Episode 75: Strength Training for Endurance Athletes: Muscle vs Strength Explained

Summary:

Many endurance athletes avoid strength training because they fear it will make them bulky, slow them down, or interfere with endurance performance. But is that fear actually justified?

In Episode 75 of The Endurance Athlete Journey, Coaches Justin and Katie explore one of the most misunderstood topics in endurance sports: the difference between building muscle and building strength.

They explain how strength training supports endurance performance by improving durability, reducing injury risk, and helping athletes maintain long-term training consistency. The conversation explores why hypertrophy (muscle growth) and strength development are not the same thing, and how endurance athletes can become stronger without gaining unnecessary mass.

Justin and Katie also discuss how training structure, recovery, and nutrition influence strength adaptations, and why strength training should complement—not replace—aerobic training.

If you're a runner, triathlete, or endurance athlete wondering whether lifting weights will hurt your performance—or help it—this episode provides clarity on how strength training fits into a smart endurance training plan.

Key Takeaways:

Strength and muscle are not the same thing
Muscle hypertrophy increases muscle size, while strength training often improves performance through neurological adaptations and better muscle recruitment.

Strength training improves durability and consistency
Stronger muscles, tendons, and connective tissue help endurance athletes reduce injury risk and maintain consistent training.

Endurance athletes rarely gain significant muscle mass
Without a caloric surplus and bodybuilding-style training volume, most endurance athletes become stronger without adding bulk.

Strength training complements aerobic training
Strength work supports swim, bike, and run training rather than replacing it.

Training methods should change throughout the season
Athletes may focus on strength development in the off-season and shift toward maintenance as endurance training volume increases.

Consistency is the true driver of endurance performance
Strength training helps athletes stay healthy enough to maintain uninterrupted training. 

Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction: Muscle vs strength for endurance athletes
02:55 – Recap of previous episode on durability and injury prevention
09:00 – Why strength training matters for endurance athletes
11:19 – Physiological differences between building muscle and strength
14:22 – Progressive overload and safe strength progression
19:37 – Neurological adaptations and muscle activation
25:52 – Avoiding unwanted hypertrophy as an endurance athlete
31:36 – Periodization and strength training during race prep
35:32 – Nutrition, genetics, and muscle gain in endurance sports
48:32 – Integrating strength training without excessive fatigue
55:09 – Strength training for tendon and ligament durability
66:46 – Common strength training mistakes endurance athletes make
73:45 – Final thoughts and closing remarks

For all things coaching, reach out:

Coach Katie: www.Fuel2Run.com

Coach Justin: www.TabulaRasaRacing.com

Podcast Email: theenduranceathletejourney@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome everyone to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. I'm your host, Coach Justin. I'm here with Coach Katie. And today is episode 75. And this is going to be an extension of a previous episode that we did where we talked about the introduction to strength training for endurance athletes. When I was going through some of the uh information that we talked about in that episode, it kind of came to me that we talked a lot about building muscle. I talked a lot about building muscle. And then Katie would sometimes refer to getting stronger. And so it made me kind of reconcile what it was that we were talking about. And so I posed the question well, is building muscle different than building strength? And I had posted a poll within our closed Facebook group. And you know, some of the people that are that responded to the poll agreed that they are indeed different. So I wanted to come, we wanted to come to you guys this week and talk about this a little bit more in depth. And we're going to make this distinction between building muscle and building strength. So because I there is a big misconception within the endurance sports, is that will lifting weights make me bulky? In which case, you that's not really what an endurance athlete wants. And do you need bigger muscles in order to be faster or more efficient? And is strength training helping you or is it hurting your endurance? So there's really two engines that we're talking about. We're talking about the cardiovascular engine, which is what's going to fuel your swim, bike, run, you know, or whatever your main aerobic-based sport is. Then you have your muscular engine. And so you really have to pay attention to both of these because they cannot act independently. One is dependent on the other. So if you don't have the muscular engine, the aerobic condition, the aerobic engine gets too big and you start to break down and you cannot be consistent. Likewise, if you build too strong of a muscular engine, then you start to have these, you start to validate some of these concerns that, oh, I'm getting bigger, so I'm getting slower. My body now has to work harder in order to carry this additional mass. And so, you know, then that's going to flow over into your nutrition. You know, how am I going to fuel for an endurance-based race if I'm carrying all this additional muscle? There's a lot of things that we there's a lot of moving parts within this system. So we wanted to come to you today to talk a little bit and make this distinction between building muscle and building strength. And so let's roll right on into this topic. So, Katie, do you want to kind of go through like a short little recap on our previous episode? It was called the introduction to strength training for endurance athletes, and just kind of give us a brief recap from that on some of the main topics.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

I think we dived right into like the load piece of strength training and the load, because we we we I think that was the where we talked about muscle and tendon and ligaments and why strength training is important for that. I'm trying to remember. Did do you like Yeah?

SPEAKER_00 3:12

I I think some of the the four main points that we made in that. So as for everybody else, that was episode it was episode number 67. So if you want to go back and check out that episode, uh we talked about yeah, how strength improves durability. It's it's a supplement, so it's support, it's a complement, not a supplement. So it complements your your aerobic training. So swim, bike run, whatever it is that you your primary sport is. The strength training comes in and complements that training. It's not meant to supplement it or diverse the place of it.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Right. We use it as a way to reduce injury risk and to change that risk profile and allows us because that's important because when we start talking about consistency, this is what we're really striving for as endurance athletes, is this ability to be consistent. And without that stability, you cannot be consistent because eventually, like I said before, this aerobic engine gets too big and it can't be supported by the muscular and structural engine. And this is when your body starts to break down. So, you know, when that happens, you then have to suspend your aerobic training in order to do PT and rebuild that weakness area. And so, really, what you get is you get into these cycles of just rebuilding all the time. The reason that I I know this is because I've experienced this firsthand. You know, this is something that I've been doing for for a long time now. And a little bit of a backstory with that is years ago, before I started, before I did my first half Iron Man, I went and had a I paid for a consultation from a local coach that was in my area. This guy was an elite coach, you know, he was highly experienced, um, both as an athlete and as a coach. And he really discouraged me from lifting weights because it was too much of a distraction from the aerobic side. And while I understood his his point in terms of like trying to fit it all in, so I get that. I completely understand it. What it was is it was probably one of the worst pieces of advice that I've ever received in my entire endurance career. That's how strongly I believe that. Because what I suffered from is years and years of just this rebuilding cycle that I was stuck in. You know, I would focus on the aerobic side, I'd build, build, build until the body would break down, and then all of a sudden I got to stop, fix, fix the damaged area, and then I have to rebuild again. And then something else would break down. So it's it's almost kind of like you have you have this car that's paid for. And so you're you're trying to make this car last as long as possible. So you're constantly feeding money into it, you know, taking into the shop. This is what strength training, a lack of strength training does. It gives you this older car that's now breaking down all the time and it's always going into the shop. So if we just kind of just complement our training with this, it increases your durability, lowers your overall exposure to risk, and enhances your efficiency.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

