As more endurance athletes look to strength training, with performance improvement being their main goal, it becomes even more important that we, as coaches, better understand the types of strength training approaches we need to employ to get them there.
But with the vast amount of information available to our clients and athletes via social media and the internet, it can be incredibly difficult to decipher the “good information” from the “not applicable information.” Especially with the appeal of good-looking male and female “fit-fluencers” touting fancy and exciting-looking exercises that offer extremely little to zero benefits, our work is cut out for us!
In this article, we will build atop the foundation of my previous two essays- Why Balance Training is Not Core Stability Training which spoke about improving your clients’ proximal stiffness for sports performance, and The Science of Breathwork for Cyclists: Better Performance & Mobility, which was an introduction to the importance of focused, purposeful breathwork as part of a sports performance program. In this essay, we will talk about the importance of exercise prescription. This layers atop the previous two articles to help you build a better, more up-to-date mental model of what we need to build sports performance, not gym strength.
When exercises are more than exercises
Much of the strength-training advice available to endurance athletes will leave them tired without meaningfully improving their ability to perform on the bike or during a triathlon. They may complete “cycling-specific” or “sport-specific” movements, but those exercises often add more of the same stress the athlete already receives from their primary sport.
The better question is: How will this exercise help the athlete counterbalance the repetitive demands of endurance training so they can move, feel, recover and perform better?
As strength coach Dan John has said:
“Any idiot can make someone tired. If you want a program to get you tired, do 10,000 jumping jacks. You will be tired, but you won’t be better. Training to get better at something is a whole different story.”
Anyone can prescribe a workout that makes an athlete tired or sore. Heavy squats and deadlifts can satisfy the ego. Seated leg extensions and triceps pushdowns can create the sensation of having worked a specific muscle. Bicycle crunches, long planks and Russian twists can leave the core burning.
But fatigue is not the same as progress. For athletes already participating in high-energy-demand sports such as cycling and triathlon, poorly selected strength exercises can take away from sport-specific training instead of supporting it.
Think of it like attaching a pair of Zipp 404 Firecrests to a department-store bike and expecting it to carry you through an IRONMAN. High-end parts cannot compensate for a weak foundation.
Treat Exercise as a Prescription
In endurance training, exercises should function as prescriptive tools. Each movement should help the athlete become more efficient, capable and resilient.
That requires coaches and athletes to leave their egos at the door and pay close attention to how each exercise is performed. Priorities should include:
- Body position and posture
- Creating stiffness in the right amounts and places
- Using only enough load to produce the desired response
- Adjusting by feel through Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) or Reps in Reserve (RIR), rather than chasing the previous week’s numbers
- Treating each strength session as an opportunity to reinforce a better movement pattern
Load the movement just enough to achieve the intended adaptation. For many endurance athletes, that means finishing most sets around an RPE of 7-8 on a 1-10 scale, with two or three high-quality repetitions still available.
This differs from approaches that treat pain, soreness or failure as proof that strength training worked. Pushing every set to failure, squatting until an athlete cannot comfortably walk down the stairs or adding isolation exercises without a clear purpose may create fatigue, but it is unlikely to build performance or resilience efficiently.
Write down the “why” behind the program
My approach to strength training for endurance performance has developed through more than 17 years of coaching. It became clearer as I created the Strength Training for Cyclists Certification Course in 2018 and wrote Strength Training for Cycling Performance.
Writing forced me to explain why I selected a movement, why I placed it at a particular point in a session and why it fit the needs of a specific athlete. That process can create the same clarity for any coach.
You do not need to document every decision for every athlete. Start with one athlete and write down the reasoning behind each programming choice. Revisit those notes monthly or quarterly. Over time, this practice can sharpen your decision-making and make your programming more intentional.
Understand “health-boosting” and “venom” Exercises
Exercises can be thought of as doses of either a health-boosting elixir or venom. The same movement may be beneficial in the right dose and sequence, but counterproductive when overloaded, poorly executed or placed at the wrong point in the program.
Health-boosting movements are those the athlete can perform with sound posture, control and an appropriate load. “Venom” movements expose positions, weaknesses or demands the athlete cannot yet manage effectively.
The important point is that the classification depends on the individual in front of you. Every athlete presents a different combination of movement patterns, postures, strengths and limitations.
