Strength

Not sure if you guys have picked up on this, but I'm kind of a stubborn, hard-headed person. I like to go my own way. I like to figure things out for myself. So when every endurance sports magazine and most of the blogs tell me about the importance of strength training for endurance athletes, do you think I listen? I do not!

Truth is, I used to love lifting weights. It was all I did, athletically speaking, in high school and most of college. I hated running. Knew zilch about cycling. And could barely swim. Also, I had almost no coordination and sucked at being a team player. Weight training was sort of right up my alley.

Even two seasons ago, I spent the bulk of my early-season training time doing hang cleans, squats, straight-leg deadlifts, and lat pull-downs with heavy, heavy weights. I made big gains in strength (and bulk). I could feel the power in my legs with every step.

Somewhere along the way, I got to really hate weight lifting. Might have to do with the fact that I work in a gym and frequently spend 10-12 hours a day around free weights, Cybex, Nautilus, Free Motion, and the like. Add to that my general unwillingness to listen to what everyone else says, and you have my current situation: I will do anything to avoid strength training.

However, about a month ago, I started noticing something on my long runs and bike workouts: my legs were getting tired. The quads and hamstrings and glutes would be crapping out, and my heart rate would barely be in the 140s. I was having trouble getting into the appropriate training zone because my legs weren't strong enough to get my heart working.

Now that's probably not all that abnormal; probably most athletes find that their hearts and lungs are stronger than their arms and legs (or vice versa) in the early part of the season, if not for most of the year. But it was a kick in the pants for me. Because I knew that I wasn't putting in enough time in the weight room, at least in terms of the results I want to see this year. So I sat down and (grudgingly) wrote out a weight training plan for myself.

I'm not going to try to convince you that you should lift weights (at least not in this post). If you want to lift weights, you already do, and if you don't want to lift weights, I'm not going to convince you that you should by anything I write (just like I wasn't convinced by anything I read). I will tell you (from experience) that Yoga--even a high-intensity kind like Bikram or Ashtanga--is not going to be enough strength training if you really want to train for your top performance. Anyway, the point is not to convince you of how great strength training is; the point is to give you the workout I do--which is as short and as concise as I could make it--so you can use it, if you want to. If you've never lifted before, find a personal trainer (or a knowledgeable friend) to show you how to do these things properly. Don't go in there without knowing what you're doing; you're too likely to hurt yourself, and then you'll really regret the strength training.

Jamie's IDon'tWannaBeHere Strength Plan

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