Ironman!

[Ramcononer]

A friend of mine is training for the IRONMAN competition..its the one where you swim x amount of miles. bike like a hundred miles and run like 26miles all in one shot...how should he be weight training..he obvioulsy is doin all three listed above for stamina and cardio but he is confused about the weights and how he should approach it..thanks

 

[Protobuilder]

I doubt weight training for size/strength will do much for him. I'm guessing, as I've never done Ironman type stuff. But I don't see the value of size, especially.

For general strength and conditioning, I think I'd point him toward www.crossfit.com and bodyweight conditioning stuff like circuit training, etc.

 

[BiggT]

It depends on the time of year. I have some friends who compete in both half-iron and iron man distance tris. For them, most of the weight training that is heavier is done off-season, and all functional stuff (squats, pull, presses, like any athlete should focus on).....their take is that you train your swim/bike/run for endurance and you're in the weightroom to get strong, so they don't do 'endurance' workouts of curcuits and supersets for sets of 25 or something like that.....they train to be strong in the weightroom.

I talked to a couple of them the other night and they are in the middle of the season right now and doing absolutely no weightlifting.....If your friend has a year to plan, he may want to think about a weight training phase to get stronger, but if it is more of a pre-season thing to train for the actual race, then he'd be better off gaining endurance to do the race.

 

[fortunatesun]

This may have a few answers: Peak Performance

 

[big4life]

I doubt weight training for size/strength will do much for him. I'm guessing, as I've never done Ironman type stuff. But I don't see the value of size, especially.

For general strength and conditioning, I think I'd point him toward www.crossfit.com and bodyweight conditioning stuff like circuit training, etc.

I don't know much about ironman training, but I just wanted to say I like that link. It's pretty informative.