Triathlon Over 40: A Coach's Guide to Training for the Long Haul

TL;DR: Triathlon over 40 is not a late start, it is the heart of the sport: the typical long-distance triathlete in the research is in their mid-thirties, and the 40 to 49 age groups are some of the most competitive on any start line. What changes after 40 is not your engine, it is your recovery and your joints. Swap one swim, bike or run session for two short strength sessions, build in a lighter week every third or fourth week, and look after your connective tissue every day.

You probably came to triathlon from somewhere else.

A running habit that grew. A mate who dragged you to a sprint race. A birthday with a zero on the end.

Now you are training eight, ten, twelve hours a week around work and family.

And something always seems to be niggling.

Is triathlon over 40 too late?

No. Look at any results sheet.

Age-group racing runs in five-year brackets, and the 40 to 44 and 45 to 49 brackets are often the deepest fields of the day.

Researchers tracking Ironman results, led by Romuald Lepers, found masters age groups have improved their times over the past few decades more than the younger groups have.

Your action: stop thinking of yourself as an older athlete. You are a typical one.

The general list for every sport is in supplements for masters athletes.

What actually changes after 40

Three things, and none of them is your heart and lungs.

• Recovery takes longer. The same hard session needs an extra day.
• Muscle mass declines slowly from the mid-thirties unless you train for it. Swimming, cycling and running do not do that job on their own.
• Joints and tendons carry the load. A 2022 systematic review of long-distance triathletes found overuse injuries were the most common type, with the knee and lower back the most frequent sites, and running and cycling the main sources.

Your action: list the last three things that stopped you training. I would bet none of them was fitness.

The three phases I use with every athlete

I have coached for almost 30 years. Every program follows the same order.

• Phase 1, a healthy person. Sleep, food, gut, and the niggles sorted. This is 90% of the work.
• Phase 2, a healthy athlete. Strength and movement: hinge, squat, push, pull, carry, single-leg work.
• Phase 3, a healthy triathlete. Only now does swim, bike and run volume go up.

Most triathletes over 40 live entirely in phase three. More kilometres, more hours, nothing underneath.

Your action: be honest about which phase you are actually in.

How to structure your training week over 40

• Two strength sessions of 30 to 40 minutes. The full program is in strength training for triathletes over 40.
• No more than two genuinely hard sessions across swim, bike and run.
• Everything else easy. Truly easy.
• A lighter week every third or fourth week.

Your action: find the hardest three sessions in your week and drop one of them to easy.

Recovery and daily habits

Your recovery between sessions, and after races, is where the 40-plus triathlete wins or loses the season. I have set out how long to back off after each race distance in triathlon recovery over 40.

Daily nutrition sits underneath it. Food first, then a short list added one at a time, which is covered in supplements for triathlon.

For joints, ours is a daily joint formula for endurance athletes. Complete Joint Care is a comprehensive blend of collagen peptides, minerals and traditionally used botanicals formulated to support joint mobility, flexibility and connective tissue health.

Your action: pick one daily habit to fix this month, not five.

If you are on medication, carrying an injury or have a medical condition, speak with your healthcare provider before starting any new supplement.

Grant Jenkins is an ESSA Accredited Exercise Physiologist and high-performance athletic development coach with almost 30 years of coaching behind him, including national academy and professional athletes. He is a co-founder of Propel Health Australia.

References

1. Rhind JH, Dass D, Barnett A, Carmont M. A Systematic Review of Long-Distance Triathlon Musculoskeletal Injuries. Journal of Human Kinetics. 2022;81:123-134. doi:10.2478/hukin-2022-0011
2. Lepers R, Knechtle B, Stapley PJ. Trends in triathlon performance: effects of sex and age. Sports Medicine. 2013;43(9):851-863.