So that, yeah, I want to mention is just kind of thinking about that. Every time you build up to a certain point and then you get injured, you're going like several steps back. And then you're building. So you may you may never go back to square one, but you're always kind of going back and then trying to build up again and you may get ahead a little bit, but imagine if you were never injured. Like if you could just kind of constantly be building upon. Obviously, you can't be constant, you have to take some breaks or some some times where you're sort of having some downtime. But you know, you're still training maybe within that. So you're never really losing your fitness. So you may gain some fitness, kind of have like a plateau for a little while, and then gain fitness, but you're but you if you're avoiding injury, you're never kind of stepping several points back as long as you're maintaining consistency, meaning as long as you're not taking breaks, even if you're not injured, just for whatever reason, you're not running, or because that will, you know, obviously decrease fitness. But if you're able to maintain consistency over time, you'll keep building and building. It's kind of like that. If you do have Strava, they have like this fitness graph thing you can see. I mean, you can kind of see it. I've seen it on mine, like where I'll have an increase in fitness, and then sometimes I'll take like a break and it kind of comes down a little bit or plateaus, and then I'll build it even better. And so it's kind of constantly going up, but it very rarely comes down because I'm very rarely just not training at all or very rarely injured. So it's just constantly building upon itself. And so I'm gonna be a much better, stronger athlete, you know, because I've been able to maintain that consistency. And I and you know, I mean, obviously, even when you're strength training and doing all the right things, you can still get injured, but the likelihood is a little bit less. So there's not like that's a safeguard completely, but it does it, it's a it's a good way to kind of maintain for the most part, and even when you do get injured, sometimes you might be able to come back a little quicker because you do have more strength. So it's just something to think about. I mean, I that's a way I would kind of preface this is like, yeah, if you're just focusing on your cardiovascular engine and you keep getting injured, sure, like you'll make some gains in that period, but when you're injured, you're gonna be stepping backwards. And I think the biggest thing is to think about strength training is just yeah, building that foundation, that strength, that resilience so you can keep pushing forward, keep training consistently and keep building fitness. You know, I know there's other things that influence fitness, but like age and things like that too. But you know, I feel like maybe I'll be ahead of the game compared to other competitors my age because of what I'm doing. So that's a way to think of it too, just kind of visually kind of stacking bricks on top of each other, and you never have to take away. So you're never coming back, you know, super far back to baseline. You're always kind of building, building, like building fitness, even if it's I think that that's a a really good recap on this previous episode.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

So now let's take, let's step forward a little bit into the into the discussion. And now let's bring in this next layer. So once now that we've proven the case, we've made the case for why strength training is important in an endurance athlete's training plan. So the next question that we have to ask for ask is well, now that I've decided to lift, you know, am I focused? What's my focus? Am I focused on building muscle or am I interested in building strength? So let's extend this discussion into this realm. I think, in my personal opinion, there is a time and place for for both of those. Now, it depends on what phase of your training plan you're in, where you are in your season. I think that there is some benefit to building muscle as an endurance athlete. Now, should that be the sole focus all the time? No, I don't believe that that's that that's the right approach. So I think that there's some benefit to taking a phase where we want to build some muscle and then changing the method and now focusing on building strength. So build, you know, you've you've gained now muscle, so you've increased mass. Now I want to make that additional mass stronger. And so that's that's the way that I kind of think about it is like this stare, the staircase mentality. So it's like, you know, I want to lay a foundation, I want to build a little bit of mass, now make that stronger. Now maybe spend a little bit more time, you know, if I'm finding some areas of my body that are still structurally weak, well, maybe I want to build build a little bit more muscle in this area, and now let's make that muscle stronger. That's one approach that you can use. If you already have a fairly solid foundation, then you may not be interested in building more mass. You may just want to go ahead and just focus on making whatever existing muscle that you have stronger. And I think that that tends to be the focus of most endurance athletes because they don't want to increase their size. And so let's talk a little bit then on that first approach where we said, are we building muscle? So, what is a valid approach for an endurance athlete to implement within their training plan that allows them to build muscle? And I will preface this converse, this discussion with there is a training component, and then there is a nutrition component that comes along with this. And I think that that's so that's so important and will use myself as a case study in this because this is something that I've been experiencing and trying to implement within my training over the past year or so. And so I want to talk a little bit about what I've observed working with Katie and you know, in my focus in the weight room and kind of how I kind of came to this understanding on what I'm seeing in my own training plan and my own performance, and then reconciling the theory behind it so I can kind of interpret and understand it. And I think that that's really important.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

So do we want to define building muscle? You kind of I just obviously this is obvious, but it's really just increasing the size of your muscles. So I think again, it's like building strength, the muscle size isn't increasing, you're just being able to lift heavier, you know, for instance, but your muscle size isn't increasing. But to actually build hypertrophy would be their word for it, is actually just you're increasing the size of your muscles. So if you have your bicep is getting, you know, noticeably bigger. If you were to do like a circumference of your arm, maybe you would notice that would be an example. Whereas if you're getting stronger, you're not seeing any difference in the size, you're, but you're able to lift bicep curl, maybe heavier, you know. So there's a difference kind of there, and it just depends. The there's a different things are happening, you know, in those cases that kind of differentiate between muscle building, like muscle size versus strength. But that's kind of what we're we're differentiating here. So I don't know, it's kind of obvious, but I just want to make it.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Let's talk a little bit about the physiology on on how that how that muscle is growing in size. And we and we alluded to it, I think I talked about it in this previous episode, where we go into a weight room, we lift something heavy, and what it does is it creates micro tears within the muscle fiber itself. Now, in order to repair those muscle tears, the body sends nutrients, so you're feeding the body in such a way where we're increasing protein levels and all those.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff physiologically happening. There's like a signaling pathway that kind of says, Oh, I'm damaged, and then the you know, the body sends nutrients, you know, the rebuild, basically, mostly protein. But also like carbs play a little bit of a role, it just doesn't really play a role in like rebuilding. But um, mostly it's like the protein and you want it, so that's why we focus on having enough protein. But then yeah, then it rebuilds. And usually if it's if it if you're building muscle, it's rebuilding it. It's almost like this is I've had this, this would be a good analogy to think of. Like, think of like a house, right? You have a house and a tornado comes through and it damages the house, and you're like, well, the next time I there's a tornado, I want my house to not be damaged. So you build it much a little bit stronger, a little bit bigger, or maybe more robust than it was before. But then maybe the next time, you know, if the same like magnitude of tornado comes through, it doesn't really do much because you've already built that house to be sturdy. But let's say a bigger tornado comes and just like destroys your, not destroys it, but like maybe there's some damage to your house. So you then build it even stronger. And so it's like kind of thinking of it that way in order to actually build strength or build muscle, you have to be kind of constant. You also not only do you have to be like breaking the muscle tissue down, but you do have to have some sort of progressive overload where you're sort of you have that strength, the the body comes in and rebuilds, and then you gradually over time kind of build, you know, the the weights are heavier or the you do more sets or whatever, however you're progressing your training plan to kind of constantly have that little bit of breakdown. You know, you don't want to overdo it because then it's bad. You don't want to go in and lift way more weights than you can. You can't move the next day, and then you're you're having something like rhabdomyolysis. So this is why we take it slowly, because you don't want to have too much breakdown, but just enough that the body can come down back and repair, and that's the whole process of like muscle. Basically, that's the process of muscle building, but you also have some strength with that too. You mean so in some cases they go hand in hand when it's muscle, usually when we're building muscle, we're also building strength. But we're focusing on strength, that doesn't mean we always have to be building muscle. So that's a little bit a little bit different. There's different things happening too. It's not just about the building of the muscle, but you also have other things happening, like how many muscle fibers are recruiting, and then the actual neuro neurons that are going to the fiber, the muscle fibers, you might be recruiting more. So, like sometimes the strength itself is is more about the what's happening in within the muscle to make that stronger, not necessarily building more muscle, but there's other aspects of strength, like things like fiber recruitment and well, basically how the nerves are recruiting fibers. So you might be actually recruiting more muscle fibers than you were previously. So there's there's more than just that piece, though that breaking breaking down and building up piece, but that's essentially like just to break it down kind of the physiologically, yeah, the easy way to explain it. How do you train, like why how would you specify training for one versus the other? And what's the difference?

