It’s a study on mice, but it showed some evidence of faster gains when “re-training”.
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I have no idea, what I hear and I’m sure others have heard from specific strength athletes. They hate cardio and rarely do it. If they do it’s easy runs or rides 1 maybe 2x a week and one might be some tabata type intervals. I definitely think to be ripped an endurance athlete you need some TRT. Plus solid nutrition plan and most likely not eating enough.
It’s not like they do drug tests at amateur races, BWR they aren’t asking me for a piss test when I sign up.
Those who love cardio often feel same about strength work.
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But I love how I look doing strength and hate my endurance look but I love becoming the head of a snake made up of cyclists and hearing the tail huffing and puffing trying to keep up with the head even more (for now). I think I will soon peak cycling performance wise and then I can cut back significantly and pick up lifting again…
I like how I feel overall with strength training. I feel great during base but also love how I feel when my cycling fitness is “peaking”. If I didn’t love riding so much I’d be in the gym 3-5x a week but I’ve always loved riding any bike.
Base 2-3x lifting
Build and “peak” 1x and focus on mobility/ yoga/. Stretching.
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At some point you will need to never stop picking up heavy things…
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I know. I’m still doing “maintenance” but just 2x/wk 1 set. It’s probably a little less than maintenance but hopefully I will regain the little lost muscle in 3-4 months maybe even less
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100%. Show me the cyclist who isn’t skimping in the weight room. Honestly a lot of this TRT talk sounds like premature defeatism from people who don’t want to believe that they could look a certain way if they put in the work. Post the lifting programs of cyclists who aren’t putting on a ton of muscle (but feel like they should be) and we can start from there. No reason to jump to speculation about gear.
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This is the conundrum. I don’t have time for both. I enjoy the cycling work more. I enjoy the lifting bod more. Usually I end up waffling back and forth and never reaching peak on either.
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Running slow and being jacked is not hard. People’s perception of jacked and fast are wildly different. I bet most nfl players can easily run 8-9min/mile pace for much over an hour (that aren’t lineman)
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+1.
Looking good, feeling good, general health is entirely different than being an elite (endurance) cyclist at the highest level. It really is Apples and Oranges.
While at my age I am solidly in the the, “over-all health is best” category, specificity reigns supreme at the pointy end.
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Part of the problem is even believing one could look super jacked like these influencers or movie actors by just “putting in the work”.
Just look at early Arnold and late Arnold. Early Arnold probably worked out more than any amateur on this board would ever work out but he wasn’t shreded/jacked like later Arnold. What did later Arnold do? Lots of anabolic steroids.
I did mention TRT but I should have also mentioned “what you water grows”.
It’s hard to do both with a full time 60 hour a week job. So most of us have to choose what we want to grow, most of us on here (cycling forum) want to get results at cycling events. Meaning to me, I can only lift 1-2x a week and the rest of my free time is spent cycling 10-12 hours a week.
On the other hand, if I wanted to be “jacked” I would lift 3-5x a week and cycle 1-3x a week for not many hours. That’s how I’ve always viewed it.
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For the sake of demonstration, let’s examine what a cyclist’s lifting program might entail.
99% of the plans I’ve seen don’t make much sense at all to me. Like what is even going on here.
Here is an example Week 5 from DJT, which is one of the better ones:
Day 1
1x10 warmup squat set (bar only) RPE: 3
3x6-8 squat RPE: 7
2x5-7 dead lift RPE: 7
1x10 weighted lunge RPE: 7
1x10 weighted box step RPE: 62x20 pushup
2x25 situp
1x15 superman
1x60 sec plank
1x30 sec side plank
Feel free to add any core or upper body exercises
Day 2
1x10 warmup squat set (bar only) RPE: 3
3x5-7 squat RPE: 7
2x4-6 dead lift RPE: 7
1x10 weighted lunge RPE: 7
1x10 weighted box step RPE: 72x20 pushup
2x25 situp
1x15 superman
1x60 sec plank
1x45 sec side plank
Feel free to add any core or upper body exercises
So, I agree with Dylan’s rationale about keeping the rep range low and RPE high to maximize strength gains over hypertrophy. In theory. I have a lot of issues with the execution.
