- Why in that strength routine do we recommend
hex bar deadlifts?
Other people did science, not me.
(intense music)
Hey what's up triathletes?
We are about to get down, dirty, busy and
we're gonna lift some heavy weight with the hex bar
this morning.
If you've been around for about six weeks,
you know that we created an off-season
strength training routine that you can download
at triathlontaren.com/strengthroutine.
You don't need to go there just yet.
We'll list that at the end of the video as well,
but there are a lotta questions about why
some of those movements are the way that they are,
and we're gonna talk about all of the thought process
and the science that went in to developing that routine.
Other people did science, not me.
So you can actually predict the finishing time
of a 40-yard dash down to about 99.7% accuracy
if you know an athlete's strength-to-weight ratio.
If you're more powerful at the same weight,
every single leg stride is gonna be able to push you
further, and if your body is more used to pushing
really big heavy weights,
it's gonna be used to recruiting a ton more muscle fibers
that you don't use under light loads
like every single running stride.
And because you have access to more muscle groups,
you're going to be able to last longer,
stay more upright, continue to push
longer into the race.
You're gonna be able to reduce injury, train more,
all good things.
Okay now why in that strength routine do we recommend
hex bar deadlifts,
hex bar specifically deadlifts?
Well there's a few reasons.
The first one is that the hex bar,
it places the load on the sides of your body
a lot more than a deadlift bar,
just a standard Olympic lifting bar
that's out in front of you which places a lot of the load
on the lower back, which isn't safe for a lot of runners
specifically who are compressing their lower back,
and triathletes who are often office workers
who have unstable glute muscles and a weak lower back.
Now secondly, probably more important than the first reason,
is that the hex bar deadlift allows you to really easily
and safely drop the weight after you lift it
off the ground,
and this is critical to building
a good strength-to-weight ratio.
The concentric movement, that's the up, the push,
that's what builds neuromuscular power,
builds that chain of getting your body firing
at a specific motion pattern.
The eccentric of a movement,
the lowering of a weight,
is what causes the muscle tearing,
and that muscle tearing is what causes the muscles
to rebuild.
So they tear, they take a bunch of protein
and amino acids, they rebuild to fill all of those
little micro tears so you end up building muscle,
which isn't what we want as endurance athletes.
So we wanna be able to do a movement where we can just
lift the weight and not have to let it back down.
So that's why we aren't doing things like squats
or leg presses or leg extensions because it forces you
to have to do both,
in which case as powerful as you're becoming,
you might also becoming a little bit heavier,
ruining your strength-to-weight ratio.
The last thing that we've been getting asked a lot is
do you change the routine?
Well no, the routine that we've got is basically
the same routine throughout the entire three month period.
And the reason that we don't change it
and add in things like squats, leg extensions,
leg presses, similar big heavy movements,
and we just stick to this hex bar deadlift
is because A, we're changing up the routine by
changing the reps, changing the rest, changing the weight.
We're progressing through it so we are giving our body
new stimuli to adapt to,
so we are constantly making progression throughout
that three month routine.
And then the second reason that we're not changing
is that the hex bar deadlift itself is the number one
most best awesomest bang for your buck as far as time
that you put in to doing hex bar deadlifts
is the most beneficial as far as the result that you get
in speed afterwards.
So if it's the best, why change?
So it's not too late to start
an off-season strength routine.
It's only about three months long is the program
that we've built.
You can go and get it at triathlontaren.com/strengthroutine.
And if you start it now,
you're still going to finish it a fair ways away
from race season, and the next video what I'm gonna talk
about in relation to this program is why we pair
this heavy deadlift with something that is completely
light, just body weight exercise, plyometrics
to create maximum amount of power in minimal amount of time.
And it's gonna help you immensely on cycling and running.
So if you aren't yet subscribed, make sure you do so
so you don't miss that video.
And if you are subscribed,
let's hit me up in the comments below
with a yes or no.
Do you do strength training at all
now that you're into triathlons?
I'm interested in hearing about it because
I was heavy into strength training as a young lad,
and then I got into triathlon, went totally away from it.
Now I am so far into it during the off-season, it's crazy.
Crazy and I wanna know where you're at.
Later trainiacs, let's do this.