SPEAKER_00 16:13

And yeah, so for hypertrophy, typically the approach that that we've seen before is you have moderate lows, you're not lifting to failure, so you're doing a moderate weight at anywhere between six to twelve reps is typically recommended. Normally I focus, uh, I'll either go like eight to twelve, or I'm focusing really on that 10 to 12, that sweet spot that I really like is the 10 to 12 reps for building hypertrophy. You have short rest periods because you're not lifting, you're not lifting to failures because you're only doing moderate loads. So you're able to take shorter breaks between sets and you have this higher total volume because the number of reps is higher. That's what it means by you know total higher volume is really driven by that higher rep count than it is driven by the higher weights. The moderate low, because by the time you get to that 12th rep, you know, probably in I I tend to focus anywhere between three to four sets per movement. So once you get to that fourth set, your muscles are starting to approach failure because the fatigue is cumulative. So as you keep stacking on sets, the muscles get tired and tired and tired. So by the time you get to that fourth set, you're fairly close to failure, but you're you're not there. So you may have, you know, that the typical like two rep reserve that's built in where you could still go two reps before the muscle actually just goes to failure and you can't lift it anymore. But when you go to that first set, it should feel fairly easy. You could use a progressive overload approach for this as well, where you would progressively increase the weight each successive set and just keep the reps fixed. So let's say that you have a target rep count of anywhere between 10 to 12, and you start at a base weight, and then for the first set, you knock those out. Second set, you still aim for 10 to 12 reps, but you increase the weight slightly. And you do that, you do that each successive set. That's what's prog that's what's called a progressive overload approach to this.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

So that's more like within the training session, but like progressive overload is also something that you think of like within each session. So like as you get stronger, those reps should start to feel easier. So the fo the by the fourth set, you're like, well, this is actually not I'm not really feeling this is that hard. Okay, now I need to go up in weight. And that is also that's kind of that theory of progressive overload is now you go to a heavier weight and you're able to do those, you know, eight to twelve reps, but it's harder now, slightly harder now. Um be but you know, again, not to totally to failure. And then you do that, you know, maybe it takes a couple slashes, like you're not you're gonna not gonna be able to increase weight every single time you go in, usually, unless you're right really beginner to it. Usually, like people who are just starting out kind of progress a little faster and then they kind of hit a more of a point where it slows down. But it's just like over time you're able to lift a little heavier, and it could be a little bit, like a couple pounds. You know, it doesn't it it doesn't have to be like a lot of weight, but you're just progressive, like again, progressively getting stronger, progressively lifting more more weight. And it could be sort of challenging yourself within the session with progressively heavier weights or from session to session, also thinking of it like that.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Switch the focus now. So we've talked that's a typical method that you'll see for building mass, you know, building muscle size. Now, let's say, let's say, how do we then build? Let's say that we're not interested in building mass, we want to build strength. So, what uh what method would I use for this? Well, strength is largely neurological earlier on. And so, really, what it's doing is it's the brain is starting to fire more in these now, you're starting this muscle recruitment, like what Katie said earlier. So it's starting to recruit more of like, let's say, stabilizer muscles, muscles that are underactive, then like okay, so an example of this, I'll use this. A lot of runners that I that I would work with and that I see have either one underactive glute or both glutes are underactive. What that means then is that the hamstrings are stepping in and carrying more of the load than what they're designed to carry. That's what's efficient. So if you were to lay flat on the ground on your back, bring your heels toward close to your butt and do a bridge, if your hamstrings start to cramp within a short amount of time frame, that is a gr that is a cater that you have underactive glutes and your hamstrings are then taking over. And so what we want then is as runners, we want to have the glutes firing like they should. And so what we have to then do is it's not that they're not firing, it's just the brain is not, it's the signals aren't being received. And so you're really trying to connect this brain to muscles. So that's what this neurological connection is in order to get these things to fire, because if they don't fire, you can't strengthen them. So earlier on in the process, we're trying to get these muscles to engage, and then we overlay now. Let's try and make them faster now or har stronger. Now that we've got them to engage, let's build them up. And so that's what that's how we typically will see these early stages of strength training, which is why you that's the perfect case and reason why you don't just go guns out when you're first starting to strength train, is because that's not the point that you're trying to achieve at this stage. What you're trying to do is you're trying to build these neurological connections between your brain and your muscle in order to get them to wake up and fire like they should. And once you can train them and build that connection back, then you can start to strengthen them. So that's why I typically will encourage things we're like if you're just starting out in a strength training program we almost will use just body weight stuff I did this a lot when I started working uh incorporating this into my plan is my gym had a TRX system and so it's basically like the suspension straps that would anchor to you know some fixed point either on a wall or a bar or something like that. And just doing like squats, doing you know one-legged you know split squats and things like that to really try and get just the muscles to fire like they should without the additional resistance because the body weight was enough that I needed to just get that muscle recruitment. Once I could get the muscles to fire then I say okay I'm done with that phase. Now let's move over and let's start to strengthen them. So I then I can start to incorporate additional weight and you know dumbbells and barbells and things like that. So Katie, how would you go about bringing in the method for once we get past the neurological once we're kind of like past that beginner stage. And I think this is how do you make that transition?

SPEAKER_01 23:03

This is where it takes a bit of time. You know I think I'm thinking like if I have somebody brand new, yeah I'd start them just with some body weight movements maybe like I've mentioned I think I in our last episode I did mention bands. So maybe introducing some band movements just to build a little bit of that resistance start I really want my athletes to start focusing on really making that connection of like focusing on okay this particular movement I you're gonna be using your glutes maybe it's like a bridge like a bridge type of movement where they're doing like a banded bridge or maybe it is something like a a split squat and I want them to really focus on the glutes. And so it's really making that connection between the brain and what's firing like trying to have that mind-body connection of like what muscles are actually firing and focusing on really activating the glutes and maybe you'll have a little bit of hamstring activation and maybe quad as well but really focusing on these are the muscles I want to see you know just focus on this. Let's make sure you're firing the right muscles let's let's build you know even getting the movements right like doing squats without any sort of weight to just make sure you're doing the movement correctly and then we move into the weight and when I do that you know usually it's just like introducing weights slowly um but once I get somebody to a point where they're comfortable fairly comfortable lifting they're now lifting with weights you know and maybe they're like well I don't want to bulk up you don't want to be bulky. That is where I think the you know this is where it's a little bit scary for people because once you introduce a like a heavier load, um you know, obviously there is a little bit of risk potentially of of injury but this is I think the best way to sort of really increase the strength without increasing hypertrophy because if you think about it, okay, so if you lift heavy, yes, it's like heavier it's a little bit harder but you're maybe only doing anywhere from like minimum of one, but usually it's like two to six or maybe at most eight reps. Like that would be kind of the highest I would go. The loads are heavier but you're doing a lot of rest in between so you're really giving your body a full amount of rest. So every time you do those movements that you're you're it's forcing you to recruit the muscles it's root forcing you to increase the neurological piece that like the the body will sort of then want to recruit more of the muscle you know so it's this it's it's kind of like forcing you to do that. And but it's not enough damage typically I mean there's some potential obviously you're gonna feel maybe sore I do still that probably is an indication there's a little bit of muscle damage in rebuilding but it's not to the same load as if you're doing like the higher rep more you know higher volume. So it's less likely to cause that hypertrophy piece. Like you'll have maybe a little bit if you're sort of sort of more novice to like any sort of strength training might increase muscle but arguably if you're just starting out you're gonna you you maybe probably benefit from a little muscle. I mean who doesn't want a little bit of like you know you want to be I think most runners most active people and most people in general want to have like those long lean muscular you know like leaner muscles but they can still see the muscle you want to be a little bit muscular, right? You want to look fit. So that's probably more likely what's going to happen with this type of training and it's not taken a failure but you're just living lifting heavier so not everybody wants to do a one rep max. It's an uncomfortable thing to do and it's hard to do we've got to do it safely but sometimes I'll have people do like a five like okay five you know reps where maybe it's going close to failure and I can estimate their one rep max. So I don't I do that a lot myself because I don't have other people around me in case something happens. If I'm doing a one rep max I'm usually by myself but um you know I'll try to estimate that and then I'm doing maybe you know like 75% or there's a certain percentage I might be doing of that one rep max estimation and that's where my two to six reps or whatever is going to come in. So it's a higher percentage closer to that one rep max than I would be doing for volume training but it's never going to be at my one you're never doing this at one rep max either. It's just gonna be heavier and that's why we do the slower reps and the longer rest. And it's it's to allow your body to every time you go into that next rep, you're you're as rested as you can be so you can get that full muscle recruitment you don't in that next rep. And that's that's how I usually build it in and that's how I do it for myself. I do a combination of some higher load like my main set and then I'll do some other exercises where the reps might be higher. So I kind of combine a little bit of like this higher rep or higher load scheme with doesn't have to be like one or the other necessarily either because we'll talk a little bit about the nutrition piece and endurance athletes in general and why it's a little harder to gain muscle it takes a lot to to actually build muscle like it's it's not just the lifting piece. There's another component to it that that we need to have that I think is a little harder for endurance athletes which may for those of you who are worrying about becoming bulky may put you at ease. But yeah. Does you have anything to add?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Like what how do you when you work with someone or when you do it yourself how are you thinking about this piece of like building strength right so right now in my training plan I'm not I'm not deep into kind of like race specific training right now. So this is a great time for me to focus on building strengths which is what I'm doing right now in my plan. My plan calls for anywhere between sets of like three to eight there's a couple movements that I have going up to 10 but that's usually in the first set of a four set of movement. And so that's what I'm doing in my own personal training plan is this exact structure right now. You know I am using a progressive overload so each additional set gets heavier and heavier and then my reps are also declining as well which allows me to increase the weight even more because I'm still not trying to hit those same reps. Right. I'm okay getting close to failure but I never I usually don't reach failure. So I'm I'm typically within that two to three rep reserve that I have left in the fourth set. I'm not this has completely revolutionized my cycling this particular method right now that I that I'm using. And so I found that I am a lot stronger on the bike I climb hills a lot better a lot more efficient hills that used to really like spike my heart rate no longer do that I'm actually able to take the same hills that I would have to stand out get out of the saddle and climb. I can now do those same hills seated with the same gearing that I used before. So it is a significant improvement of efficiency and strength and so it's it's a prime example on how this stuff complements what it is that we're doing on the aerobic side. Right now my strength training can last anywhere between like an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half because some of these some of these workouts are pretty pretty challenging I've got four sets some of these movements actually have like five sets in there and then you have to fight the gym sometimes so it's you have to wait for other people to like get it one of the most stressful things is like Katie is completely blessed to have her own her own facility a leg press machine I I mean there's certain things that I can't fit but you know I can usually make it work.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

