A guide to strength training for endurance athletes
Strength training is great for endurance athletes, helping to improve performance and reduce the risk of injury. The off-season is an excellent time to focus on a strength training program. This time of the year overall training stress is typically lower, making it an ideal time to focus on increasing strength and conditioning.
When adding strength training to your training program, it’s important to start easy and let the body adjust to the new stress. You may want to start at home with bodyweight exercises or keep it simple with dumbbells and resistance bands before ramping up to heavier and more difficult exercises, at home or at the gym. The primary goals are to get stronger, correct imbalances, maintain or increase flexibility, and lay the foundation for good health and fitness.
Research has shown that training to increase power is effective at improving performance for endurance athletes, and should be a main goal for endurance athletes going to the gym. Endurance training helps you to have high neuromuscular endurance, but it does not maximize neural recruitment. Endurance athletes typically have a lot of room for improvement in their maximal force production. Strength training can be stressful for the body, so you’ll want at least 4-8 weeks of progressive work at the gym before progressively pushing your limits. If you’re new to the gym, give yourself more time and ramp up slowly. If you’ve done a lot of strength work or power sports in the past, your body may adjust more quickly. No matter what, you should listen to your body and work with it to progress at a rate that’s comfortable, and allows for progress while keeping the risk of injury low. Always keep in mind, you want to work on getting stronger. Sometimes, you may also want to include high volume sets or drop sets as a part of the transition to more sport specific training to work on neuromuscular endurance.
Many athletes will benefit from increasing muscle mass, but this is not necessary for increasing strength. Most strength gains in the first 1-2 months are neurological. Strength work is great even if you want to keep your total body mass down. In contrast, weakness and the inability to recruit muscle fibers can really slow you down and limit your potential.
If you’re strong, balanced, and adequately flexible, you’ll perform better and you’re less likely to get injured.
General Guidelines
Strength train 2x weekly
Warm up at least 10-15m with aerobic activity and core work
Start easy to minimize soreness and risk of injury
Slowly increase the weight with moderate reps (8-15) for several weeks
Lift progressively heavier weights to increase maximal muscle recruitment
Late in the program, alternate between heavy/power workouts and strength endurance workouts
Always, listen to your body and be careful not to hurt yourself
Take in some carbs (50-100g) and protein (20-25g) after any quality workout
A basic strength training program guide
To adequately structure your workouts, start with light to moderate aerobic work such as running, rowing, or cycling, which can be done at the gym or on the way there. Then, move on to light to moderate upper body exercises and core work to finish your warm-up before transitioning to the leg-centric part of your workout.
Focus on your core
Maintaining core and upper body work throughout the program is essential to develop good core and shoulder strength and stability. After some initial progress, you don't need to keep adding weight or making the upper body workout more difficult because the goal is to increase strength, not muscle mass. However, the leg portion of the workout should progress from easy to moderate to alternating heavy and high-volume throughout the phases of your weight training.
Good core strength is beneficial for everyone. Including at least 3 to 4 sets of 3 to 4 exercises for your abs, back, and obliques in every workout is recommended. Quality trumps quantity when it comes to strength training, so it's essential to focus on good form and execution. Several core exercises can help with the warm-up early in the workout. Adding a few extra core exercises is a nice bonus if there is extra time.
Don’t overdo your upper body workouts
Endurance athletes rely on effective neural recruitment, particularly in their lower body, but the upper body and core are equally important. However, unlike the legs, increasing upper body mass doesn't provide significant benefits for cyclists, runners, and triathletes who rely on strength and power.
Light to moderate upper body exercises can improve overall balance and strength. Nevertheless, excessive heavy lifting can be counterproductive as it consumes energy during workouts and recovery and increases body mass more than power. It is advisable to perform a few sets of upper body exercises after warming up aerobically but not to overdo it.
Month 1 (foundational)
This phase aims to establish a solid foundation for your training. This involves preparing your body for more intense workouts and training your nervous system to handle them. Think of it like building up your endurance for biking. This will help you adapt to more challenging workouts in the future.
Work out 2 to 3 times a week for 30 to 40 minutes.
Start with light weights, moderate reps (12 to 15), and sets (3 to 5).
Gradually increase the intensity of your workouts.
Feeling sore for a day or two after your first few workouts is normal, but if the soreness lasts longer than that, you're pushing too hard.
Month 2 (build)
The focus of this phase is to increase your strength and resistance to fatigue while minimizing the risk of injury. Progress slowly to avoid overexertion.
Work out 2 to 3 times a week for a maximum of 2 challenging sessions lasting 30 to 50 minutes, with an optional 3rd light workout (similar to endurance training).
Gradually increase the weight you lift for a similar number of reps.
Start with a comfortable increase in weight while doing fewer reps (6 to 12) and more sets (4 to 6) after your warm-up.
Later, progress to sets of 8 to 12 reps at a progressively heavier weight.
Remember to consume enough protein in your diet and have a snack or drink containing protein after each workout.
By the end of this phase, you should experience less soreness after each workout.
