Our strength plans boost power, flexibility, coordination, agility, strength, and stability, providing a strong foundation to support your training. This will enhance your efficiency and ultimately elevate your performance.

Adding Strength and Conditioning to Your Training

Incorporating strength and conditioning into your training regimen reduces the risk of injury by improving strength and stability and addressing imbalances caused by repetitive overuse. These plans support your endurance training, enhancing efficiency and boosting performance.

Plan Options & Structure

The strength plans are available in 8, 12, 16, 20, or 24 weeks, with Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced levels. Each plan includes two 20-minute weekly sessions focused on essential movements for endurance athletes.

Bonus Material:
The first week of your plan includes 10 stretches for endurance athletes and 10 dynamic warm-up movements. Add these to your routine to minimize injury risk and maximize the effectiveness of your race-plan sessions.

Key Components

• Squats: Build foundational strength and stability.
• Lunges: Improve balance and lower body power.
• Stepping: Boost agility and coordination.
• Hinge: Strengthen the posterior chain.
• Pull: Strengthen your back and improve posture.
• Calf: Enhance lower leg power and endurance.
• Push: Increase upper body strength and muscular endurance.

Required Equipment

To get the most out of your strength plan, you will need the following equipment:

• Dumbbells (Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced)
• Bands (Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced)
• Box or Step (Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced)
• TRX Suspension Trainer (Advanced)

Progress Through Levels

• Beginner: Build a strong foundation and perfect form.
• Intermediate: Increase intensity and complexity of movements.
• Advanced: Push your limits and achieve peak performance.

Getting Started

Apply the strength plan to start on the same day as your race plan (if you're an Unlimited Athlete, we will do this for you). If your race plan is longer than your strength plan, you can either repeat the plan with increased resistance or move up to the next level.

Ensure you feel fresh and ready to perform your key endurance sessions effectively.

Resistance (Weight) Guidelines

1. For weighted or banded exercises, select a resistance that is challenging but manageable. If you're new to the movement, start with body weight.
2. Finish each set feeling like you could complete three more reps—this helps minimize soreness and maintain freshness for endurance training.
3. For bodyweight exercises, add resistance when possible to continue progressing.
4. Aim to increase resistance by about 10% per session. If that's not feasible, increase repetitions instead.
5. When a rep increase is planned, maintain the same resistance as the previous week.

Entering Your Resistance in TrainingPeaks

The default resistance is set to kg. To enter your resistance in lbs, you can either:

1. Change the unit to lbs manually on your PC for each workout and exercise.
2. Or, enter your resistance in lbs under the kg field and ignore the label.

When repeating an exercise, click "History" in the app to see the resistance used in previous sessions.

Rest Intervals

When following the MyProCoach strength plans alongside endurance training, be mindful of your resistance to avoid soreness and ensure optimal performance for your next event-specific workout.

• Rest up to 30 seconds between reps for single-joint exercises (e.g., calf raises).
• Rest up to 2 minutes for multi-joint exercises (e.g., squats, lunges).

If time is tight, alternate between exercises to reduce rest periods. For example, alternate squats and pull movements (squat, pull, squat, pull).

Recording Strength Sessions in TrainingPeaks

Unlike swim, bike, and run workouts, strength workouts do not sync directly with TrainingPeaks. To track approximate TSS:

• Record your strength session on your device for the duration of the session.
• Alternatively, estimate TSS using the table below and manually enter the values in TrainingPeaks.

Stretches

Ten suggested stretches accompany the strength sessions. After your strength and discipline-specific training, include 2-3 stretches that meet your specific needs; the ones outlined in the plan are just guides. You may have some favourite stretches that work well for you.