It is it is nice. I think that's the other thing too I want to mention is like yes it's probably optimal if you can try to do the entire workout in one blog but if you have little kids it's okay to split it up you know it you just you're just doing the work right so it's okay to like do part of it one and then maybe a little bit later like yes you know maybe it's not the same exact you know benefit you're gonna get if you can do it all at once because you're you're maybe giving your body quite a bit of rest in between but just putting that out there that's the nice thing about having the home gym is I can if I have to get some of it in and then later do the rest I can and and I don't fight other people just sometimes my six year old because he wants to do the workout with me and then I'm and then not that he's in the way but he always wants to do what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Yeah. That's the approach that I'm using right now. When I was training for Florida for the Half Iron Man in Florida I used a similar approach but it was we were focusing more on muscular endurance and so I still use a progressive overload approach but my rep counts were a lot higher. You know they were in the range of anywhere between 15 to 20 reps. So you can still build strength that way but it's a different kind of strength. So you're talking about pushing the envelope of how long it takes for that muscle to fatigue and then come under failure versus you know how much it can actually fire. So that's that's the big difference. So if I'm working with an athlete that is doing moderate to long course racing so we're talking anywhere between half marathon to full marathon or half Iron Man to full Iron Man, that's the approach that we typically will use during the training plan for the race. So we don't I don't typically will I don't typically remove strength training from the training plan. I just change how we approach it. And then when we come out of season or we're kind of gearing up for the season and maybe we have like a short course race that's on there to kind of like these like rust breaker races, you know, where we do a sprint or something we're just like looking to shake the rust off this is where I use this approach, this strength building approach lower reps, higher weight still building strength. I'm not interested in building power yet which is another completely different focus and different method but it it is relevant for endurance athletes especially for cyclists in that power generation so you're talking about you know Olympic style movements where you're they're short powerful high weight really low rep counts like one to two reps. Yeah so it it's just the sheer power that you're trying to generate so you're not generating strength.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

It's just trying to generate that initial force. Power yeah that's it yeah that's almost a little bit like maybe that's something that we can we can do like another deep dive in like a shorter episode on like what's the role of power generation for endurance sports. But I want to keep this kind of focus more on do you just the differentiation between building strength and and muscle.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

But I can share a little bit about my own how I work how I do it myself too. So like right now I mentioned it a few times on the podcast before but I've until now I'm about ready to start my build for grandma. So things change. So you are changing in terms of the strength even you know in the next week or two. But for the last three months or two three months even before that my my focus well over the fall it was more like power. So I was doing a little bit more plyometrics and even some CrossFit style stuff I was doing some CrossFit type workouts all within the last three three to four months. But in addition to that you know that's that's the topic we'll talk about later. But in addition to that I've been doing like basically trying to build strength and build a little bit of muscle so how I usually plan it is I'll have like a focus for the day and I sort of split it up into like three or sometimes four workouts. One will be like a deadlift type focus day where I do a heavy deadlift and then there'll be a day I do a heavy back squat and then there'll be day I kind of focus on bench. So it's kind of the three powerlifting movements that I have the heavy focus on those movements where I'm just trying to build basically strength or you know muscle fiber recruitment, the neurological piece there. And then I'll do like a few other movements along with that almost like supporting movements where I will do like if I do a back squat day it'll be like a split squat and sometimes I'll superset it. So it's more it's more close to maybe not all the way to 12 um reps, but it'll be somewhere between six and 10 um and three to four sets. And I'll sometimes superset so it's similar to like the hypertrophy, you know, where I I'm I'm maybe focusing a little bit more on building muscle and building strength. You know I'm I'm just not I don't have the genetics really to build a ton of m a ton of muscle. So I'm never really worried about bulking up because just genetically I'm not capable of that. So I could I've spent hours in the strength room and I'm just never going to become bulky. So I guess some people could say that was a good thing. I think sometimes it's frustrating but so I'm never worried about that. I'm just focusing on building my body to be really strong and durable and kind of have both that strength and muscle piece. And then now that I'm going into the marathon my focus will be more maintaining strength, maintaining mass both as best that I can and now I have more volume because my running volume will make it very hard for me to maintain muscle and maintain mass. So that's kind of where I'm at. So I'll still do the heavy lifting but it doesn't go up progressively. I'm kind of just maintaining I mean so I kind of have a set schedule of things I do and then I have a little bit more supporting movements. I might add still some of the plometrics and things to keep power um to keep that power component but it's kind of going to be a little bit less and it's not I'm sort of not focusing as much progressive overload because I can't like I'm kind of having these conflicting goals, you know, building endurance and building volume versus running volume versus like being able to do the strength. So I just kind of go into the next three or four months just doing the best that I possibly can to maintain my strength that I've built because of uh you know it's hard to even eat enough sometimes to have the to have that goal and there's a competing goals like we've talked about before when you're running a lot you're sort of breaking down muscle and so I'm just trying to kind of balance that catabolic effect of running with the anabolic effect of of strength training. So everything just is maintained and all the strength that I've put in over the past three months is just gonna be as best I can, you know, to just keep it. So that's kind of the thing too is it's depending on where you're at in your season like you know if you're starting to train a lot of volume for like an Iron Man or a marathon, you probably probably could simultaneously gain strength and or maybe muscle mass and and maybe still maintain that volume of like aerobic training but it's not easy. It's very hard to do. So you might have to think about it like periodized training like you we've talked about you know before is like when in the season is your is this your focus versus then you're just maintaining and then maybe when I'm done with my marathon I'll go through another building phase, another like power phase, you know and then I don't know what it's I don't know what I'm gonna do after the marathon so I can't tell you. I don't haven't gone that far but you know thinking about that way I hope that makes sense. That's how I structure it. That's how I think about it anyways.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

