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And what happened?
At the end of the season, both groups had improved their strength by the same amount on a 'swim bench' (a dry-land resistance device which attempts to replicate the biomechanics of the front-crawl stroke in swimming). Both groups improved their power during 'tethered swimming' to the same extent, and both collections of swimmers reduced blood- lactate levels during high-speed, 365-metre swims by the same amount. However, distance moved per stroke (during front-crawl swimming) was unchanged for both the strength-trained and regularly trained swimmers.


Somewhat shockingly, sprint-swim velocity (speed measured during a maximal 22.9-metre swim) actually decreased by the same amount in both groups. How's that for an effective training programme?(!!) Such drop-offs in velocity (power) are one reason why venerable exercise physiologist Dave Costill (one of the Ball State researchers) began telling swim coaches that they were forcing their athletes to swim far too many metres per week during training (ie, the training volume was turned up way too high, causing overtraining and a lack of power).


Unfortunately, actual competitive perform- ances of the two groups of athletes in the Costill- Tanaka-Fink investigation were not compared, so the 'bottom line' in this piece of research was simply that strength training did not improve either swimming capacity or overall strength (measured while swimming) in these collegiate swimmers any more than did routine swim workouts.


Many observers of the competitive swimming scene have looked at this key study and declared that it shows that strength training has little value for serious swimmers. Of course, the key problem with this assertion is that the strength-training programme devised by Fink, Costill, and Tanaka does not represent strength training in toto; there are many other types of strength schemes which swimmers could follow. In fact, the overall strength programme was a very poor one. The key principle of progression was utilized in only one sense in Tanaka's plan: the swimmers did progress from lesser to greater resistance over the eight-week period. However, there was no progression from one type of strength training to another, eg, frorn general strengthening exertions to those more specific to the act of swimming, and in fact the exercises utilized by Tanaka's athletes resembled the actions required for swimming only in the sense that the major muscles needed for swimming were stressed during the strength training.

The exact (or nearly exact) movements required for swimming were not replicated during the strength training, and thus the neural (coordination) component of strengthening was absent. Movement speed was also not varied; the swimmers lifted weights at roughly the same speed throughout the whole eight-week period (there was no alternation of high-resistance, slow-velocity efforts with low-resistance, high- velocity ones). It's easy to see why Tanaka's programme made the swimmers stronger while doing the specific exercises in the programme - but not while swimming. The research would have been much more interesting if the swimmers had tried some quality strength training.


On to skiing
Can strength training help cross country skiers? Heikki Rusko and his colleagues at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland checked out that possibility with a unique piece of research carried out in the late 1980s. Rusko's subjects were 15 national-level cross country skiers, seven of whom took part in a unique, six-week strength- training programme which combined both explosive (high-velocity, low-resistance) exertions and heavy-duty (low-velocity, high- resistance) work.

The explosive exertions consisted of sprint training, jumps, and other quickly conducted exercises, while the heavy-duty stuff involved squats with barbells and other basic resistance exercises using loads of 70 to 90 per cent of an athlete's 'one-repetition-max', 70 to 90 per cent of the greatest weight which an athlete could lift once.

Meanwhile, a control group of eight skiers spent most of their time engaged in routine endurance training for skiing but also completed some 'endurance strength training', which consisted of very-low-resistance abdominal, arm, and leg exercises with hundreds of repetitions.

After the six-week training period, the explosively trained group held a couple of advantages over the endurance group. First, the time required to develop significant muscular force, which was initially equal between groups, shortened in the explosive group, compared to the endurance group. Specifically, it took .41 seconds for the athletes' quadriceps muscles to produce 90 per cent of their maximal strength before the explosive training was carried out - but just .29 seconds after the extensive explosive training (a 29-per cent improvement).

Meanwhile, the endurance athletes were unable to improve their quickness of force production in their quads. That was no surprise, since the explosive group had been emphasizing quick, forceful movements in their training, while the endurance skiers had been moving more lethargically during their workouts. Basically, members of the explosive group improved the quickness with which their nervous systems stimulated their muscles to act. They became more powerful!
Similarly, the explosive group improved their vertical jumping ability by about 11 per cent over the course of six weeks, while the endurance group failed to jump any higher than before. As was the case with the upgraded rate of force development, this was not a huge surprise. The explosive athletes had been practising their jumps, and jumping capacity itself depends on one's ability to accelerate rapidly away from the ground in order to overcome the downward acceleration produced by gravity. Acceleration is dependent on power, and the explosive athletes had been working intently on power, while the endurance people had emphasized endurance and strength.

As with the rowing and swimming research, no actual performance tests were carried out with the athletes, an omission which seems rather puzzling. However, all athletes were tested for changes in V02max, aerobic threshold (the exercise intensity which caused blood-lactate levels to rise above 2 mmol/litre), and lactate threshold, and it was determined that neither the explosive nor endurance athletes improved in those key areas. Because of that, various individuals have contended that Rusko's research constitutes 'proof' that strength training is of little benefit to cross-country skiers (the cross- country skiers could jump higher than usual after Rusko put them through their paces, but shrewd sceptics have pointed out that there is little link between vertical jumping ability and cross- country skiing performance).