Begin with a basic assessment to determine which movements the athlete can control and which expose a limiting weakness. After reviewing the assessment, build a focused plan.
It may be tempting to address 15 limitations within one program, but spreading the athlete’s time and energy across too many targets rarely produces meaningful progress. Instead, focus on exercise selection, pairing, order, load, rest and one clear cue for each movement. This creates a more athletic, capable athlete who can express their fitness while remaining healthy and resilient.
Benefits of strength training for endurance performance
A strength-training program built around performance can create meaningful benefits, but adaptation takes time. Initial changes may become noticeable within three to eight weeks, while more durable adaptations may require 12 to 18 weeks.
One of the first improvements may be greater repeatability in an athlete’s power output. As movement efficiency improves, the athlete may be able to maintain productive positions with less effort and express power more consistently.
Depending on the athlete and the design of their sport-specific training, improvements may also appear across efforts lasting from three seconds to 10 minutes. Those gains still depend on a progressive endurance program that provides enough time and energy for adaptation.
Here are several examples I have observed among athletes I have coached:
- 14% increase in five-second power over 12 weeks in a 49-year-old athlete with 10 years of competitive cycling experience
- 13% increase in one-minute peak power over eight weeks in a 55-year-old athlete with more than 15 years of competitive cycling experience
- Increase in one-minute power repeatability from three to seven repetitions, with heart-rate recovery dropping below 90 seconds after eight weeks of strength work and cycling-specific intervals
- 5.2% increase in five-minute peak power after 10 weeks of strength training during base riding
- 2.5% increase in 10-minute peak power after eight weeks of strength training during base riding
- 2.2% increase in 20-minute peak power after six weeks of strength training during base riding
These are individual coaching examples, not guaranteed outcomes. Three of the improvements occurred during base training, when the athletes were completing relatively little cycling intensity. Each athlete already had a strong aerobic foundation and more than three years of consistent, year-round sport-specific training.
Some improvement likely came from aerobic development during the base phase. However, the changes were notable because the athletes who improved their 10- and 20-minute power had seen little movement in their Functional Threshold Power (FTP) during the previous 12 to 18 months.
The gains also did not come from strength training in isolation. The athletes’ programs combined breathing, strength and proximal stiffness work to help them express power and athleticism more efficiently through the hips and shoulders.
These are not independent qualities. They are closely connected parts of one athlete and should be developed together.
3 Exercise Pairings to Build Stiffness, Power and Athleticism
Before introducing these exercise pairings, make sure the athlete has built the foundational stiffness and control required for an athletic “core.” Skipping that foundation reduces the potential return from these exercises and may increase injury risk.
Lay the foundation before trying to build the skyscraper of performance.
1. To improve posture, force management, and power efficiency:
Training Focus: Deceleration + Proximal Stiffness + Thoracic Extension w/ Scapular Control
Exercise Pairing: Snap-Downs + Can Crush + Wall Scap Slides
Teaching the athlete how to appropriately decelerate while keeping ideal joint positions allows for improved connective tissue strength, proprioception and neural recruitment while reinforcing a healthy and balanced guy-wire system of the “core.” In short, learning to decelerate allows the individual to better deal with external forces acting on the body.
This is an important skill; each individual needs time to learn these focused repetitions. To help shorten the learning curve and improve the exercise returns, we pair it with a “proximal stiffness” drill where we challenge the individual to keep appropriate stiffness + posture around a single moving body part with the Can Crush exercise.
We finish this exercise prescription by targeting a “weak link” that can offer big rewards for overall human function. In this case, we use the wall scapular slide exercise, which hits the commonly sub-par mid and lower trapezius muscles while teaching the individual to stay stiff through the rest of the body, removing any compensations they may try.
Together, these three exercises teach appropriate core (everything between the neck, elbows and knees) stiffness, movement from the hips and stability for overhead movements. There is an emphasis on “the posterior chain,” but note that there is zero hinging or “deadlift-like” movement.
2. To improve power and recovery:
Training Focus: Hip Power + Thoracic Extension w/ breathing
Exercise Pairing: High Hang Wall Ball Toss + Preacher Stretch
While Olympic lifts are incredibly technical and require a lot of hands-on, in-person instruction and coaching to become proficient at, we can (and should) use different but similar movements to help teach our clients and athletes how to move with more athleticism.
