Tri-Strength

Jason Gootman, MS, CSCS & Will Kirousis, BS, CSCS
Tri-Hard Endurance Sports Coaching
USA Triathlon & USA Cycling Certified Coaches
Certified Strength & Conditioning Coaches
For More Information: www.Tri-Hard.com
This article was published in the December 2006 issue of New England Sports.

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"Only the strong survive!" --Attributed to many

You know getting stronger/more powerful will help you take your racing up to the next level. But what kinds of exercises should you be doing? Machines or free weights? Upper-body or lower-body? Pilates? "Core" exercises? It's easy to be confused with the sea of information we now swim in every day. Well, today is your lucky day—we'll sort it all out for you. The only thing you ever need to know to choose the best exercises is:

Use free-standing, total-body exercises that train movements not muscles!

Free-standing means just that—you are free and standing. Free means that you are free to move naturally; you are not supported by a chair, bench, or floor as you perform the exercise. Standing means you are standing in some way; you are not sitting or maintaining a prone (laying face down) or supine (laying face up) position to execute the exercise. Sticking with this straightforward theme, total-body is not a tricky concept either. It means that the exercise requires all of your body (head, neck, torso, and limbs) in some way to overcome the resistance present in the exercise. Free-standing, total-body exercises help you develop strength/power that is the most usable in life, in any sport you play, and definitely in your triathlons!

Myth-Busting First, Exercises Second

1. You should isolate individual muscles. This is leftover from the bodybuilding culture, which still, despite many years of people lifting weights as part of athletic or fitness training, permeates people's approach to strength/power training. As a triathlete (or any athlete or any person pursing general fitness) you should never do exercises that attempt to isolate individual muscles. These exercises lead to significantly less-than-optimal strength/power gains at best, muscle-imbalance injuries at worst.

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