Strengthen performance weaknesses before summer hits for a bombproof race season

What’s your weakness? Before heading into the spring build, spend time identifying your biggest weaknesses and start making improvements before you hit maximum volume in training.

Once your training load gets heavy and there is less room to dial in specific sessions that target weaknesses in the swim, bike and run it will be challenging to address these cracks in performance. Don’t let another a year go by missing out on the opportunity to fine tune areas that need improvement. These weaknesses will follow you into your high mileage training blocks and not only impede performance but also put you at greater risk for injury.

Swim smart not hard

For many athletes their limiters start in the pool. With few of us coming from a strong swim background and a discipline that rewards technical abilities, the swim is on the top of many athlete’s list of weaknesses. An inefficient stroke can never be overcome by sheer brute. The harder you push in the pool the more energy you will expend. But if your technique is lacking all that effort will only add up to fatigue, not speed.

It is wise to pause hard sessions in the pool until you’ve addressed technique challenges. The goal is not to transform your swim into a masterpiece. A few tweaks in body position can make a huge difference in speed and energy conservation, saving you time and effort on the bike.

Technique and speed guarantee gains

The best approach is to engage someone with expertise, either through in-person coaching sessions or video analysis. The time spent on practicing technique may be frustrating and most athlete’s will be driven to work harder not smarter. In this case, patience pays off more than effort. Have someone breakdown your stroke and give one to three drills to work on to improve your areas of weakness. Most errors come down to body position causing drag. If this is you, focus on keeping your head down and bum up.

Short speed intervals are another area of swim training often overlooked in favour of endurance. Fast sprinting will improve you anaerobic power and VO2max, making you a fitter, faster athlete all around.

Beef up your bike muscles

Do you notice that certain muscles fatigue more than others on the bike? This is a clear indication that your balance and pedalling technique are recruiting some muscles more than others. To stay strong for long you want to be leveraging all your muscles equally so that none tire prematurely from overwork.

It is common for athletes to notice their quads take the brunt of the action. This is a red flag that your pedal stroke is more focused on pushing rather than pulling. This means you aren’t getting all that you can out of your hamstrings. Include single leg pedal drills, and workouts that focus on a smooth stroke, over power metrics. Before the workouts become highly focused on output, work to balance out the use of all your major muscle groups.

A smooth pedal stroke will avoid a muscle bonk on the bike because one group has been doing the work of two or more. Spread that work out between the quads, hamstrings and hips so your power and energy can take you farther on the road.

Sprint to the finish

As with the swim, the anaerobic system is often neglected in favour of threshold, hills and long rides. The max power you develop doing anaerobic work will raise the ceiling for all your other power numbers. Include short bursts of energy, surges or sprints in your training toolbox to build max power now so you can apply that elevated ceiling to all the workouts that await you in the build up to your next race.

Not to be overlooked, your bike fit could be contributing to the imbalance of power in your pedal stroke and power transfer. As you trained and got stronger (and possibly more flexible) over winter, your ideal position on the bike may have changed. It is always prudent to get an updated bike fit before spring to ensure you are maximizing power, comfort and aerodynamics on the bike.

Anywhere from 20 to 60 seconds of all out sprinting will prime and strengthen this system and is an important component to raising your overall functional threshold power.

Relax to run faster

It can feel counterintuitive to purposefully relax on the run in order to go faster. Harder is faster, right? Not so. Similar to the swim, a relaxed form is smoother and more efficient. Instead of focusing on your pace during speed sessions, focus on cueing your body to relax. You will not only run faster and farther, you will use less energy. It will also feel nicer, and the run doesn’t always feel nice for the innate cyclists in triathlon.

Think smooth, not fast when running and swimming. On the bike the smooth not fast cue is great when doing pedal stroke drills. Consider it a secret weapon that also creates space for you to check in on how you are actually feeling while running by doing a body scan. Learn to become aware of body parts that naturally tighten up like shoulders or abdominals.

Fluid is fast on the run. Regularly cue yourself to relax and float through your speed sessions.

Bonus marks for strength and mobility

Often pushed aside like dirty socks in the corner of your room, strength and mobility work is hugely beneficial. The challenge with these auxiliary sessions is not that they are hard, it’s that they are difficult to fit in. When crunched for time we gravitate to the main session and what we enjoy most.

It’s forgivable, and you won’t sabotage your season if you don’t spend the recommended time and attention on strength and mobility but you will see gains if you do. The off season is the perfect time to get in the gym when volume is generally lower, allowing the body to manage this additional stress. Not only will you feel stronger in the swim, bike and run but you are less likely to get injured.

Just two days a week doing basic compound exercises like squats, lunges and deadlifts is a great start. Include single leg exercises as well to identify and strengthen the imbalances that show up in your pedal stroke and run gait.

A sneaky and smart way to incorporate mobility into your program is using it as part of a warm up and cool down for your main sessions. Even five to 10 minutes on either end of a workout can help with injury prevention and flexibility, which can help you stay more relaxed on the run and more aerodynamic on your bike.

Now is the time to address these limiters. Before long the snow will melt and you’ll be putting in the long, beautiful miles we love most.