How do you define “fitness”? Until recently, I hadn’t thought about it that much. I mean, you do a triathlon, or an Ironman – fairly decent athletic achievements – and figure your fitness is pretty good. That is, until you stretch the bounds of your workouts. Let me explain…

It’s easy to continue swimming, cycling and running. As triathletes that’s what we’re good at!

Lets translate that to what I like to think of as “real world fitness”. If you found yourself out in the wilderness (a la Man vs Wild), how long would you last? With a purely swim/bike/run background, I have a feeling it would be ok for a little while but sooner or later a situation would arise that could be a bit too much to handle. How do you think you would go?

Being a weakness of mine, strength and general gym work has been something I’ve dabbled with but never really worked hard at. Hence, the weakness! Inspired by the contestants on the Australian series of The Biggest Loser (yes, regardless of your athletic accomplishments, everyone can learn something from this show!) and in particular, Commando Steve, I’ve stumbled upon the CrossFit training methodology. On the CrossFit Journal (a brilliant resource) site they ask “What Is Fitness?” (Check out the PDF link on that page).

So what has this got to do with triathlon? Well, from a personal perspective I figure that I’ve gotten some pretty good results so far considering my weakness in some general areas of fitness. To give you an idea, I’ve got to bust my gut just to knock out 20 push ups! So aside from some offroad duathlon and marathon action, over the next few months the focus of my training is on building all round fitness – a fitness that will hold its own not just in the pool or on the road, but also in the “real world”.

I’m hoping this approach to training will pay dividends when it comes time to get specific for Ironman next time around.

Maybe you’re looking for that edge too – lets see how a more rounded approach can be applied to triathlon. Of course, specificity has its place, but all round fitness has got to be a great platform to work from.

Train hard, and smart.