Has anyone had success combining weight lifting (2x week) with a build plan that has 3 days a week of intensity? Is this a recipe for disaster? I was thinking of the LV short power build because I both enjoy more and recover better from short intensity compared to threshold or sweetspot. My goals are to enjoy training and maybe perform well in some Zwift races (which are usually 30-50 minutes).
If you are lifting hard and doing the big compound lifts you’ll really need to map out your week so you can make each weight or cycling session count. You’ll want to prioritize recover and sleep. I put my weight days directly before a rest day and it seemed ok.
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I think it depends enormously on your lifting background and what you’re doing in those lifting sessions. E.g. if you’re fairly new to lifting and you’re trying to make significant strength gains with quite a few sets lifting to failure or close to it, then the DOMS and fatigue from that will have a big impact on your ability to successfully complete those intense cycling workouts.
On the other hand if you have been lifting regularly for quite a well, are well adapted to that load and are in more of a maintenance phase where you’re stopping each set with a couple of reps left in the tank, then should be fine.
If both your lifting sessions and biking sessions are hard then I’d try and do them the same day of the week if possible. E.g. a VO2 session in the morning, lift in the evening. That way you still have 4 easy/endurance/recovery days and if you can do your hard bike sessions in the morning you should be pretty fresh for them. If you spread the lifting and biking out you end up having 5 days a week where you’re pushing yourself hard which can make recovery pretty tough.
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Hey there and welcome to the TR community!
I think this should be manageable. Many athletes have successfully combined their TR training with weight lifting – especially on LV plans.
Try to pair up your strength sessions with your harder interval days each week if possible. For example, you could do a bike workout in the morning and then hit the weights in the evening.
This keeps your easy/rest days free from stress, which is ideally what we want to see. Keep your easy days easy and your hard days hard. That will give you the time your body needs to recover between sessions.
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I did it successfully for months. What I learned from my body is that HIIT gym training was killing me. Basically I did circuit training of 6-8 series. I did chest mostly with rings (ouch), then pull up also on ring, triceps, biceps and then shoulders. No breaks at all. 35-40 minutes non-stop working out. That burned me. Later I realized that I do too much intensity 2-3 on the bike and 2 in the gym.
That not sustainable for me, now I also do circuit training, with less intensity and more recovery. It is a great way to train full body twice a week. It did wonders for me. Be careful with 2 workouts a day. Good gym sessions is exhausting as good ride. It would be good idea to lower the intensity of one of them if you are new to such training.
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+1 for same day: cycling in the morning, strength later, then have a day off, rinse & repeat. This way the legs have two sleeps + 30-ish hours to recover before the next lot of intervals. As for me, the times I did an intervals session the day after a strength session involving legs, my glutes were screaming in the intervals like never before. Different from DOMS, because it was only painful whilst working hard.
It worked for me because cycling was my priority, so it was okay by me if the strength training suffered a bit.
Definitely try and get into your lifting routine during a base phase. You want all soreness and initial “off the couch” adaptation done during an easier time. I took a lot of last year off from lifting legs, and it’s been a little bit of a grind getting over the initial soreness and getting back to what I’d call my “base” level of strength. It’s not just volume, but if volume and/or intensity go up, you may need to back strength work off (especially lower body) to more maintenance work.
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Check out this podcast episode of the Ask A Cycling Coach podcast:
We had Derek Teel, from dialedhealth on the Ask A Cycling Coach to answer questions about how to combine Strength Training and Cycling Training.
In summary, consistency is key. Schedule your Workouts in a way that allows you to be the most consistent. This will depend on your schedule and life outside of training.
Outside of that, Derek runs through some options and the benefits of those options 
.
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