A couple of months ago you I spoke to you about the reasons for including power in your training. This week I thought I would continue that thought with respect to endurance athletes… WHAT?! Yup, training power in endurance athletes is a strategy you can use to enhance your ability to run a marathon or complete that rather intimidating triathlon.

Starting with the basics, an endurance athlete must be capable of slowly and efficiently metabolizing energy stores such as glucose and proteins to maintain speed cadence throughout a race. Their body’s aerobic energy system will have been trained to withstand hours of constant output. Joints are strengthened to adapt to the constant impact received with each running stride. With that said, looks like we have a pretty well trained distance athlete. I will not argue with that, but my one question will be, how fast are you?

Having the ability to maintain speeds for hours on end is an accomplishment on its own but as an athlete, is that enough?

Long distance events are very much an individual sport. This means that intrinsic goals are most often set with regards to time. You find yourself in a constant chase of that personal best time, with every step fighting that inner demon telling you it can’t be done. Oh I can, and I will! How do you get faster? Most would say, run more. In my experience, training the body on slow repetitive movement can create amazing efficiency, but not develop the kind of speed required to blast though your PB.

Going back to my previous post, the nervous system has this amazing ability to generate lightning fast signals to your muscles allowing them to react/contract faster. In essence, training to increase the body’s power output within each stride can generate a faster cadence during a race. This applies to all endurance activities, running, swimming, cycling, rowing etc.

#S.O.A.R

Andrew LoCurto BKin, CSCS, CPT