Purplepatch Fitness

At purplepatch we place equal philosophical importance to nutrition, functional strength and integrated recovery as we do to the endurance training that directly correlates to your sport. Eating well, being consistent in specific strength and resting plenty will do little to make you a better athlete, but placing high value and attention to these will facilitate the maximal gains from your specific training. Sounds simple but so many fail to consider their training through this lens which often results in fatigue, injury or a lower return on their training efforts. This month we will explore the benefits and needs of functional strength.

The Strength Debate

Whenever the question of functional strength is discussed in conjunction with endurance sports it seems to evoke opinions as strong as political fundamentalism, with people devoutly defending their turf without the ability to even listen to the thoughts of others. I find that much of this is due to the fact that people think of different things when it comes to mixing strength and endurance sports. The word strength tends to create visions of heavy weight lifting and testosterone-filled men in a gym. Believers in strength training often tout injury prevention benefits and how it can improve both power and pace. Conversely the doubters of strength training claim the route to speed is by simply running, biking and swimming. They are both wrong. Massive loading of major muscle groups, as is done in classical strength training, is...