The Importance of Strength & Conditioning for Endurance Athletes

It is a sad truth that many runners and triathletes spend time out of the sport they love because they are simply not strong enough. A massive 70% of runners will have a minimum of 2 weeks away from their sport due to injury. Strength and conditioning has been shown to reduce the risk of overuse injury by up to 50% (Laursen et al, 2013)

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Strength training is a important part of any athletes training stimulus, but especially true for women who start with less muscle mass than men and can lose this at a rate of 3% per decade from around the age of 30. This loss of lean mass can then be exacerbated during peri and post menopause giving greater training challenges if we do not understand and train to counteract these changes. 

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We are not just avoiding injury by adding resistance training into our program, it can significantly improve our performance. We propel ourselves forward by producing a force on the ground, peddle, water or so on. The greater the muscle mass that produces that force, the greater the speed is generated, simple right?

 

Adding S&C into my own training regime has seen my times and time on the side lines come down significantly. I love passing on this knowledge & experience and incorporating strength training into the programmes of the athletes that I coach.