Year Round Strength Training for Endurance Athletes

Often strength training is a key component to training towards specific endurance athletic goals. This can either be to address an athlete's specific weakness, reduce negative side effects and injury risk from targeting endurance sports, or support secondary training goals. In the off-season it is easier to follow a strength routine because often endurance training is less intense and less structured and there are no events or competitions to manage. For these same reasons, strength training is often neglected during the competition season. This can have multiple negative effects, and it is best to find strategies to manage and phase strength training in order to maintain a minimum effective dose all year round.

What is the problem with only strength training in the off season?

While doing strength training during the off season is a good starting point, ideally the attributes gained are maintained all year round. The mains reasons being the following

The goal is to still benefit from strength training all through the season - By strength training during the off season, ideally strength, speed, stability, or whatever else which contribute to athletic goals is gained. Unfortunately, by stopping work on these attributes for 3-6 months, they will slowly dwindle to the same level or below as before the off season. Since most athletes' main objectives are at the end of their season, it makes sense to maintain these attributes through the entire season.

Not starting from zero at the beginning of each off-season - Allowing the benefits of strength training to slowly degrade, when returning to the gym in the next off season will be starting over again from zero. The most benefit can be gained by building on top of previous gains year after year and targeting new weaknesses rather than having to continuously reset the same foundation.

What does a phasic strength training look like for an endurance athlete?

The key word through all of this is that it is important to maintain the benefits of strength training throughout the entire season. This means that the goal will not be to continue building strength or other attributes year round, but rather build up a reserve when endurance training is less specific; then as endurance training becomes more targeted and intense, strength training volume and intensity reduces to a maintenance level. 

The amount of strength training required for this maintenance level is often vastly overestimated. This leads to trying to maintain too much strength training while increasing the intensity of endurance training, resulting in excess fatigue and eventually over training. In reality we only need to do less than half the volume of strength training at an easier intensity to maintain.

For simplicity sake we can break the year up into 4 periods. The off season, the unstructured base season, the structured base season, and finally the competition season. There will also be examples for athletes that train 5-6 hours a week and those who train 10+ hours a week. The off season won’t be discussed either because by definition very little to no structured training should be done during this period.

Unstructured base season

This is a period where the level of specificity and intensity for endurance training are the lowest. This doesn't mean zero intensity, but the structure is low. Think just doing weekly hard Zwift races, playing another team sport, or some intervals. Endurance training can also be substituted for other secondary sports, keeping things interesting and taking a mental break from main sports, but still building a foundation for next season.

This is when most work should be done to benefit from strength training. Since endurance training is more general and non specific, the risk of missing a key workout or event because of extra fatigue is much lower. Take advantage of this period to build in the gym and really attack weaknesses.

For athletes who train 10+ hours a week this can be 2-3 medium to long gym sessions, depending on experience doing gym training and individual schedule.

3 moderately hard strength training sessions during the week stacked with hard endurance days, with lots of endurance cross training with other activities. Only 1 specific intensity session

For athletes that train in the 5-10 hours a week this may be 2-3 short to medium gym sessions, but can also be one gym session in situations with extreme scheduling constraints.

2 moderately hard strength training sessions which are always after intensity days, with 1 long cross training endurance activity. Only 1 specific intensity session

The main difference between the two situations is the use of double days for strength training for athletes that train at the higher volume. This is a common practice in order to organise training. A common mistake is to place strength training on the easy days for endurance sports. This has the effect of making easy days not so easy, and every day becomes a medium day, recovery is hard to come by. By stacking intensity and strength training it makes the hard days harder, but keeps the easy days to allow recovery for the next hard day. The best practice for the double days is to either do the strength training first in the day with at least 6 hours before doing the endurance sports work out, or to do the endurance session followed directly by the strength training and expecting that the weights will be reduced.

In both cases the hardest endurance days are placed after rest days in order to mitigate the negative impacts of strength training. During this phase the aim should be to build in the gym with harder, and closer to max effort sets, usually with more than 5 reps and the perceived exertion for the gym sessions should be around a 7-8/10. Obviously all of this will depend on each individual's goals and weaknesses. This is also a good time to make body composition or mass changes if that fits with the athlete's goals and needs.

