First, I am not a tri-athlete, but have trained with bike, swimming and running for over a decade. Here are some ideas to use if you are dabbling in a variety of training methods. In fact, I used workouts similar to triathlon training to prepare for SEAL training many years ago. Changing a football playing, powerlifting body into an endurance athlete took many hours of training and the cross training or bike, run, swim was very beneficial to increasing endurance and preventing injuries.
IF you WANT REAL Triathlon training - go to www.davidglover.net - he is a friend of mine who actually WINS races and can help you get to that level. In fact, he wrote a book about completing an Iron-Man Triathlon while working full time. See link below:
Below is a sample triathlon workout, I made for myself a few years ago when working out with some Naval Academy Tri-athletes. If you are considering a triathlon one day, you can use this type of training plan and adjust the distances as needed. With your goals a steady increase in intensity training is recommended with little 2-3 week tapers prior to every race.
For the first month, I recommend the following schedule;
Swim 3x per week: Two - distance swim of freestyle 2000m (500m hypoxic thrown in)
One - interval swimming with timed paces and increasing speeds (see below)
300m choice warmup
4 x 50s one easy, one pace on 1:15
1 x 300m at 65% on 6:15
2 x 200m at 70% on 4:30
3 x 100m at 75% on 2:15
4 x 100m at 80% on 2:15
1 x 200 Pull breathe 3,5 by 50s
3 x 100 take 4 breaths first 50, 5 the second 50. Long smooth strokes.
100 cooldown
total yards = 2400
Run 3x per week: Two short runs of 6 miles / one long run of 10 miles (Saturday) after 20 mile bike
(triathlon slang BRICK = Bike + Run + ICK (because they are hard and should be done at great intensity and timed…)
You want to do the BRICKs in Bike – Run order to get accustomed to the Bike - Run transition…
Work on speed from Bike to Run as well…
Bike 3x per week: 2 SPIN classes (if available) and / 1-3 long bike ride 20 miles (Saturday)
Weights – 3x per week
Weights are swimming and bike specific. No leg PT is needed (YET) due to the SPIN classes and bike build up….Concentrating on arm strength for swimming and lower back strength for long bike rides, the workouts should go in the following order for the first month:
Lat Pulldowns OR PULLUPS 3 x 15
Rowing machine: 3 x 15
Tricep Extensions: 2 x 15
Tricep pushdowns: 2 x 15
Bicep curls 3 x 15
Reverse Flies 3 x 15
Roman chair lower back extensions 2 x 15
Neck exercises (up,down,left,right) 2 x 15 (do after abs)
LW shoulder workout:
PT:
Wide, Regular and Tricep pushups 20,20,20
Abs of choice 250
Lowerback exercises
Pullups - pyramid set of pull-ups 1-10-1
Enjoy -- Good luck. Keep the sending the emails. I am getting to them one at a time at stew@stewsmith.com .