Triathlon and fitness

Triathletes tend to be spartanly fit, and many amateur athletes choose triathlon specifically for its fitness benefits. Because all three events are endurance sports, nearly all of triathlon training is cardiovascular exercise. In addition, since triathletes must train for three different disciplines, they tend to have more balanced whole-body muscular development than pure cyclists or runners, whose training emphasizes only a subset of their musculature.
Each element of the triathlon is slightly different from those sports if encountered alone. While amateur triathletes who also compete in individual swimming, cycling or running races generally apply the same techniques and philosophy to triathlon, seasoned triathletes and professionals have specialized techniques for each discipline that improve their race as a whole.
Athletes that participate in endurance events spend many hours training for those events and this is true for triathlon as well. Injuries that are incurred from long hours of a single activity are not as common in triathlon as they are in single sport events. The cross training effect that athletes achieve from training for one sport by doing a second activity applies in triathlon training. Additional activities that triathletes perform for a cross training effect are yoga, Pilates and weight training.