So yeah that's that's a that one that's one of the ways that I did it for when I was training for Florida. And it's another point that I want to bring up is that there's probably some endurance athletes that are listening to this that are saying but you know I don't want to go into the weight room so for whatever that reason may be there are many. So I'm going to focus solely on just like functional strength. And so this means you know for a cyclist they're gonna do big gear work, low cadence stuff. For runners it's typically like running hills and you know whether doing hill repeats or or hill sprints and things like that. For a swimmer it's you know swimming with fins and paddles in order to increase resistance. But the one thing that I will say and I I've experimented with this so I observed it firsthand. When I was training for Florida I had it was a 16 week plan so for the first eight weeks of that plan I kept my strength stuff in there. And so I was doing upper body and lower body stuff. I believe that there were two upper body workouts and a one lower body workout to complement the aerobic volume that I was doing. When I reached the second half of the training plan my volume significantly increased especially on the bike and running so I didn't want to over fatigue and overstress my legs so I removed the strength building from the plan like the weight uh the weight workouts from there and said I'll just supplement it. I'll I'll get this from sheer volume I'll have functional strength in there as well so I should be fine. By the end of that eight weeks and at the end of the race day I I took you know a couple I took some time off from training and then I went back into the weight room. I was just just curiosity I said well let me go back to the last lower the leg workout that I did training for Florida and I'm gonna do about 75% of what I was doing then. And I struggled I could not lift the same weight at a reduction of only reduce that weight by 25% I could not do it. And so it's proof that while you the the functional strength you cannot generate the same level of strength doing functional work that you can generate by just doing resistance based weight room movements.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

It would take you so long to generate the same kind of gains doing it in a functional way than if you just spent the time doing it within the rate in the weight room. And then you can take those in and out of the plan when it's appropriate.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Right. I think the argument would be like when you're starting to increase volume like I do when I have like a 70 mile week of running we'll just focus on the bat heavy back squat. Again it's just kind of what I'm trying to do to maintain and then I might do a couple of supporting movements but there's not a lot of volume in the weight room. It's just like that okay I'm doing a couple warm-up back squats and then I'm gonna do three sets of this particular like three sets of five at a particularly at a weight that I've sort of decided okay this is where I want to maintain. And something like that. It's just it doesn't take a lot of time and then maybe I'll do some like split squats and or step up step ups or just a few movements that kind of support that just to you know help also build up you know some of those other supporting muscles. So it's it's just but it's not going to be like the same amount of time I might go from like 45 minutes to an hour of strength training, you know, three to four days a week to maybe 30 minutes three days a week maybe so it's going less but I'm still I'm still incorporating that it's just going to be a lesser volume and just focusing on that heavy weight still but just just just really cutting back. So I'm still doing it the only time I ever cut the strength training completely out is usually like in that taper week before I might not cut it out completely. I might do some like just body weight stuff or just like maybe strength training like the weekend before it depends. It's gonna be really interesting where my grandma's because I'm gonna be gone for like three weeks before two weeks. But um I I try to cut it back the week before and then obviously the week after so even coming back to it yes the first time I go in it's always like like it's just hard not to have that rude awakening even at that like you know because usually for some taper and then time off you take off after the race it's hard I have tried to get the weight training in like three or four days after and it's just still I'm still so sore. But there's an argument to be made to doing some really light weights just to kind of help kind of bring the blood flow to your muscles and maybe there's something you can do there within a few days after the race but you don't want to be lifting heavy necessarily so you're just gonna be a rude awakening anyway but you want to minimize that as much as possible in my opinion so that you're not again with the strength trainings you're kind of just have going back a little bit and then you're building up from there and you're not going all the way back to square one. But um it's hard I mean it's hard to maintain both I mean you're kind of like playing this game you're not a strength athlete so the the goals for the strength training are different and you're and you're not always going to be able to have the focus of continuously gaining strength and gaining strength because you're an endurance athlete. So you're you're kind of doing what you can to gain strength in the offseason and then maintain it. And so you're never going to be as strong or as you know unless you're like maybe a hybrid type of athlete or something where they're really focusing on both you know and being able to maintain that level of strength training a little bit better. But you kind of have to also realize that you can't have best of both worlds either usually you know I will say that it it does come back quick it does come back fairly quick body has a memory muscle memory.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Yeah even after Florida I mean you know I was humbled when I first went into the weight back into the weight room after the race but I'd I'd have to say like after maybe like a month and a half maybe a month I was back to pushing similar similar weight than I was when I when I stopped and I stopped eight weeks prior to my race day. So you know it it came back fairly quickly but you know I just I don't want people to come back there and you know and they implement this strategy and then they're just like oh well you know I've lost so much. You haven't really lost it. You know it comes back quickly but you have to pri it's it's all about priority And so it's not it's not a loss, it's just a refocus. And so when the time is right, you come back and you refocus to it, you come back faster, you come back stronger, it comes back quicker, um, and then you can continue the build again.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Let's also let's talk. I think it would be helpful to talk about like that fear people have of gaining muscle mass, kind of gaining muscle size. I think we need to talk about exactly what it takes to gain muscle mass because I think people have no idea. Like, and I think it's getting better now. People are realizing like, oh, okay, like especially women, I think there was this fear of like I'm gonna get in the weight room and I'm gonna gain a bunch of I'm gonna be like a man or something coming, you know, coming out of it and I'm gonna be super, super muscular. And I just just how hard that is for most people. Now, I think there are some genetic, like I know I have a friend who is just prone to building muscle. She just, it's easy for her. And so if you're that type of person, like, you know, maybe you have to be a little bit more cautious about how you weight train so that you're not building a bunch of bulk. But if for the majority of people who don't have like what I consider that to be great genetics, because I don't have that. I was you always want what you don't have. Let's just talk for a minute about a bodybuilder, like what it takes. Like, so if you're a bodybuilder, endurance athletes are not generally bodybuilders, and the two do not really go hand in hand. Like you cannot generally be uh training for a marathon and training for a bodybuilding competition simultaneously because of this. But in order to, like usually a bodybuilder will go in, they have different phases, just like different parts of their training, just like an air endurance athlete, and they'll go in and they'll their first part of their training will be just purely focusing on volume, like what we're talking about, progressive overload. And what are they doing? They are eating a lot, like a lot of calories, lots of protein, lots of calories, generally, often at least 500 calories more than what their body needs in the day. Like a lot of calories they're eating. That's the bulking phase. This is what they call it. This is our bulking phase. And generally, in order to actually build muscle, you have to be in a caloric surplus generally. Like it's very, very hard to actually build muscle mass without being in a caloric surplus more than you're actually needing. Very, very few distance runners and traites, because we're sort of also worried about weight, you know, and gaining weight, very few of us are in that surplus situation where we're actually able to bulk up. So keep that in mind. And because there's this, like we've talked about a few times, like with endurance sports, we're sort of in this sort of catabolic state oftentimes, especially during our training. That's why a lot of bodybuilders who are in that bulking phase will do very little cardio in that phase because they know that. They are like, I don't want to do anything that's gonna decrease the possibility of me bulking up and building muscle. So they don't even really do cardio very often, and maybe a little bit, but not very much. And they and there's a whole thing, you know, don't do too much cardio, you know. So they have that phase. And then when they get to where they want to be muscle mass, and they do gain some fat too, because it's hard to gain muscle without also gaining fat, but that's why they go through a cutting phase. Then that next phase, it's all about decreasing calories to below their needs, but they're eating lots of protein and they are very strategic about timing of meals. They're trying to maintain the muscle mass they built, and they are trying to shed the body fat. They're shaping their body in a way, it's almost like an art, right? They're trying to shape their body, their muscles in a way to make them physique, especially physique athletes, look a specific way. And so that's that next phase. And then they kind of go and they're they're maybe within that little micro phases too, but then they're kind of going into their competition. So it takes a lot. What I'm trying to say is that to actually build a substantial amount of muscle, you have to be eating quite a bit more than your what your what your needs are, and you have to be doing very specific, like spending a lot of time, you know, some of these bodybuilders are spending two or three hours in the gym strength training every day. Like most endurance athletes don't have the time to do that, plus run, plus eat, you know, 500 extra calories. So it's very, very, very hard to build any sort of substantial muscle mass or size in the in that context of like an endurance athlete who maybe in general probably isn't over consuming calories to that degree. So keep that in mind. And then you'd also need the pro the protein and the timing of the protein to be right, and that's also important. But yeah, I don't know. Do you have any thoughts?

