I have searched the Internet far and wide and I cannot find anyone who is both a triathlete and a powerlifter (besides myself). I have always had serious issues with the people in both sports:
First, triathletes are usually pretty wimpy. They have long, stringy muscles with no strength or power. They are optimized for endurance. I would guess that few triathletes can even bench press much more than their bodyweight. Certainly there are very, very few, if any, who can do 1.5x or double bodyweight. Forget about them doing deadlifts or squats. The triathlete is a great example of an athlete with great endurance but little strength.
Powerlifters, on the other hand, have great strength but pathetic endurance. Powerlifting is all about training for a single repetition. Months and years of training boiled down to one shot. So they train for that single rep. If you read up on powerlifting workouts, they rarely go above 6 repetitions in any set for any exercise. Powerlifting is also one of the few sports which allows for the overweight, even obese, athlete. A lot of powerlifters are seriously fat and have limited flexibility. Here is where you find guys who have trouble running a mile, much less a 5K or 10K. Powerlifting is practically the polar opposite of triathlon.
The problem with these sports is a lack of balance. The martial arts are a good example of balance. There you see some people who have fantastic flexibility and endurance and yet have very reasonable levels of strength and power, power being the application of strength coupled with speed. The decathlete is another example of balanced athletic performance. A decathlete must be able to sprint, run long distances, jump high, and throw heavy objects. Decathlon is probably the most balanced sport in the Olympic games.
But even the decathlon is not a measure of true strength and its measure of endurance is limited to running. There have been other attempts to create a sport which balances these traits. The Strongest Man competition takes the strength and applies it to real world tasks such as carrying, throwing, pulling, and pushing. Olympic weightlifting is strength and power combined. The best Olympic weightlifters also have excellent flexibility and amazing plyometric ability. It's not uncommon to find a 6' tall Olympic weightlifter who can dunk a basketball. But even they lack something, in this case endurance. You won't find Olympic weightlifters out running a 10K.
I propose a new sport where strength and endurance are combined, a combination of powerlifting and triathlon, or of powerlifting, triathlon, and Olympic weightlifting. The challenge with this type of sport is that these events cannot be held on the same day. Both triathlon and powerlifting events take a day by themselves. However, both are pretty accessible to any individual. There are many opportunities to compete each year. Olympic weightlifting is a little less accessible and the competitions are pretty formal (Junior Olympics, collegiate competitions, etc.). Probably the best sport would be a combination of triathlon and powerlifting.
Now I'm not about to run out and start a brand new sport and attempt to host a multi-day competition. There are plenty of other places to do these things. However, I am considering starting a rankings website. Here is how it would work. You go out and run a triathlon. Almost all triathlons post their results online. You go to the rankings website and post your times and your age (which would be verified on the comp website). Then you go to a powerlifting competition. After the meet, post your final lifts on the rankings website as well as your weight on that day (all of this is verified also). The rankings website would then use a scoring formula to compute the rank for a given weight class and age group. These two sports work well together because each sport has three events. Triathlon has swimming, biking, and running. Powerlifting has squat, bench press, and deadlift. Each sport uses a similar age group categorization.
The only rules on competition would be that you have be drug free (no steroids, etc.) and you must do both the triathlon and the powerlifting meet within 90 days of each other. This is a great spring, summer, or fall sport. Train all winter for the powerlifting part with moderate training for triathlon. Then after the powerlifting meet, switch your training around to focus more on the triathlon events. There will be a natural balance that emerges. The 90-day training period pretty closely matches up with the 12-week triathlon training programs that are out there on the Internet.
So, what do you think? I'm going to open this up for comments now. If I get enough comments in the next two months, I'll put the rankings site up in time for summer and we'll see what happens! If you come up with a name for this thing, post it!