However, it's premature to say that strength training can't lift endurance-skiing capacity, since there were a number of problems with Rusko's research (in addition to the failure to test actual skiing performance). The total time devoted to strength training was short (six weeks), and the strength training, although it did include both low- and high-velocity work, failed to progress from general strengthening to exertions which closely paralleled the actual movements involved in skiing. Rusko's study only shows that a fairly limited strength-training programme has little impact on maximal aerobic capacity and lactate threshold in cross-country skiers.


Cycling next?
Research exploring the effects of strength training on cycling has been a 'mixed bag'. We have the study carried out by Ben Hurley and his co-workers at the University of Maryland, in which 10 healthy men took up strength training (bench presses, hip flexions, knee extensions, knee flexions, press-ups, leg presses, lat pulldowns, arm curls, parallel squats, and bent-knee sit-ups) for 12 weeks, while eight other healthy men served as controls. After 12 weeks, the strength-trained men improved their endurance while cycling at an intensity of 75 per cent V02max by 33 per cent and also lifted lactate threshold (the single best predictor of endurance performance) by 12 per cent.

However, these men were untrained prior to the study and did not carry out regular cycling workouts during the research, so the applicability of these findings to serious athletes is questionable.

The study carried out by R. C. Hickson and his colleagues at the University of Illinois at Chicago was considerably more practical. In that investigation, eight experienced cyclists added three days per week of strength training to their regular endurance routines over a 10-week period. The strength training was incredibly simple, focusing on parallel squats (five sets of five reps per workout), knee extensions (three sets of five reps), knee flexions (3 x 5), and toe raises (3 x 25), all with fairly heavy resistance. The only progression utilized in the programme involved the amount of resistance, which increased steadily as strength improved.

Nonetheless, the strength training had a profoundly positive impact on cycling performance. After 10 weeks, the cyclists improved their 'short-term endurance' (their ability to continue working at a very high intensity) by about 11 per cent, and they also expanded the amount of time they could pedal at an intensity of 80% V02max from 71 to 85 minutes, about a 20-per cent upgrade.

However, a different study showed that strength training could also have a profoundly negative effect on cycling performance. In that piece of research, carried out by James Home and his colleagues at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, seven endurance cyclists who averaged about 200 kilometres of cycling per week incorporated three strength training sessions into their normal routine. The strength programme was relatively unsophisticated, consisting of three sets of up to eight repetitions of hamstring curls, leg presses, and quadriceps extensions using fairly heavy resistance.

After six weeks, the strength training had produced rather impressive gains in strength (the gains averaged a bit more than 20 per cent). However, actual cycling performances were not improved; in fact, they were worse than before the strength training was undertaken! 40-K race times slowed from 59 to 62 minutes, and the strength-trained cyclists complained of feeling 'heavy' and tired during their workouts - and even reduced their volume of endurance training because of the excessive fatigue.

Why did Hickson's study uncover clear advantages associated with strength training for cyclists, while Home's work revealed the reverse?
No one knows for certain, which means it's time for a personal observation. It seems quite likely that the strength training carried out by Hickson's charges improved fatigue resistance in their muscles, permitting them to persist longer both during high-intensity tests of endurance and prolonged efforts at a submaximal (80% V02max) intensity. Meanwhile, it's likely that Home's added strength training sent his athletes into the overtrained - or at least 'stale' - state. The feelings of fatigue which originated shortly after the beginning of strength training suggests that the athletes were simply doing too much work.

Home's cyclists were averaging 124 miles of weekly riding when they started their strength training, while Hickson's athletes were logging considerably fewer miles, so one might be tempted to suggest that strength training can produce major benefits for low-mileage cyclists but does much less for experienced, higher mileage competitors who have already built up considerable strength merely by riding. That certainly wouldn't be an unreasonable thought, but it doesn't explain why strength training per se would actually slow down endurance performances, as it seemed to do for Home's performers (no other study has shown this). It seems very likely that Home's added strength training was simply the straw that broke the camel's back; it wasn't the strength training which slowed the cyclists but the total amount of work they had to complete.


And running?
Although the strength-training research carried out with endurance rowers, swimmers, skiers, and cyclists has tended to produce 'negative' results, the same cannot be said for the studies completed with runners. Several different studies indicate that strength training can have a positive impact on running performances - or on the physiological variables which determine running performances.

First of all, Hickson found that the strength programme described above for experienced cyclists (parallel squats, knee extensions, knee flexions and toe raises with fairly heavy resistance) also improved the running performances of fairly experienced runners by about 13 per cent (the high-quality running tests used by Hickson lasted about six minutes, so they were roughly comparable to 2K races).

In a separate study carried out by Hickson, nine men took part in a strength programme comprised of parallel squats, knee flexions, knee extensions, leg presses, calf raises, dead lifts, and sit-ups - carried out five times per week for 10 weeks. At the end of this 10-week period, endurance while running at an intensity of 100% V02max soared by 12 per cent, indicating that the strength training had had a strong positive effect on running capacity.