SPEAKER_00 48:32

I think the way that I that I'm kind of seeing it is that I can use a very similar approach in the weight room to the bodybuilder in terms of stacking on on the volume. But what I'm seeing in my own personal experience is the main driving factor on why I don't see an increase in bulk is because I'm not in that caloric surplus. Yeah. And so, you know, even though my my strength training volume is fairly high for an endurance athlete, I'm not seeing the increase in muscle mass simply because I'm not feeding, I'm not feeding it that way. So what I'm seeing actually is an increase in strength without the additional mass.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

And so that's that's kind of the way that's that's like the typical experience most endurance athletes have. Very few people, less they're genetically gifted, I would say, can and then maybe I would argue if you're that gifted, you probably should have got into a physician via physique athlete, anyways. Um, very few people have the ability to um gain muscle. Like, I don't know. So I just think it's that's an an amount of you're still doing a certain amount of aerobic exercise. It's not like you've decided to to totally give that up and just focus on strength. So there is gonna be that piece as well. It just makes it much, much harder to gain. For an athlete to really figure that out, if you're like, well, thinking to yourself, like, I s I want to be able to do both, you know, the strength training and the aerobic exercise at some capacity. Maybe it's in your base season or you're kind of in an off season and you want to focus on strength, but not really give up the endurance. Like you will have you would probably have to kind of do that experiment of almost um figuring out what your calorie needs are, maybe adding an additional 300 to 500 calories and then watching your weight and and maybe doing some body composition measurements, you know, to sort of be able to see that, but you're gonna see an increase. Usually when you're doing that, the hard part is you're you're gonna see like an increase in weight. And that's a hard thing. Like we'd had that weight discussion, you know, like a week or so ago. So we talked or you know, we've talked about weight and endurance um training. And there's a lot of fear, I think, of endurance athletes to gaining weight. So that is that's a hard one, right? But you can probably gain muscle if you can at least match your, you know, match your weight, your your intake as best as possible you can to your to your expenditure. And if you're really prioritizing what you're eating before and after training, and making sure that you're getting, you know, I would argue, probably at least like 30 grams of protein within a couple hours after training. Um, and then making sure as well that within that 30 grams of protein, you're getting at least 2.5 to 3 grams of an amino acid called leucine, which is like the particular amino acid that signals muscle protein synthesis or the building of muscle of leucine. So you want to be thinking, you know, any kind of meat, most meat dairy products have a good amount of leucine. So figuring out what kind of protein source you want to use to be able to get that. It's like a little more planning and thought to it, right? To be able to, you have to, in other words, you have to spend a significant amount of time not only building the training correctly so that you can build muscle mass, but also having that calorie amount and the right amount of protein at the right time to sort of you know increase your likelihood you're gonna use, you know, that you're gonna have the building blocks that you need for building muscle.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

I think that my main takeaway from this from this conversation that we're having right now, I think dispels the myth that endurance athletes should not be doing strength training because they don't want to increase bulk. You're not going to increase bulk unless you're specifically trying to increase like you're they you're really trying.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

Like it's a it's an effect.

SPEAKER_00 52:22

Yeah, using the excuse of, oh, I'm not going to do weight training because I don't want to get bigger, there's a it's a specific, purposeful strategy that you have to implement in order to get bigger. It doesn't just happen. So I I think that that does a really good job of dispelling this myth that you know, you know, we're we're going to we're going to hinder our performance because we're getting bigger. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

When I did that power lifting training, I was probably lifting two to sometimes three hours a day, three day five days a week. Um I wasn't I was barely doing any cardio. And I don't have like I'm more of an endurance athlete, so genetics generally. That's probably why I filtered into this sport. But uh I was I was strong for sure and muscular for sure, like more muscular than I am now. What was I bulky? No, I wasn't I was not. I I probably looked pretty strong and and all of that effort and get and eating, gosh, so many calories. I mean, I was eating so much and so much protein. I mean, probably f at least 500 calories more than I needed. And I barely I it took me a lot to gain maybe eight pounds. Yeah, it was a huge amount of effort and no no cardio very like maybe walking down the road. I think I might have gone down like maybe a two-mile run once in a while, and that was the volume. That was my total volume, was maybe like two miles. I'm serious. And so just yeah, just trust me, you're not gonna unless like you do have those very specific genetics, which is rare. So don't so that myth is dispelled. Do not even use that as an excuse. I don't want to hear it anymore. It's no longer valid. It's no longer valid.

SPEAKER_00 54:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

So let's let's move on from there.

SPEAKER_00 54:06

Yeah, so let's move on from this. Is like I want to talk about some of the some of the important coaching principles that that have kind of stemmed from this conversation, is that we now agree that strength training is a complement to our endurance training. It doesn't replace it. So if you can't swim for whatever reason, doing dry land strength-based training is not going to make you a better swimmer. It's not going to substitute swim, but it will complement if you can build the neuro, like we've talked before, building these neuropathways to make sure that, okay, during my swim stroke, are my lats engaged or are my shoulders really taking on more of the brunt of this of the swim stroke? If your shoulders are, if you're leaving the pool and your shoulders are really sore, then chances are your lats are not engaging like they should. So that tells you what you should focus on in the weight room is lat engagement, specific movements geared towards swimmers that will encourage the development of these neuropathways and then you can build those muscles again. Then when you get in the pool and you go through your swim stroke, really kind of like tune in to what you what muscle groups you feel. If that means that you swim with music and you have these underwater headphones and stuff, if that means you got to take off the headphones in order to really kind of like tune into what your body is saying, it's worth the investment. Just leave the headphones to the side and really kind of just get into the water, pull through the water and say, that's how that feels. It's well worth the investment because I've done that myself personally. So I know I know the benefits that that comes from it. Because we are endurance athletes, we don't want to walk out of the out of the gym just completely destroyed. You see these videos on social media of you know people's legs shaking and stuff after their after their strength workout. That doesn't mean that it was a great workout, especially if you are an endurance athlete. What that tells me as a coach is that you overdid it. Because now, how is that recovery process going to look and how is it going to affect your ability to train tomorrow? So we're not looking to bury ourselves in the gym because we want consistency. We want to be able to do something tomorrow and we want to execute the plan today as a function of what we did yesterday. That's the whole idea behind this. So, like I said, strength is not conditioning, it doesn't replace your aerobic-based work. And for this is what I see sometimes, and it it really makes me shake my head. Is I see aerobic workouts with strength built into it. You see these ridiculous cycle classes where they're like, oh, this is strength cycle. So they sit on a spin bike and they're doing bicep curls, you know, with dumbbells. Interesting. Please, please do not do this. Do not get on the treadmill with you know weight plates and you know, all this trying to stuff, and you're trying to carry additional weight and run or walk up. Please focus on what it is that's the primary reason for the workout. Each workout has a purpose.

SPEAKER_01 57:10

If you're doing like a high rox trading, you might do a compromise.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

If you're doing like functional strength, and then you do something.

SPEAKER_01 57:16

It's not always strength though. There might be like a room for something like that where you're not trying to incorporate the strength while you're doing like in the middle of the aerobic stuff, but you're like stopping, taking a break, doing something power different, like rowing or you know, or or box step-ups or something like that, and then coming back on, and you're maybe slightly fatigued when you get back.

