MSMRL 15: Strength Training for Endurance Athletes - You're Doing It Wrong (w/Erin Carson, CSCS)

There are few areas in endurance sport that generate as much confusion - and as much misinformation - as strength training.

Scroll through X for five minutes and you’ll see everything from banded “run-specific” exercises to maximal lifting protocols, to hybrid systems promising that you can be both a powerlifter and an Ironman champion at the same time.

Most of it misses the point.

So in this episode of MAD Science Meets Real Life, we sat down with one of the best in the business - someone who has quietly worked behind the scenes with Olympic medalists, Ironman champions, and some of the most durable endurance athletes in the world - to strip things back to first principles.

And what emerged was refreshingly simple…

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You Can’t Shoot a Cannon from a Canoe

One of the lines that stuck with me from my early days in strength and conditioning was:

“You can’t shoot a cannon from a canoe.”

It’s a crude metaphor—but an accurate one.

As endurance coaches and athletes, we spend the vast majority of our time trying to build a bigger engine:

• More VO₂max

• More threshold

• More watts per kilo

• More volume

But at the same time, we often neglect the structure that has to carry that engine.

And when that structure isn’t prepared?

The system breaks down.

Not always immediately. But inevitably.

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The Biggest Mistake: Strength That Looks Like the Sport

One of the clearest takeaways from this conversation is that most “strength training” for endurance athletes is misguided from the start.

Instead of complementing the sport…

…it copies the sport.

Exercises that mimic pedaling.
Movements that look like running.
Endless band work reinforcing the exact same patterns already being trained for hours each week.

But as Erin put it:

The goal is not to “do more of the same”—it’s to build a supporting system around what you already do.

Or more bluntly:

Don’t exhaust the tissue that’s already exhausted.

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The Real Goal: Restore → Then Strengthen

Endurance training is inherently repetitive.

And repetition, over time, creates predictable patterns:

• Tight hips

• Locked thoracic spine

• Forward head posture

• Anterior pelvic tilt

None of these are “bad” in isolation - they’re often part of being an efficient athlete.

But when you get stuck in them, they begin to limit performance.

So the job of strength training isn’t just to add load.

It’s to:

1. Restore balance

2. Return the body to neutral

3. Then strengthen that position

That order matters.

Because strengthening dysfunction just reinforces it.

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Why This Matters for Performance (Not Just Injury)

A lot of athletes mentally file strength work under:

“Stuff I’ll do when I get injured.”

But that misses the bigger picture.

Movement quality is performance.

You can see it clearly in the lab:

• Two athletes with the same VO₂max

• Same aerobic engine

…but vastly different speeds.

Why?

Because one can express that engine efficiently - and the other can’t.

Tightness, poor sequencing, and compensation patterns all come at a cost.

And that cost compounds over time.

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The Hidden Edge: Recovery, Not Just Strength

One of the more interesting threads in this conversation was the role of strength work as a recovery tool.

Endurance athletes live in a predominantly catabolic state:

• Breaking down tissue

• Burning through energy

• Accumulating fatigue

But well-executed strength work—especially when combined with breath work—can shift the system back toward anabolic recovery.

Even more importantly, it can help athletes transition faster from:

• Sympathetic (“fight or flight”)
  → Parasympathetic (“rest and digest”)

And that might be one of the biggest untapped performance levers in endurance sport.

Not just how hard you can train…

…but how quickly you can recover from it.

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The Trap of “More”

There’s a natural temptation—especially among driven athletes—to take a good idea and push it too far.

If some strength is good… more must be better.

But as we discussed in the episode:

If strength alone determined performance, the strongest athlete would win every race.

They don’t.

At a certain point:

• More strength adds fatigue

• More muscle adds cost

• More load adds risk

And the returns diminish quickly.

The goal isn’t maximal strength.

It’s sufficient strength—applied in the right way, at the right time.

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Thinking Beyond Performance

As we wrapped the conversation, things naturally drifted toward a broader question:

What is all of this actually for?

Because performance is only one phase of the journey.

And if the way we train doesn’t support:

• Long-term movement

• Posture

• Independence

• Health

…then we’re missing something important.

Endurance sport has a way of pulling us forward—literally and figuratively.

Without intentional work to counterbalance that, the long-term trajectory isn’t great.

So part of this conversation is about racing faster.

But part of it is about something bigger:

Building a body that lasts.

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Listen to the Full Episode

This was one of those conversations that cuts through the noise and brings things back to what actually matters.

If you’re an endurance athlete trying to make sense of strength training—or a coach trying to apply it more effectively - we think you’ll get a lot from this one.

For a deeper dive, please check out, this one from me…

This one from Inaki…

Build a Body That’s Hard to Kill = Lifelong Strength + Endurance

And a plethora of resources for the endurance athlete ready to get serious about their strength and mobility work can be found on Erin’s website…

https://www.ecfitstrength.com/