Interestingly enough, cycling performances also improved: after 10 weeks the men could cycle 47 per cent longer at their cycling V02max, and their actual cycling V02max was 4-per cent higher than before.

Unfortunately, this study has little applicability to the training of most runners (and cyclists), because the men had not been training regularly for at least six months before the strength training began, and they actually completed no running or cycling training during the 10-week study period. The only conclusion one can reasonably draw from this research is that strength training improves the cycling and running performances of non-runners and non-cyclists!
Actually, even that conclusion is not sacrosanct, since any type of continuous activity (including rowing, swimming, skiing, and perhaps tiddly- winks) might have helped the men perform better during tests of endurance.


New Hampshire to the rescue
However, a very high-quality investigation carried out at the University of New Hampshire found that strength training had a statistically significant, positive effect on running economy, one of the key physiological variables which determines running performances. This study involved 12 experienced female runners; half of them carried out their regular endurance training over a 10-week period, while the other half completed the same routine endurance training but also added three strength-training workouts per week.

The strength-training programme, although incomplete, was slightly more sophisticated than the ones we have described so far. The female runners basically carried out two different strength workouts, alternating them from session to session. One workout consisted of squats, knee flexions, straight-leg heel raises, seated presses, rear lat pull-downs, hammer curls, and weighted sit-ups, while the other contained lunges, knee extensions, bent-leg heel raises, bench presses, seated rows, front lat pull-downs, and abdominal curls. The progression utilized in the study was in the amount of actual resistance, which increased slowly but steadily as the runners became stronger.

After 10 weeks, upper-body strength increased by an average of 24 per cent and lower-body strength advanced by 34 per cent. However, the most important improvement - from a running standpoint - was the 4-per cent enhancement of economy which the strength trainers achieved (economy remained unchanged in the endurance group). Such a change should upgrade running performances by about 3 to 4 per cent (indeed, the strength-trained runners tended to report greater improvements in their race times, compared to the endurance runners).

The nice amelioration of economy as a result of strength training was not a big shock: exercise physiologists had speculated for years that strength training might represent a great way to boost economy (the New Hampshire study was the first to actually test this hypothesis). What was a little surprising was that such a big gain in economy (4 per cent may sound small, but it corresponds with a 100-second improvemenr in 10K time for the 41:39 10K runner, enough to break through the sometimes elusive 40-minute time barrier for the event) could be achieved with a programme which was only moderately sophisticated. Many of the exercises utilized in the New Hampshire training programme were best suited for developing general - rather than running-specific - strength (one might say that only the squats, knee flexions, knee extensions, lunges, and bent-leg heel raises (five out of 14 total exercises) bore some resemblance to the biomechanical movements required for running).

If there had been a real progression in this training programme, moving from a strong diet of general strengthening exercises to a hefty platter of running-specific moves (lunges, high-bench step-ups, one-leg squats, one-leg hops in place, bounds, and speed-bounds, just to name a few), it's likely that the improvement in economy (and performance) would have been even greater.

If the strength training had been capped by a serious 'block' of hill training, the gains in economy would surely have reached 8 to 10 per cent (hill training itself, when properly conducted, is known to enhance economy by at least 4 per cent). And if there had been progression from the slow-speed, high-resistance movements (the basic exercises described above, plus even hill running, which often takes place at less than race pace because of the slowing effect of steep inclines) to high-speed activity (lightning hops and bounds, quicksilver reps on the track), the gains in power- and performance - could have been truly maximal.


So what's the bottom line?
Strength-train to reduce your risk of injury, and above all strength-train to heighten your level of performance. But don't rely solely on those classical, familiar exercises for the legs and upper body which almost all runners carry out. Those exertions aren't bad for building general strength, but you need to progress to running-specific movements and hill training, too. Progression doesn't mean just adding more plates to the weight stack; it also means making your routine more and more like what you do when you run.

And progression also means varying your resistances and speeds of movement, both during your general and specific strengthening. You need the high resistance (and therefore usually slower speed) to optimally build strength, but you also need the low resistance (and therefore higher speed) to improve nervous-system control of what you are doing when you are moving fast, to enhance your rate of muscular force production - and therefore to increase your power. Yes, power, because even if you only run marathons, you are still engaged in a power sport.

For runners, power usually means longer stride lengths, and merely expanding stride length by one inch 'shortens' the marathon by about 1 kilometre for the average individual, allowing a runner to cover 42K with the same number of steps which originally chewed up only 41K of 'real estate'. This 1000-metre improvement would trim an average of three to six minutes from marathon finishing time, depending on ability level. In a similar vein, developing enough power to shear just two milliseconds (two thousandths of a second) from average footstrike time would carve 46 seconds from the elite runner's marathon time - and nearly a minute and a half from the slower runner's performance.

Add those kinds of improvements to the ones accruing solely from upgrades in V02max, economy, and lactate threshold, and you will truly be able to run your absolute-best races.

The process of strength training can be complicated, but we'll take all the guesswork out of resistance work in forthcoming issues of Peak Performance, showing you exactly what to do to become a more powerful endurance athlete.

Owen Anderson

strength training advice and routines

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