Triathlon is a demanding multi-discipline sport, calling for high levels of endurance in the water, on a bike and on the road. And, while triathletes spend most of their time swimming, cycling and running, they also need a supplementary resistance-based conditioning programme to enhance overall performance.

Here at Vibes Fitness, we can design you a programme of strength and conditioning exercises suitable for serious competitive triathletes.

We design a strength development programme that will suit your individual needs as we are all individuals and we take your strengths and weakness of the athlete into account. So our strength workouts will enhance your weekly training schedules. Our strength programs will give you maximum results with the minimum expenditure of time and energy, as most serious trained

athletes find it difficult to commit and recover from extra training times.

Strength training can improve performance via two main effects:

- first, the increase in strength can enhance the skill, power or efficiency of the sporting movement

- secondly, it will reduce the risk of injury.

When designing a triathlon strength programme, you have to consider

whether a performance and/or injury benefit is possible for each of the three disciplines. Once you have done this, you have a rational basis for choosing the best exercises. Based on research and my own experience, I recommend that you target performance for running, and injury prevention for running and swimming. It should take about 45 minutes, while the core and jumping routines should take around 20 minutes. This level of time investment is realistic for athletes and allows for a beneficial rather than tiring effect.

In our experience with our clients we have found that strength programme will result in fewer injuries for elite runners, swimmers and cyclists. .eg: strength in the calf and anterior tibialis (the muscles at the front and back of the lower leg) has been linked inversely with Achilles tendon overuse injuries. Core strength exercises are recommended for both running and swimming injury prevention. Balance between the strength of the quadriceps and the hamstrings is recommended specifically for running injury prevention, while good rotator cuff and scapula muscle function is recommended for swimming injury prevention. Tiathletes should include in their routines exercises for all the trunk and core muscles, rotator cuff and scapula muscles,together with isolated exercises for the calf and hamstrings.

So call us today to assist you in your training :)

source: peak performance manuals and Vibes Fitness clients experiences