Lifting on top of year round sports

[ThePaperCutter]

I am a Junior in High School currently. 150lb, 5’9”, I run XC, Swim, and do distance track. I’m not sure if I’m lifting correctly so I have a few questions

During XC season it’s pretty good because it’s summer/fall but It’s hard to work lower body during the season because I don’t know whether to do high weights/low reps, medium/medium, or low/high. I want to keep my strength for swim and for looks but I also want to be able to do well at distance for both running and swim, so I generally just do medium weight medium reps. Also the heavier I am for distance running, the harder it will be for me.

For swim I generally want strength more so than endurance. I only swim 50, 100, and 200 for fly and free. So for swim season I generally only do medium weight with medium reps to achieve this. And then Track is the same as XC.

Is there a better way I should go about doing this? What kind of weight/reps should I use for each season?

[lucia316]

So you want to lift "for looks" which implies that you want to increase muscle mass which would mean you'd gain weight which is something you don't want to do because distance running will be harder for you.

Sounds like you don't really know what you want here. Do you want to look better by gaining some mass or do you want to be competitive in your sports. The sports you've chosen are not things where you have massive athletes. Further, it's going to be extra challenging to gain mass because you're burning so many calories. Mass gains are a function of caloric deficit to TDEE, which for you will likely be a large number, and a progressive weight training program with solid rest. Rep ranges don't really matter for hypertrophy. For more information read some of Brad Schoenfeld's more recent work.

If you're going to lift weights I'd do things that will benefit your sports. Weight and rep range may not be relevant. Talk with your coaches and follow their program.