Strength Training for endurance athletes is a must.

Here at RevoPT we have a HUGE focus on Strength Training for endurance athletes, from runners, to cyclists and triathletes.

So often we are hear stories or meet clients who have battled through an ongoing injury while doing the one thing they love most.

Why? Because injury occurs when your body’s mechanics is out of alignment. How does your body become out of alignment? When we repeatedly use the same muscles and movement patterns over and over again we cause wear and tear not only on our muscles but the tendons, ligaments, joints and bones required for that movement pattern. This kind of damage leads to pain and inflammation which over time can lead to loss of function or in fact further injury and decreased performance.

We believe endurance athletes need to have strong, ridged and robust bodies to bullet proof them from injury so that they can enjoy more of what makes them happy. How do we manage all of that? Through a structured strength training program which takes into consideration current training volume, mobility, load, sets and reps and race schedule. When this is done correctly and at the right times throughout your training program, resistance training can enhance your performance as well and helping you prevent injury.

One of the most common questions we are asked is exactly what exercises you should be doing to keep your body strong and avoid the break down of muscle tissue and reduction in range of motion long term endurance training can cause?

Below is an outline of our top 5 exercises to help create balanced, bulletproof bodies. Performing exercises which target multiple muscles groups and joints helps enable more recruitment throughout the movement.

As with all programming there should never be a one size fits all approach, so please reach out if you’re looking to have something customised specifically for you.

Keep reading below for our individualised online programming options that we can use to come up with something 100% customised for you.

1. The Squat

Why you should include the Squat

– Improve knee stability; strengthening the muscles around the knee will help keep knee in alignment, while also strengthening the ligaments around the joint to provide further stability. Building up the muscle around the knee will help contribute to the prevention of knee damage due to wear and tear.

– Increase power; performing squats will increase strength within your legs, therefore when running it will allow you to run faster on flats and faster up hill

– Greater body awareness; unfortunately running injuries generally occur when we become fatigued and our form begins to change. Practicing squats helps to identify the feeling of incorrect technique and improve our proprioception. It might be the knees collapsing inwards, similar to when we are running under fatigue or if the chest is dropping too far forward.

Having a good sense of body awareness while squatting can help correct these habits that occur while out running.

2. Deadlift

Why you should include the Deadlift (hip hinge)

– Forward lean; learning the technique of the hip hinge transfers across to your running stride as it helps strengthen the glutes and hamstrings. The hinging motion helps to create a strong hip drive to propel us forward

– Balancing the body; high volumes of running per week puts a great deal of load through the front parts of the body i.e. quads, knees, hip flexors, this can cause an imbalance from the front to the back of the body. The hip hinge movement primarily uses the hamstring, glutes and back therefore creating symmetry throughout the body.

3. Pallof Press

Why you should include the Pallof Press

– Increase core strength; the pallof press targets the whole core while also including working the shoulders and hips

– Functional; the purpose of the pallof press is to develop core strength directly transferrable to running. Unlike some abdominal exercises it trains the core to it’s true primary function – to act as a stabiliser connecting the upper and the lower body when moving.

4. The Kettlebell

Why you should include kettlebell swing

– Hip extension; the kettlebell swing reinforces hip extension within movement, greater power can be created during this moment

– Explosive; the movement involves quick and explosive movements which increases heart rate, muscle strength and power, core and posture activation.

– Unlike other power based movements which can cause additional stress to a runners joints the kettle swing is a relatively low impact movement

5. The TRX Row

Why you should include TRX Row

– Improves posture; towards the end of your session is generally when the posture can change, we begin to lose our form under fatigue.

The TRX Row helps strengthen the upper back muscles so that when we become to the end of the run we have the strength to keep form throughout the whole session, finishing looking and feeling strong.

If you’re really wanting to take your strength training as an endurance athlete to the next level we want to help you.

We run three dedicated Strength Training sessions each and every week specifically for endurance athletes, mostly runners.

In these sessions I guides athletes through a specialised and individualised program that will help you to bullet proof your body and prepared you for the rigours of endurance training and competition.

This is crucial if you’re a runner, triathlete or cyclist that is wanting to stay in one piece.

Is South Melbourne to hard for you to get to on a regular basis? Are you not from Melbourne?

We’ve got you!

We now offer online programming just for people like you.

As the endurance specialist from RevoPT I look forward to hearing form you and helping you to stay injury free and perform better.

– Jaimie-Lee Brown