Structured base season

As unstructured training starts to transition into more planned but still non-event specific training, the focus should shift so that building in endurance is prioritised rather than strength training. Usually the number of endurance interval sessions is increased and athletes' weaknesses are targeted, and a higher importance is placed for sport specific long sessions.

Gym improvements can still be made but means that the strength session intensity will have to be reduced in order to not fall into over training. This can either mean cutting a session, or reducing the perceived exertion for the sessions. 

For athletes that train 10+ hours a week this can mean 2 medium sessions a week, with an optional short session which includes some secondary work that can be adjusted based on fatigue levels

3 easy to moderate strength training sessions that are stacked with harder endurance days and fewer cross training endurance activities. 2 specific intensity sessions

The same changes are made for athletes that train at a lower volume, but anything outside endurance sessions are replaced by a sports specific endurance session.

2 easy to moderate strength training sessions that are always after the hardest endurance days with 1 long endurance activity which can be specific or not. 2 specific intensity sessions

In both cases the intensity of the strength sessions is reduced in order to allow for the increase during endurance sports sessions. 

This change is key but can be difficult! Especially since that change it is up to the athlete to consciously reduce their effort in the gym by reducing the weight, the reps, and extending the rest periods, or at the very least prescribing to the changes made to their plan. The main movements should still be component movements, but always with a few reps in reserve to avoid going to a maximum effort. The perceived effort for these gym sessions should be below 7/10. The goal is to still build in the gym, but at a much slower rate than in the unstructured season in order to place a higher priority on endurance work.

Competition season

The 3-4 months leading up to the season’s target event or series of events is when the most essential sports specific work is done. Because of the higher priority placed on these key work outs, strength training volume and intensity must again be reduced. This does not mean stopping entirely to maintain the attributes gained in the gym throughout the season for the reasons listed above.

The good news is that significantly less volume is required to maintain. For most this will mean less than half the total time and at an intensity around 4-5/10 to not impact endurance workouts. During taper weeks before A and B events this can be cut in half again, removing the session closer to the competition, 

When training at higher volume that usually means maintaining 2 short dedicated gym sessions or 1 medium dedicated strength sessions and 2 extra short strength sessions that can be used as a warm up before endurance work using mostly body weight and band work that target some key weaknesses. An example of this would be doing glute activation work and plyometrics that do not generate a lot of fatigue but are very beneficial to maintain. At this time strength training should be reduced to the absolute essentials, which changes for each athlete.

Option 1: 2 Easy gym sessions stack with the weekday intensity sessions and all the long endurance sessions are sport specific

Option 2: 1 easy gym sessions stacked with the hardest interval session with 2 short warm up strength sessions before the medium endurance days

The same idea is applied for athletes that train at a lower volume who are best served by having 1 dedicated gym session and using a short activation session 1-2 times a week. A good option in this case is to do the shorter strength session on the active recovery day since it should be relatively low intensity and add an extra medium endurance session on the weekend.

1 main strength session with an easy strength session on the active recovery day and an extra medium endurance session on the weekend

These mini strength workouts should be short with really low fatigue, specifically targeted towards maintaining key elements of strength training for the athlete. The effort should be low, around 3-4/10 and maximum 20 minutes so that it can be easily done before, after, or completely separate to an endurance workout, whatever fits in an athlete's schedule. When it comes to strength training during competition season, it’s better to do a little bit in a way that fits rather than not at all.

Some key takeaways

The main takeaway is that athletes need to be conscious of the effort they are putting into the gym, and they do not need to completely smash themselves every session. For endurance athletes they should almost never go to their maximum capacity in the gym, and later in the season, maintenance can be achieved with very low intensity and time commitment. 

In the beginning of the season, sacrificing some endurance training quality to put a higher priority on strength is a beneficial trade off. This can be hard to manage but comes down to sacrificing some short term performance with the goal of making long term gains. Long term gains are not just within the same season, but also over multiple seasons. Ultimately the biggest factor that contributes to athlete success is longevity, and for endurance athletes strength training is one of the greatest contributors towards longevity. Regardless, when competition season comes, it is important to change priorities and consciously reduce the gym intensity to maximise performance.