Staying Warm, Building Strength

You can keep out of the cold and still train for the upcoming season

TriSTEPS : Liz Elliott

   Strength work done with good form helps support your joints, and helps your muscles perform better as a team. In less than two months there will be plenty of swimming, biking and running. Use these cold months to get in lots of strength work.  

   Make sure you are not hurting your joints in the process. The purpose of strength workouts is to strengthen the muscles above and below and/or surrounding the joints, so that: 

   1.  You’ll be stronger, and… 

   2.  There will be less stress on your joints when you add more load. 

   If you are doing a strength move and feel tension or pain, in your joint, then you are probably going too far with the move. Small movements are just fine. If you are doing a move and are shaking, that muscle is probably weak. 

   You will probably experience one side being weaker than the other as well. For example, walking lunges: Make sure your knee never goes more than 90 degrees (which means you may need to step out further), and concentrate on your weight coming down instead of forward. And you do not need to touch your back knee to the ground. In fact, that is not really helping. Do them in the mirror to see what you are actually doing. 

   Attend an aerobic strength circuit class to learn how to perform simple strength moves correctly to incorporate into your workouts. 

Liz Elliott was an All-American collegiate swimmer and is the head coach at Tri-Valley Triathlon Club.  

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