Video Transcription:
Good morning, my stamina studs and studettes. Matt Mosman here, co-founder of EndurElite, the premium maker of supplements for endurance athletes and supplement and endurance training experts. I'm gonna apologize in advance that this video is a little discombobulated today. I've been up since 2:30 this morning filling the last of our PerformElite orders over the Black Friday, Cyber Monday holiday, if you will, which, by the way, we appreciate everybody's support so far. The response to PerformElite has been outstanding, and we appreciate the trust you've placed in us to make only the best supplements out there for endurance athletes.
Now, we're not here to talk about that today. We're here to talk about why as an endurance athlete you should strength train. Now, there's a lot of reasons, honestly, but we'll just cover a few of them, and just remember there's a lot of pros out there doing it, so if it's good enough for them, it's probably good enough for you. Now, I'm betting about 80% of you watching this video, whether you're a cyclist, a runner, or an obstacle course racer, I'm willing to bet this carbon bike right here that you don't weight train or strength train for one of two reasons. One, you don't think it's gonna benefit your performance, and, two, you probably think it's gonna make you big, bulky, hefty, and flexible, and have you walking around saying things like, "Sick pump, bro," or, "Get you some gains." Those things couldn't be further from the truth. Strength training in the off season and even during the in season can give you a huge competitive advantage in your racing and training when you hit the in season again. A few of the reasons why strength training can help increase muscular endurance, muscle power, muscle strength, it can help injury prevention, it can help stability. There's even some evidence that suggests that strength training can prevent cramping. So all a ton of good benefits there.
Now, I won't go into the physiological mechanisms as to why that happens, but just the point is as an endurance athlete, and especially as you age, strength training will be a huge benefit for you when it comes to performance on the bike, the running, obstacle course racing, and any other endurance-related sports.
Now, the other question is, what's kind of the best program to follow? There's a ton of programs out there, but the one that appears to be the most effective and is probably totally against what you've heard your entire life is not to use low-weight, high reps, and short rest to improve endurance performance, but it's actually quite the opposite. As an endurance athlete, you wanna focus on heavier weights, lower sets, more resting sets, and, basically, this is gonna provide you a ton of strength, and it'll prevent you from packing on, you know, too much muscle even though that's probably not possible as endurance athletes, and this all accumulates in having an awesome strength-to-weight ratio. So if you're a 140-pound biker who's strong and has a good strength-to-weight ratio, then you're gonna blow away the guy that's 140 pounds who hasn't strength trained in his life, especially, you know, when massive amounts of power are required, like powering up a hill or even sprinting towards the finish line.
Now, back to the type of program you wanna follow, and, honestly, all it takes is two, maybe three days a week of strength training, 30 to 45 minutes at a pop to really get some good results. Lucky for you, if you go to the EndurElite website, I've put together a strength training program for runners, and then a close colleague of mine in Spearfish, Kellan Anderson, who is a certified strength and conditioning specialist, has put together a really awesome 12-week strength and conditioning program for cyclists. So check that out.
If you're new to strength training, I would highly recommend you hire a personal trainer just for him or her to show you how to perform the exercises correctly so you know you're doing it right, you're getting the most benefit out of the work you're doing, and, most importantly, you don't want to end up hurting yourself. In addition to the strength training programs on the site at endurelite.com, there's a ton of good information and content under the Learn section in regards to nutrition for endurance athletes, supplements for endurance athletes. We examine a lot of research coming out on training your supplementation and nutrition for endurance athletes. So I highly encourage you to check it out. Its content is free and always will be free. So that is about it for today, my endurance friends. Stay fueled, stay focused, stay fast. Until next time.
