With all due respect to Mike, who I do greatly respect and agree with on most issues, I feel I have to comment on the video. While I don’t have the experience or information in hand to know whether or not strength training is beneficial to the endurance athlete (I suspect it is), this video does not have a single element of true strength training in it. Ironically, the narrator describes the old school thinking as being light weights for high reps, something he correctly believes will quickly fail to provide enough stimulus to develop strength. However, the only things displayed in the video were core and stability work. The squats were (assuming the listed body weight of 138 is correct) about 60% of body weight, and the cleans, if that’s what they were, were so light they involved absolutely no leg drive whatsoever. So, for the topic of strength training for endurance athletes, two thumbs up and five stars. For the video illustrating proper examples of strength training, not so much. Perhaps we could discuss how true strength training, if that’s what we’re talking about, benefits the endurance athlete and then maybe kick around how strength training for the endurance athlete might be similar or dissimilar to strength training for the sprinter, and strength training in general.
I am confused strength training comes in many forms. Dan Pfaff talked about how the best athletes he could remember from his youth and then as a coach were athletes with great general strength. Not all athletes need to be power lifting all year long considering the time of year they could be in gpp. It’s strength training just not maximal strength training.
"Nature hides her secret because of her essential loftiness, but not by means of ruse." -Albert Einstein