The Importance of Strength Training

Season training, cross training, this training, that training—it can be hard to fit everything in during the week. But for endurance athletes, one of the most important things we can do is add a little strength training to our schedule. Our Team Amino Vital experts and personal trainers, Paula Smith and Nathan Jendrick, are here to tell you why:

• You’ll increase power output. To be fast, you need to have power behind that speed.
• You’ll have stronger bones.  Weight training isn’t only building new muscle, it’s also beefing up your bones, which becomes increasingly important as you age.
• It lowers stress levels.  Breaking a sweat has multiple ways of improving your overall mental health. Studies show it lowers levels of stress hormones in your body, improves feel-good hormones and helps keep your blood pressure in check.

But you also want to make sure you’re training safely:

• Warm-up slowly for however long as it takes. Lots of people think a warm-up set—as in one easy set—is enough. It’s not. Take as long as you need to warm-up properly until everything feels smooth throughout a motion.
• Form is always top priority. If you can’t do an exercise right, don’t do it at all. Don’t add any weight until you’re completely comfortable.
• If something feels awkward, stop. There is no exercise that is so superior to another that you just “have” to do it to get a good training session in, and there are plenty of movements that will work the same muscle group.

Tell us: How many times a week do you add in strength training sessions? What’s your preferred method?