Your strength training should change throughout the year. Does yours?

Hello!

Quick question for you before we get into it today: has your strength training changed at all in the last six months?

I’m not talking about the exercises, rather the type of strength work that you are doing: the rep-ranges, the loads, the rest periods, the strength quality you are training.

If the answer is not really, you are not alone! This is one of the most common things I see with runners and cyclists who are consistent with their strength work but not quite getting the results they expected from it.

And it leads me to something I see runners and cyclists fall into all the time. The trap of doing the same strength training all year round. You find a programme that works, you stick to it, and as long as you are showing up twice a week you think you are doing the right thing.

I completely understand why this happens! Life is busy, finding a routine that fits is hard enough, and once you have something that feels manageable the last thing you want to do is change it. And nobody really talks about this either, so how would you know?

However, please take a moment to think about this: your endurance training changes throughout the year, right?

You wouldn’t be doing marathon specific long runs in the middle of winter when you are building your base. Nor would you be hammering long intervals in the week of your target race/event. Your running and cycling adapts to where you are relative to your training goal and what your body needs at that point in time.

Your strength training should do exactly the same thing!

Just as your endurance training has different types of sessions, easy runs, tempo efforts, intervals, long rides, your strength training has different types too. Understanding what they are and when to use them is what makes the difference between strength work that genuinely supports your performance and strength work that is just ticking a box.

So let's get into it!

There are four main types of strength training that are relevant to runners and cyclists. Here is a breakdown of each one and where they sit in your training year.

Muscular endurance

This is the ability of a muscle to produce force repeatedly over a sustained period of time. Higher reps, lower load, shorter rest periods.

Here is something worth knowing: this is the strength quality you are already developing every time you go out the door! Every stride and every pedal stroke is a muscular endurance effort. Which is also why doing very high rep, low load gym work often has limited transfer to your running and cycling, you are already getting plenty of it out on the road.

Muscular endurance work tends to be most useful earlier in a training block, when you are rebuilding tolerance, reintroducing movement patterns, and getting your body used to structured strength work again. Think 3 sets of 15 to 20 reps, light to moderate load, focusing on movement quality and control.

Hypertrophy (strength development)

This is muscle growth. Here we’re looking at sets of 6 to 12 reps, moderate to heavy load with moderate rest periods.

I know, I know! You do not want to get bulky or put on loads of muscle mass! This is something I hear from runners and cyclists all the time and I completely understand the concern. But at the volumes we are talking about here, with two sessions a week as an endurance athlete, you are not going to suddenly pack on muscle mass when your endurance training is taking up the bulk of your training. What you will do is build the muscular foundation that supports everything else.

Stronger muscles handle load better. They are more resilient to the repeated demands of running and cycling. Hypertrophy training is typically most valuable during the off season and base phase when your endurance load is lower and your body has the recovery capacity to absorb it properly.

Maximal strength

Lower reps, 3 to 5, heavier loads, longer rest periods of 3 to 5 minutes.

This is the type of strength training most endurance athletes either avoid completely or rush into without building the foundation first! And it is a shame, because this is where some of the most powerful adaptations happen.

When you raise your maximum force production capacity, your ceiling goes up. And when your ceiling is higher, every stride and every pedal stroke uses a smaller percentage of your maximum capacity, which means you can go further before fatigue really sets in. This is one of the most valuable things strength training can do for endurance performance and it is consistently the most underused.

Maximal strength work is most appropriate once you have built your muscular endurance and hypertrophy foundations, typically in the late base or early build phase of your training year.

Power

This is where strength and speed combine, and there are two slightly different expressions of it worth knowing about.

Strength speed is moving a heavier load as explosively as possible. Think push squats or trap bar jumps. The emphasis is on the load but the intent is still explosive.

Speed strength is producing high force quickly. Think plyometrics, box jumps, bounding. The emphasis is on the speed of the movement.

For runners and cyclists, power work improves running economy, cycling efficiency, and your ability to kick or surge when it counts. It also maintains the neuromuscular sharpness that keeps you feeling fast and responsive come race day.

Power work tends to sit towards the end of the build and early race preparation phases before the taper, once the strength foundations are in place. Think of it as the sharpening tool rather than the foundation builder.

So how does this sit alongside your endurance training?

Think of it this way. A runner training for a 5km would not fill their programme with marathon specific long runs. The demands of the event shape the training. Strength training works exactly the same way, the phase of your training year shapes which strength quality you should be prioritising.

Here is a framework to take away:

If you are newer to structured strength training or returning after a break, a linear approach like this works really well. More experienced runners and cyclists with regards to strength training may find that different periodisation approach works better for them. What matters is that your strength training is periodised in some form rather than staying the same all year.

This is one of the things I see most often with runners and cyclists who come to me having done some form of strength training before but not quite getting the results they hoped for. They have been doing the same programme week in, week out for the best part of a year. No progression of the strength quality, no periodisation, just the same exercises at roughly the same load. The body adapts quickly and without progression, the stimulus stops driving change.

Sound familiar?!

If it does, I want you to know that this is exactly what BUILT TO RUN OVER 30 and BUILT TO RIDE OVER 30 are built around. Both programmes take you through these strength phases over 12 weeks in a way that is structured specifically around your running and cycling, so the strength work is always doing the right job at the right time. If you want to find out more, just reply to this email and I will send you the details.

And if you want to dig into this further with a community of runners and cyclists who are asking the same questions, come and join us in the free community. There are over 780 runners and cyclists over 30 in there and these are the sort of topics we get into on a regular basis- you can click here to join.

And finally, what type of strength training have you been focusing on? I would love to hear where you are at with it, reply and let me know!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Emma x