Interviews

Rachel Cosgrove: Strength and endurance, part II

Click here to read part I of Rachel Cosgrove’s profile.

Question: It seems that the nutrition approach for power lifting and endurance sports would also be contrary to one another. How do you reconcile those different eating regimens?

Cosgrove: Actually, they’re not really that different. For both sports you need to fuel your body with healthy foods throughout the day. I would also recommend a post workout shake for both. Triathlon is much more dependent on your nutrition during the race while powerlifting does not even tap in to your blood sugar. I try to eat healthy 90 percent of the time and when I am cycling or running I may use a sports drink or Gu’s during my workout and then finish with a recovery shake. When I am doing a deadlift workout I will have a shake when I finish my workout. The nutrition principles are not too different at all. For powerlifting you want to be the lightest you can be and still be the strongest you can be and guess what? For triathlon, you also want to be the lightest you can be and still be the strongest you can be. So, both sports benefit from keeping your body fat at a lower level while your strength is up. You don’t have to be “big and bulky” to be a powerlifter.

Question: Since The Outdoor Journey mostly covers short course events (lasting less than four hours), we typically look for ways to increase speed during these races. Some say that speed work has little relevance and power development through weight training has even less relevance to improving one’s times. The rationale is that to get faster on the swim, bike or run, you must do more swimming, biking, and running. How do you respond to that?

Cosgrove: Why are men faster than women? It never fails at every race, the men come in before the women. What one thing do they have more of? They have more strength, more muscle and more power. If the only difference is strength than adding strength does help increase speed. If every step you took your muscles were able to produce more power because you have been training them to in the gym doing squats or lunges, you would be faster. Now, I am not talking about bodybuilding strength training. I am talking about functional programs that will transfer directly over to running, biking, and swimming.

Also when you think about it, running or biking is doing a resistance training exercise over and over again. Running is a one leg plyometric jump. On your bike you are pushing and pulling over and over again. How can you say that you can’t come up with an exercise that would benefit those movements and get you stronger at those movements when they are such simple movements done in the gym? I am not saying you can or should try to replicate running or biking in the gym but the action can be improved by increased strength in these simple movements. You still need to run, bike and swim.

Question: Some enlightened coaches who do advocate weight training espouse light weights and high reps, while a rare few espouse the benefits of the heavy, explosive-style movements found in Olympic lifting. Where does your coaching philosophy fall?

Cosgrove: There is a place for all types of training depending on where the athlete is weak and what they need to work on but for endurance athletes who are generally already good at higher rep endurance work and need to work on more power I would tend to use lower rep, heavy explosive movements and leave the higher reps for their endurance training. You can’t replicate running, biking or swimming in the gym so that is not the goal. Endurance athletes still need to go out and do their endurance training. The goal in the gym is to get strong, explosive, and powerful.

Question: Let’s back up six weeks from one of your races. What is the frequency of your weight training leading up to a race?

Cosgrove:Right now I am about two weeks out from the Olympic distance world championships and I am lifting weights twice a week. I will lift twice a week right up to the event.

Question: What are some of the biggest mistakes you see newbie triathletes make?

Cosgrove: Not having a plan and doing too much. Most endurance athletes think doing more is better so they keep adding on more and more volume and never sit down and plan out how they will peak for their race. Most of them could use more recovery and more of a plan.

Question: If a short-course athlete could do one thing to improve his or her race-day performance, what would you suggest for the swim, bike and run?

Cosgrove: This is tough to generalize. Every athlete is different. Most endurance athletes could definitely benefit from adding in strength training to increase their power. You can also use strength training to increase lactate threshold and build up a tolerance to lactic acid. This would help them to surge when they need to surge ahead which is extremely important in a sprint distance race since most of the race is spent at their lactate threshold.

Question: I noticed that you promote your services specifically to women. Do you work with male triathletes?

Cosgrove: Yes, I do work with males as well and have had a few male clients. Also when I coach for Team in Training, it is coed. Either way, I love helping a client accomplish their goal whether it be to complete their first triathlon or qualify for Kona. Tell me your goal and I’ll do everything I can to get you there. As a coach there is nothing better than seeing your athlete cross the finish line for the first time or qualify for Kona or win their age group. Whether they are male or female, seeing them accomplish more than they ever thought possible is why I do what I do and love what I do!

Your can learn more about Rachel Cosgrove at www.rachelcosgrove.com and also at www.inspirefemalefitness.com.She has just released a new book “So You Want To Train For a Triathlon” which is available in her online store. I’ll be sharing my review of the book this Friday.

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