at oxygen use at a given speed. This is influenced by internal and external factors, but strength training, especially explosive strength training like plyometrics, has been found to improve running economy.
5) For any peri- and post-menopausal women out there, heavy resistance training can help with the retention and building of muscle mass and bone density. If you have noticed that you are not adapting to your old training methods, or that you are perpetually injured, then it is definitely worth giving strength training a shot. The benefits of strength training for this population extends to everyone, not just those that are active.
Not sure where to start? I provide individual and group strength training sessions! The benefit of working with a physiotherapist in this capacity is that I always start with an initial assessment screen to see where you are at and what you would benefit from. You can gather a group of 2-4, and email me to set up a 4-week minimum program! Groups where the individuals share similar goals makes for the best experience, such as:
those that want to improve overall fitness, but are uncertain of how to do so safely
triathletes/runners/cyclists
peri-/post-menopausal women (here is a clip of me talking about my first cohort!)
post-partum strength training
pre-teen/teenage supplemental dryland/cross-training
seniors looking to get strong
Want to learn more? http://drdelanghe.com/strength-training-with-physio-sayaka/
Good luck to anyone with upcoming races and I look forward to helping you reach those goals in 2024!
