Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Back in the Weight Room

Since I am in marathon recovery I decided to catch up on my neglected swimming.  Now, I have been swimming a least twice a week but I need to pick up the volume.

I went to the gym on Monday and the pool was closed.  There had been a fire in the natatorium!  Ironic, no?

Well, the fire was in the old men’s locker room.  The pool is okay but there was some smoke damage.  The pool is closed for a week or two. 

Knowing that I did not need a run I decided to head upstairs to the weight room.  Normally I keep the weights in my routine pretty steady during the late fall, winter and early spring and then taper it off when the big training blocks hit.  When I do strength training for my legs it knocks me down for days.  The run / bike really suffers. 

The Pump and Run last year

Last year I did a lot of bench press late into the spring while training for the Pump and Run.  However, this year with the bike crash and my hurt shoulder I had only been upstairs once since January.  I tried to test the should in the bench press back in March and there was all kinds of ‘bad’ pain in the shoulder area.

I racked up the bar on the bench and took a deep breath.  Although I have lost some strength I am very happy to report that there was no pain at all (there was a little bit of very minor discomfort).  I preformed 4 supersets of of bench and back.

Two days later I can tell you that I have not been in the weight room for 3 months!  The soreness in my upper body quickly makes me forget the soreness in my lower body.

Do you strength train? – year round / in the winter?  And more importantly, how does it effect your endurance training?

7 comments:

Karen said...

Weights are tricky, aren't they? It is hard to know how much to do so you don't kill yourself on day one and don't want to go back for a few days. LOVE pump n runs! I did one before the Flying Pig a couple years ago. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. They were very specific on what counted as a rep and what didn't (I did bench presses and bicep curls). A "legal" bench press is so much harder than the "not so legal" ones I had apparently been doing. :)

Tri-James said...

There is a fine line. While I want to get faster in races, I also want a high quality of life. None of us is getting any younger and to enjoy life to the fullest I prefer to carry a little extra lean muscle mass. I do this because as we age we will all lose lean muscle mass. However, the more you have going into your 40’s the longer you get to keep it.

It is very difficult to put lean muscle mass on after your 40’s!

Anonymous said...

In the winter I like to lift. Very important for women also so we can prevent that nasty thing called osteoporosis!

Pretend this is real said...

Not gonna lie. I suck about getting in strength training. But you remind me that I should start it up again... Hmm.

B.o.B. said...

Just found your blog through Karen's. Yay for new tri blogs to read!

I did go and read the crash story. Probably should have skipped that since I'm a total cycling newbie (and nervous!)

I haven't done much strength training but def should work on my core.

Kurt @ Becoming An Ironman said...

I did a lot of strength training a year ago. That was the bulk of my training for about 4-5 months until I really got into triathlons and decided I didn't need bulk but more endurance. I've cut back a LOT, but ideally, I'd still like to have one session every week just to keep all of the muscle groups working together well.

Nelly said...

bummer about the fire in the pool, hope its back to normal soon! Sounds like you have a good routine with strength training. Generally I go to the gym more often during the winter, then do more running outside during the rest of the months. But I probably should get better about going to the gym even during the summer too. I might try to go at least once per week to work on strength and core exercises.