Two of my favorite exercises, which lower the technical aspect (but still require teaching!) while allowing the learning of athleticism, are the Russian Kettlebell Swing and the High Hang Wall Ball Toss. The challenge for the High Hang Wall Ball Toss is learning to move through the hips while keeping appropriate stiffness throughout the body. For cyclists and triathletes who are used to sitting with their hands on the handlebars, learning how to keep their shoulder blades and upper backs in the proper position can allow them to tap into power they already possess but have yet to learn how to access.
Paired with the Preacher stretch, which is primarily a breathing exercise that also drives mobility for the upper back and lats while teaching a proper hip hinge, this combination can be a bit of a Swiss Army knife of sorts, as depending on where in the training day we place them, and what emphasis we coach, can allow for a broad range of outcomes- but all based around improving recovery times on the bike, and seeing an increase in power output across nearly all time frames.
Less is more with this pairing! Assigning 3-4 sets of 3-5 repetitions with a very light (2-4kg) wall ball and 3-4 sets of 5-6 breaths for the active preacher stretch is functional.
3. To improving climbing and control:
Training Focus: Hip Strength + Power w/ Control
Exericse Pairing: B-Stance Hex Bar Deadlifts + Hands on hips Box Jumps
Climbing often separates the top tiers of road cyclists from the rest. And while climbing is often thought of as purely a watts-per-kilogram endeavor, there is much skill involved in climbing as well. Within that climbing skill is management of tension and stiffness throughout the entire body as the rider fights to be the first to summit.
We tend to think of our hips as a single, solid structure, but it’s comprised of three bones: The sacrum and two halves of the pelvis. These are connected at the front through the pubic symphysis and at the back through the sacroiliac joints. Both sides of the pelvis move separately as we walk or, in the case of climbing on the bike, pedaling.
To help improve control through this movement, we want to add some type of single-leg movement. While many will jump to a single-leg squat or lunge, these often take the leg and hip into positions where the demands on the joints will not be as close to the end task.
Please keep in mind that everything should not be “sport specific” in a strength program, as in our strength program, we are often counteracting the massive time spent in these highly repetitive positions and movements. However, in this case, the B-Stance Hex Bar Deadlift will allow us to build strength and resilience for the demands of climbing, as the position is similar in its demands:
The front of the legs hip is loaded in nutation, while the back leg is unloaded for balance and in counter nutation. This allows us to work on the individual’s ability to maintain enough stiffness through the rest of the body while one leg works with the hip loaded.
The hands-on-hips box jumps allow us to create a stronger mind-muscle connection, as the hands being on the hips does not allow for any tissue stretch or momentum to be generated, which means the only solution available for the athlete is to create more power via a stronger neural pulse (firing).
Be sure the athlete is getting full hip extension off the ground and landing softly and quietly on the box, as this reinforces the landing mechanics and improves athleticism through the double-neural pulse needed to both take-off and land.
Coaching tip: Put these pairings into practice
Once you’ve selected the right exercises for your athlete, TrainingPeaks Strength Builder helps turn that prescription into a structured workout. Create supersets and circuits, prescribe sets, reps and weight, and add coaching notes or demonstration videos to reinforce proper execution. Athletes can then follow the workout and log their results from the TrainingPeaks mobile app.
Focus on how the athlete moves
As you begin to dive into the world of Strength Training for Sports Performance with an eye on strength training programming being prescriptive, it is absolutely vital to bear in mind that exercise selection must be made on an athlete-to-athlete basis and that the EXECUTION of the exercise, or HOW you perform the training, is where 70% of the benefits will come from.
Simply dropping in pairings of exercises without a focus on how the individual is performing them leads to below-average results, as instead of re-wiring the “software” of the nervous system to be more effective and efficient, you’ll simply be laying strength on top of poor movement habits.
As with all sports performance training, the devil is in the details, and those details must be given to an athlete with clear attention as you implement the program.
It’s simple, but it takes work.
Taking the time to educate your clients and athletes about the importance of technique, posture, and positioning for their strength exercises to turn their focus to how they perform each repetition can, and will, pay off in significant returns where it matters most. If you have questions, my inbox is always open, and I’d be happy to hear from you.