SPEAKER_00 57:36

But that's I don't know if I would circuits circuits are different than what I'm what I'm saying. Like a circuit-based workout is fine. So if you want to get on the treadmill, run for five minutes, get off the treadmill, do some push-ups, then get back on. That's that's what I would call a circuit. But I see people like getting on the treadmill and they're like curling dumbbells while they're on the treadmill. Yeah, or they strap a 45-pound plate to their back and then they're running on the treadmill. Please, please don't do this.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Right. I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:04

The reason is is because every workout has a particular purpose in mind. We're not just interested in just doing work for the sake of doing work. So if you're going to focus on strength, focus on strength. If you're going to focus on aerobic conditioning, then that's the purpose of that particular workout. So I I understand the whole need of like this this idea of like multitasking, but I I don't feel like multitasking is is relevant in aerobic conditioning and I see people out there using like five, two pound, you know, those tiny little weights, and like what's the point?

SPEAKER_01 58:37

What's the point? You're not doing it. First of all, that's not enough weight. But yeah, like don't do yeah, good point. Don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 58:44

And I think because I've seen some of the demographics of people that are listening to the podcast, uh maybe one of the reasons why this conversation is is so important, is because one of our primary demographics are people between the ages of 35 and 45. And so I strength conditioning as a complement to your aerobic conditioning is important because it helps improve tendon strength. And it's one of the things that I've experienced time and time again. And it's it's kind of hard to strengthen tendons because of the the the lack of blood supply supply and and it's repairing. So strengthening tendons will allow you to absorb the load that you're putting on your body from the aerobic conditioning. So if you're a runner, then you really want strong tendon connections within your ankles and your feet.

SPEAKER_01 59:34

Knees and hips.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

Yeah, in order to do that, you have to be purposeful about it. Just running hills is not going to give you the same kind of tendon strength at the same rate. And if as if you just did single leg calf raises, then that's the purpose of them. So and I think that's why it's important.

SPEAKER_01 59:53

Yeah, that's the thing we are, you know, it's not just like we mentioned the last time, when you're doing especially the heavy load, you're also very much strengthening those tendons. Um, so just this is kind of not just the muscle. I think that's an important thing, yeah, that you brought up there. Yeah, the other thing I want to mention, I I think this is almost again, like I keep feeling like we think of other topics here. The power strength, that's a whole we don't have time to dive into that power versus strength and kind of why we would want to incorporate or when we would want to incorporate more power-based movements and how to do that safely, because that is a some of that like the Olympic lifting and pliometrics, do bring in a an aspect of injury risk that's a little bit more. So we have to be careful. The other thing I think we want to talk about at some point, and I don't think we can have time today, would be the timing. Sort of like, and this could be incorporated into another strength topic. Maybe we dive more into like building strength programs or something. So when we would want to do the strength training and how do we place that into our training plan, that aspect of it? Like, do we do it on our hard days? Do we do it because we don't want to do a strength training? I know for me, I don't want to do a heavy strength training day and then have like a really hard or really intense like marathon training workout the next day. So I have to be intentional when I'm starting my training program to like where am I placing these strength training? Like, how do you time it into the week so that you because again, I think that's another concern people have is okay, well, I do the strength training, but then the next day I'm my my legs are a little tired and I can't get the most out of my run workout. So thinking about placement of that workout, sequencing, but not not necessarily today, but I think people are probably thinking that like, okay, you're you've convinced me. How do I actually put this into my schedule, into my training plan? You know, that kind of question.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

Yeah, so I I think as we're starting to kind of like wind this thing down, I want to just talk about some some common mistakes that we see endurance athletes making. And and some of this isn't necess hasn't been necessarily brought up so far. So I think it's it's relevant in the conversation, so we don't want to be repetitive, but I would say that there are six things that we commonly see endurance athletes make these mistakes. And so I think the first one is training to failure. While there is a time and place for training to failure, it should be used appropriately with a very specific purpose in mind. So, you know, this whole idea of like I'm going to bury myself in this in the weight room and lift until I can't lift anymore is a very is a common mistake uh for endurance athletes. We like Katie has said, we are not bodybuilders, we're not interested in reaching uh failure all the time. So, like I've said, there is a time and place for it, but doing it too often will hinder your progression because as Katie alluded to in just a few minutes ago, how does that training to failure how can how long does it take your body to recover from that and how what does it do to the quality of subsequent sessions? And I think doing it too often will impact your ability to execute quality sessions in the days to follow that. So let's keep that in mind. Doing uh number two is like doing these high rep circuits year-round. So because I think that this comes into play because of this myth that we've now dispelled that endurance athletes are going to gain muscle mass by doing by doing workouts, and so they should just do high rep, low weight all the time. I think that, like I've said before, there is a time and place for focusing on muscular endurance, which is where these high rep circuits come from, but there also is a valid place within the training plan to do lower rep and higher weight. So using the same method throughout the entire year, I think is a common mistake where it's as if you just did the same run over and over and over again. Every single, every single run that you did was the same run, same pace, same intensity, same course, and you did no change whatsoever. You just did that run every time you ran for a year. What development would you see? You would just be really good at running that distance, that pace, and that level of intensity, but you would see no growth and you'd see no progress. So learning how to periodize your strength plan just like you periodized your aerobic conditioning is really, really important. Treating number three is kind of treating strength like it's conditioning. These are very two separate topics. Even though they're separate, they do complement each other, but they are not a substitute for each other. So so Katie, why don't you go by and and do like the last three that we've that we typically will see and let me know your thoughts on it?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:26

The mistakes, yeah. Treat okay, so that's not resting enough between not resting enough. I think this is very common for endurance athletes because we're kind of like the type of people that want to be doing something. So that's why I use my um watch sometimes because I'll I'll see the sets and then I'll see the rest portion. And I'll have to really force myself because if I if I don't watch that, I'm I'd be like, oh, I think it's about time. Because I can't sit there for like two minutes. It's very hard, you know, to sit there and rest. You can move a little bit in between. I mean, you can maybe do some gentle like walking around or something, but you really want to be like not, you don't want to like then be doing a bunch of jumping jacks or something to feel like you have to fill that time. I think that's a common issue for for endurance athletes because every time you go into that set, you want to be able to give that your all. You want to feel as rested as possible into that next set. And you can't do that. You're gonna come in if you only give yourself 30 seconds rest or a minute rest, you're not gonna be able to, A, you're there's a little bit of risk that you're still gonna be some fatigue, so you're not gonna be able to do the movement correctly. And then B, you haven't given yourself the rest, so you can give all, you know, all of that muscle fiber recruitment into that next set. So you're really having to do your best to rest in between so that each set has you maximizing the strength component in each set. So you have to kind of maybe listen to music or something to kind of distract you in between. I think it's probably okay to do some light movement or some some sort of stretching or mobility maybe, but try, try not to um be like, Oh my gosh, this is taking too long. I think a minute is just enough because Then you won't be getting the most out of that lifting session. So it's a good it's a good it's a good thing for nurse athletes, I think, maybe to take it easy, you know? Slow it down, slow it down. Or just like the next one be like lifting too light. So this is where I think it's hard, especially for beginners, to figure out like, okay, what's heavy, you know, and what's and it does take time to kind of get comfortable in the weight room and to be able to start figuring out, okay, what it what does this feel like to lift a little bit heavier. It's not really gonna do you any good just to sort of pick the lightest weight and just go through the movements and not challenge yourself a little bit. So you're not gonna get any gain, you're not gonna get any strength gain. You're almost if you're just going way too light because that's what's comfortable and you're just trying to get the work done and you're not really putting any effort in, then you're not really gonna get anything out of it. So we might as well not do it. And then too much volume during the race season would be the other one. So that's if you're doing too much lifting volume, like we've kind of talked about already, I think then you kind of do maybe take away from the training that you're trying to do. So it's this balance, this delicate balance of trying to get just the right amount of lifting to during your race season or during your build, you know, building not build season, but you maybe you have 12 weeks to go or something until your marathon. You know, you at that point it's just trying to maintain strength as best you can, and that's kind of how I approach it, anyways. And so the vault you don't want to be spending three hours, you know, or an hour a day in the strength room. I mean, you really just want to be as efficient as possible to kind of keep the strength in there and not have that take away from your endurance training. So, well, most athletes have a limitation of time, but I think some athletes, endurance athletes think more is better sometimes too. Like, okay, I'm gonna like do more, I gotta be doing more. And that's not always the case, especially with strength training. You want to get it in there, but too much can be uh detract from your goal. So it's just about getting that right. And I think that's where you know, maybe um, you know, I think I have some experience working with athletes with strength training, but if you're really it's just hard because I think if you go to a personal trainer, I think they're very knowledgeable. And that's a great way to go if you want to learn the the different movements to actually work with someone who can watch you and be able to tell you if you're doing it right, that is huge. But not every personal trainer is gonna understand also endurance sports. So it's a little bit challenging. I think you have to find that right like a strength and conditioning coach or a personal trainer with a certification. And I don't want to go down in that rabbit hole of what's a good certification, but maybe just asking them if they have experience working with endurance athletes and because they might have a tendency to be like, because that's their main focus, is the strength training piece. They might have a tendency to overdo it and not be able to really adequately help you balance the two. But I do think going to somebody initially starting out so that you are making sure you're doing it correctly is a great place to start. But then you might have to reach out and find somebody that knows more about how to balance the two adequately because that is a possibility that could happen just working with somebody that doesn't know endurance sports very well. I mean, that's yeah, those I don't know if you have anything to add there, but that would be the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:15