Month 3 (peak)
This phase is about maximizing your neural recruitment to access the most muscle fiber possible in a controlled manner. The focus is on increasing maximal strength and power, which can be challenging for your body. Be mindful and strategic in your approach. You can transition into maintaining high-end strength while increasing strength endurance by doing large sets of moderate weights.
Work out 1 to 2 times a week for 1 hard session lasting 40 to 50 minutes and an optional easy/light session lasting 20 to 40 minutes.
Aim to increase maximal strength (mass) and/or power (mass and speed).
Challenge yourself while maintaining good form and safety.
Build your maximal 4-6 rep strength while maintaining good form.
Consider doing moderate to heavy mass lifting but doing the concentric phase of the lifts more quickly/explosively if you're concerned about possible injury.
Month 4 (taper/transition)
During this phase, focus on lifting weights, getting stronger, and enjoying the activity. Your sets of exercises should not be so difficult that you struggle to finish them, but they should be challenging enough to stress your body and make it stronger. If you can't finish a set, what should you do?
Work out 2 times a week, with 1 session focused on endurance and 1 on strength.
Aim to maintain high neural recruitment (maximal strength) and increase strength endurance (the total volume of mass you can lift within a given period).
For the endurance workout, choose a weight that challenges you to lift it 12 to 20 times and does multiple sets (4-6) with relatively short recovery periods (1 to 1.5 minutes) or alternating between exercises with opposing muscle groups in quick succession. Gradually increase the weight or reps over time.
For the strength workout, choose a moderate to heavy weight and do a few sets of about 6-8 reps to maintain a high level of basic strength. These are maintenance workouts.
Suggested workouts
Core exercises (pick 3):
Front and side planks
Suspended planks (with a TRX/strap-type training device)
Mountain climbers on a bosu ball
Suspended mountain climbers
Crunches on a bosu or exercise ball
Incline sit-ups
Leg lifts (lying or hanging leg lifts)
Standing oblique cable twist or “wood choppers”
Ab roll-outs
Lying back-extensions
Bridges with leg-extensions
Shoulders and arms (pick 2):
Pull-ups, chin-ups, or lateral pull-downs
Push-ups or presses (flat or incline, dumbbell or barbell)
Seated or bent-over rows
Shoulder presses
Dips
Curls (dumbbell or barbell)
After a handful of quick sets of core and upper body work, then you can focus on leg work. Always, the top priority is to get fitter without getting hurt, so good form and moderate weights are key.
Legs (pick 2):
Squats
Dead-lifts
Trap-bar dead-lifts
Leg presses
Lunges
Box step-ups
Weighted or single-leg calf raises
Single-leg, straight-leg hops (for calves)
Quad extensions
Hamstring curls
For a specific example, my routine is something like this:
10 minutes
Walk, jog, or bike to the gym
Depending on how warmed up I am, I may add a few minutes on a treadmill or rowing machine
15 minutes
Moderate core and upper body exercises done in quick circuits (i.e., one exercise to the next with minimal recovery)
Pick a handful of exercises and order them based on their proximity to each other or the availability of the relevant equipment so that you can make the most of your time
If you don’t have a lot of time, then pick 2-3 core exercises and do either rows or pull-downs and presses or push-ups (you can do a lot in 15m)
Consider circuits of the following: crunches, planks, rows, lateral pull-downs, mountain climbers on a bosu ball, standing cable twists, push-ups
15 to 20 minutes
Presumably, you’re very well warmed up by this point, so you can move to leg exercises, which are the main focus of the workout
Depending on what type of training you’re doing, consider whether you would benefit from doing some light stretching and muscle activation, or a few warm-up sets with light weights
When you feel loose and ready to lift heavier, then do your main workout sets, which could look something like this
Foundational: 3 to 4 sets of 10 to 15 reps, moderate weight (general conditioning)
Build: 3 to 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps, moderately heavy weight (increase strength)
Peak: 4. to 6 sets of 5 to 8 reps, heavyweight (maximal strength and power)
Transition: alternate endurance workouts with 3 to 4 sets of 12 to 20 reps, moderate weight for strength endurance with strength/power type workouts for maximal strength/neural recruitment, or do hybrid workouts that start with a few heavy sets and then a few lights sets with high reps to failure or close to it
For each phase, choose just 3 to 5 critical exercises like this: squats, dead-lifts, or leg-presses, lunges, calf raises, and maybe seated-quad extensions and hamstring curls
Summary
If you want to perform your best and reduce your chances of injury, strength work can be an important part of your training program. You could do it during the winter/off-season for 3-5 months. Or, you could do it cyclically throughout the year whenever you have big gaps between goal events and peaks in sport-specific fitness.
You can get stronger at the gym and simply produce more force with specific strength workouts than you can from only cycling or running, so it can be pretty key for some of us to work on this. At the same time, always remember what your top long term priorities are and balance your training stresses accordingly, so that you’re driving the kinds of adaptations that will help you with your long term goals.
If you like going to the gym or simply want to perform your best, then definitely consider devoting at least 3-4 months to strength work in your off-season. Start easy. Build your strength. Lift heavy, while keeping it safe. Consider some endurance sets late in your program as you transition to more sport specific training late in your foundational/preparatory training phase.