We’re looking at 6 working sets of squat and 5 working sets of deadlift per week. This should be adequate stimulus for some hypertrophy provided that the load is heavy enough. However proper loading where this plan falls apart. You’re not going to be able to adequately load squat or DL in the prescribed rep ranges until you feel very comfortable with the form and technique. For beginners this is not going to happen by Week 5. (Nor has it happened for Dylan himself it seems? At least by the time this video was published.)
Second, 1x10 reps with the bar is a pretty inadequate warm-up for heavy sets on squat. You’re just jumping from basically 0% of your max up to ~75-90% with no progression in between. That’s either a recipe for either injury (if you do actually load high %) or inadequate stimulus (if you load a lower % for recommended # reps). Pulling a 85-95% max DL from the floor cold with zero warm ups sets leading into it seems insane to me.
If you adequately loaded this workout plan and performed it as perscribed, you’d injure yourself. And if you can follow this plan without injuring yourself, then you’re not doing enough load to see much hypertrophy (6-7 sets per week is already on the low side for hypertrophy gains). Or you simply aren’t past the technique gains phase of novice lifting where your rate-limiting factor is form, not strength.
The 2 sets of weighted lunge and box step per week are pretty negligible. These need to be done with a barbell (or really heavy DBs with straps) in order to adequately load them. You’ll probably find that balance is the rate-limiter here more than strength. The abs stuff is fine for cycling; mostly isometrics and not the sort of loaded work you’d want for hypertrophy.
None of the lifts in this program build the sort of muscles (delts, lats, upper back, chest, biceps, triceps) that make people think “Ah that dude/chick is jacked.” You’ll get some traps if you do the DL work right and that’s about it. Maybe some glutes, but neither squat nor deadlift are the go-to for glute development. And it’s not like you’re lacking in quads.
If you want to test this theory, just go to the gym 3x a week and do 5x12-15 lateral raises, with slow & controlled eccentric, each set loaded at a weight that fails between 12-15 reps. RPE 9-10. It should burn. Do this for a month or two and see how your delts respond. You’re not going to see a delts routine most athletic lifting programs because it’s not a functional lift for the vast majority of sports. But it’s one of the muscles that is disproportionately valued by society in terms of appearing strong. Most of the muscles valued for aesthetics are useless in cycling. Cyclists will have to go out of their way to build them, and most people don’t have the time or motivation.
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What is the goal of that DJT workout routine? If it’s to improve cycling performance/pedaling power it is terrible. If it’s to get a ripped upper body for that sleeveless jersey it’s a waste of time. If it’s to add something fun and different to a training regimen it looks fine.
The goal is to improve cycling. There’s a lot I can criticize on this front alone. It has some of the right ideas, but even if you added the warm-ups in, it’s very time-inefficient. You could consolidate this plan into an A and B day and have extra time for additional accessory work. I’d change up some of the lifts too with stuff that I think is more effective for the goals at hand.
My point is that most cyclists don’t lift, and the cyclists that do lift aren’t lifting in a way that’s going to make them look jacked.
You’re comparing various workout routines to the kind of results people get by using steroids/T. Sure, some routines are more focused on building muscle, but no routine is going to make the average cyclist look like the guy pictured above while continuing to ride 10+ hours a week without incredible genetics and/or “help”.
If you can find me some examples of the long distance adventure cyclists who are lifting in a way that would otherwise lead to them being a jacked natty, had that not also been cyclists, I’ll gladly concede this point.
There is a huge gap between the physique of the average cyclist and the notably enhanced fitness influencers, which includes quite a lot of room for natural levels of “jacked.” We don’t know who the OP was referring to other than some “adventure cyclists” who do “10+ hour long rides.” Whether any given influencer on insta is taking stuff–who is to say. But as someone who lifts seriously (80+ percentile squat and DL) and does 10+ hour long rides for funsies, I am pretty sure it is possible to have a lot of muscle in the adventure category without being on gear, especially if you don’t have a day job.
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Absolutely, I ride with some real human specimens that over the years have invested a lot of time in the gym and the bike. Of course that means they are faster in the flats than in the mountains, but thats just physics.
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I come from a lifting background and that is a pretty bad lifting program. Giving people who are likely not experienced lifters RPE based load is not something I’d do. I competed in powerlifting for 20 years and did more than 40 meets in that time period. And I still struggled sometimes to correctly pick loads for my training based on RPE. Most folks doing that program are probably not going to end up anywhere near an actual RPE 7.
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