I think I think it's funny that you said that because uh I do have a strength and could I have a strength coach that I use and mainly because I wasn't seeing the gains that I wanted to see to make the time that I was spending worth it. So I wasn't getting the return on investment. And so I said, I'm secure enough to know what it is that I don't know. So I went to uh a guy and said, you know, hey, can you help me build a plan and and keep me on track? Well, the issue is that he's a strength guy. He he's not he's not. Most of them are.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:46

Like a lot of those guys are.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:48

We fight all the time. He's just like, I think you're running too much. You you gotta stop running. I was like, dude, I'm I'm not I'm not a strength guy. I am an endurance athlete that needs the strength piece. That's hard. So it's always kind of a running it's a running joke be between us because the guy refuses to do cardio himself and he's always ragging on me for doing so much cardio.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:08

That seems like a typical strength guy. Yeah, I think it's I think it's kind of I I think it is helpful to find somebody even if they're kind of more strength focused. You just like you do. You have to remind them like this isn't my primary sport. Like I do the I'm doing the endurance activity because I like it. That's what I like to do. And when I was working, I worked for those years I was doing powerlifting. When I focused on that, I was absolutely working with somebody who was helping me with that. So I think it is helpful to find someone. I think I gained a lot of knowledge from that experience, plus just my past with my education in the past at the undergrad that I have. I just kind of been able to now sort of go on my own. But um I think it's just nice to honestly like have somebody just write like that's the thing I like about coaching in general. Just put it in there for me. I don't want to think about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:51

I just I just tell him what it is that this training block, I want to focus on this. Yeah. And he gives me the three or four sessions that I do in the week, and then it's up to me to do the proper sequencing of it. So, you know, I I grab the workouts that the workouts that he designed, and I say, okay, I need to put this here because I've got this tomorrow and I did this the day before. So it's my job to sequence it and place them properly, which we've alluded to. I think that that's a really good topic to come back to later is like how to actually go through the process of building this and incorporating it in. Now that we've proven to you on how important it is, I want to help you put it in. Let's finish off this conversation. So if you're unsure on whether your current lifting program is either focused on building muscle or building performance, you know, you don't know how to sequence them, you don't you don't know what movements to to do, that will reinforce the movements that you want to implement during you know your run. So there's certain movements that will complement your run training in the weight room. If you're just kind of not sure on what to do to make that time that you spend in the weight room important or in uh return on investment, then come to us. You know, we would love to work with you. Uh so you can either go to fuel the number two run.com for Katie, and you can go to taboolarassa racing.com from me. But this is the kind of stuff that we do. We will gladly talk with you and talk about how your goal what your goals are, what you're training for, and we'll find the appropriate plan for you. And so it it's just important to keep in mind that the strength training is designed to make you more durable, not just more tired. You know, that's that we're always tired uh to a certain extent because of the aerobic stuff. So doing strength stuff isn't supposed to kind of like make you even more tired. You're doing this as a way to become more durable, more consistent, and able to progress the the way that you want to. Absolutely. If you are enjoying the content that is coming out from the Endurance Athlete Journey podcast, wherever it is that you're consuming your podcast, we would greatly appreciate just submitting a review and a comment. That really, really helps the podcast. We we uh came to the decision together from day one, from before we came out with episode one, that we were not going to monetize this podcast. So we wanted to come to you pure and unfettered. Uh, we're not trying to sell you hemp mattresses and s and uh supplements and everything else. So we wanted to we wanted to just come to you uh with our own insights and not being beholden to somebody else in order to sell you a product or change how we how we uh talk about some of these topics because of sponsorship. So that also means that a lot of the costs of bringing you this podcast, your storage fees, production costs, all come out of out of our own pockets. But we gr we love this process. We love logging in and talking to you guys every single week, twice a week. And so these reviews are really, really helpful and they really expand the attention to the podcast, and people can easily find us then. So please consider it, only takes just a couple minutes just to submit you know a five-star review and just a small little comment. Those are greatly appreciated. We also built out a private Facebook group, and it's called the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast Group. This is a private group kind of limiting the abilities for bots to get in there. So we want to grow this community as a way for you guys to interact with us and interact with each other. We're pushing out additional content into this group. We got polls and blog posts that we're writing. And so this is really kind of an extension of the podcast. So if you are enjoying it and you really want to participate in the conversation, go out and join that Facebook group. It's really, really simple. All you do is just answer one simple question and let you write on in and let's join the conversation. We're also active coaches, so we're bringing on athletes onto our own rosters. And so if you are interested and you're thinking about a coach, we hope that you will consider either one of us. For Katie, you can go to fuel the number two run.com. Uh, she does dietetics for all sports as well as run training. Uh, you can go to taboularusseracing.com for me, Coach Justin, where I do multi-sport and single sport training plans. Please uh I hope that you guys will consider at least talking to us and uh kind of interview us and do your own due diligence because finding a coach is about establishing that relationship. It's more than just training plans. So you've got to find the right one that works for you. So uh I want to I want to thank you guys for joining us. This has been episode 75 of the Endurance Athlete Journey podcast, uh, where we've talked about uh the difference between building muscle and building strength for endurance athletes and why it's important to focus on both uh and where it's appropriate. So we thank you guys for joining us. Again, if you've enjoyed the content that we're coming out with uh on the podcast, please consider leaving a review and a comment wherever it is that you're consuming your podcast content. The fact that you click on us all the time and and you know listen to our episodes does not go unappreciated and unnoticed. We thank you guys so much. Given the amount of volume of podcasts that are out there, the fact that you chose us is means a lot to us, and we thank you for that. This has been Coach Justin along with Coach Katie from the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. We'll see you all again next time. Bye. See you, Katie.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:11

See ya.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:20

That wraps up today's episode of the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. Endurance sports have a way of teaching us patience, humility, and resilience. Lessons that carry far beyond the workout. Progress in endurance sports doesn't come from shortcuts. It comes from consistency, discipline, and doing the work when it's not glamorous. Wherever you are on your endurance journey, keep trusting the process and honoring the work you put in each day. If today's episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone to help on their endurance journey. Don't forget to join the conversation on our social sites to help build and foster a community where we all learn and support one another. We'll be back with more stories and insights from Coach Justin and Katie. Until then, visit the podcast website at the endurance athlete journey.buzzsprout.com for more episodes from the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast. Have questions or comments about the podcast? Feel free to send us an email at the endurance athlete journey at gmail.com. For all things coaching, visit Coach Katie at fuel the number two run dot com and coach Justin at taboo rasteracing.com. Again, thank you for listening to the Endurance Athlete Journey Podcast and remember to find joy in the journey.