Strength Training for Triathletes: The Complete Program to Build Triathlon Power, Speed, and Muscular Endurance

Stronger muscles last longer. Stronger triathletes bring more power, speed, lean mass, and muscular endurance to race day.

Strength Training for Triathletes is a comprehensive strength training program for triathletes to build power, speed, and muscular endurance for faster racing over any race distance. While time is a precious commodity for every triathlete, every bit of time spent strength training pays off so you can become a stronger, faster, and more resilient athlete.

Certified USA Triathlon coach and NSCA Personal Trainer of the Year Patrick Hagerman’s focused, triathlon-specific strength training program enables triathletes to push harder during training and on the racecourse. Triathletes who master this progressive strength training program will also become more resistant to injury, meaning fewer missed workouts. The sport-specic exercises make it easy to target your training for improved performance in any or all of the three events. In as little as 90 minutes a week:

• Improve endurance, build muscle, or increase strength and power
• Focus your training on one event, or build an all-around program
• Target imbalances with exercises for specific muscle groups
• Create workouts for home and travel using minimal equipment
• Find the perfect mix of core, upper-body, and lower-body exercises for total body strength
• Build more powerful, longer-lasting muscles that resist fatigue and injury
• Develop body composition with stronger, leaner muscle mass
• Perform better without added bulk.

Hagerman will help you design a personalized strength training program that does exactly what you need it to do—whether that be improving your speed, addressing a muscular imbalance, or overcoming a weak area. Strength Training for Triathletes features 75 of the most effective strength training exercises for triathlon swimming, cycling, and running as well as core strength and general conditioning. Every exercise is clearly explained and fully illustrated, taking the guesswork out of good technique, and exercises are grouped so athletes can focus on their own individual performance limiters. In addition, Hagerman clearly explains the science underlying strength training, offering easy-to-follow guidelines on resistance and reps that will make triathletes stronger through every phase of the season.

New in this second edition are sample strength training programs for the most popular triathlon race distances and for each of triathlon’s three sports, photographs showing detailed body positions for each exercise, several new exercises, new indexes that specify body-weight exercises and weighted exercises to improve usability, and an exercise log template to track your goal weights.

Strength training often separates the top performers in triathlon from the middle of the pack. Even small improvements in muscle strength can add up to big race results. Strength Training for Triathletes is the ultimate guide to take your training and your race to the next level.

Dr. Patrick Hagerman, EdD, FNSCA, CSCS, NSCACPT, has established himself as an authority on the topic of strength training through his experience as a professor of exercise and sports science, a coach, and a personal trainer. Starting as a collegiate strength and conditioning coach, Hagerman went on to coach for USA Weightlifting and USA Triathlon and to serve on the USA Triathlon Coaching Commission.

Hagerman is a fellow of the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), a past member of its board of directors, and a recipient of the 2002 NSCA Personal Trainer of the Year award.

Hagerman has written six other books on fitness and strength training, contributed to numerous textbooks, and published more than 30 articles on strength and conditioning. For over 25 years he has competed in triathlon, cycling, windsurfing, and adventure racing.