My routine may seem like a lot for someone new to strength training and also for some cyclists.
Going and doing 2 sets of squats and a couple sets of something else is more of maintenance IMO.
What I posted was for base season, my programming changes as you get into build, and “specialty “.
End of season: straight into neanderthal no more for postural correction and neuromuscular adaptation. A month of focus on fixing imbalances with lifting and then a month of integrating heavier weights and bringing rep ranges down to 4-6.
Early base (before Christmas): 5x5 into 3x5 linear compound barbell lifting. Stop when reach a minimum of 2xbw deadlift and 1.5bw squat for 3x5 (usually whenever I hit a pr - so 2.3 and 1.8ish respectively).
Late base (after Christmas): Reduce volume a bit, introduce power and coordination and single leg work (cleans, overhead squat, single arm overhead lunge)
Build: volume down to 4 leg exercises per week, cut out deadlifting.
Speciality: Down to 3x3.
Race: Once a week.
And anon.
What have I learned this year and changing? 2xWeek even in the off season.
I don’t need to back squat 1.75bw for 3x5. I’m an XCO rider. I can hit mid thousands. I’m not losing due to lack of pure strength. I need to not miss the separation on a 5min effort.
Also, I need more balance in my life and trying to balance 3-4 lifts with 10-15hrs on the bike isn’t working.
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Just using you as an example, but my initial observation is a worrying amount of people in here have a gym balance that appears to lean heavily into upper body and away from anything directly relevant to pushing the pedals harder.
Splitting the body down into legs, and then vert push vert pull horizontal push horizontal pull core and mobility and then apportioning equal time to these things strikes me as the kind of quackery the dialled health bloke was pushing a few weeks ago; although it could be that I’m still missing something.
Well, two things. First, I’m not primarily lifting to help my cycling, it’s overall strength and trying to mitigate age-related sarcopenia, overall function, mitigating long days sent seated (so, for example, if I have to drop something for time, I’d rather drop presses than pullups or rows), addressing the effects of old injuries, etc. I’d definitely do something differently if I was trying to come up with something that was primarily to support cycling (and my son, whose coach is the current US MTB Marathon champion, uses a very different program). As you suggest, how any program is structured is related to goals. I never do curls–not functional, and my biceps get plenty of stimulus from pullups or rows. I don’t do leg curls/extensions–again, minimal value for my goals. That’s why I like the concept of movements, not body parts or muscle groups.
Second, and I should have clarified, I structure the legs and upper body work differently. I have one “big” lift variation each session, either a deadlift or a squat, that is high weight/low reps/longer rest intervals-3 or 4 sets by 4-5 reps, usually with 3 minute rest. Then I do a unilateral leg exercise, again relatively heavy. That’s about 40% of the total workout time. The upper body work is all supersets, shorter rest, lighter weight. I do 20 minutes or so of mobility every day, which has both general advantages and has had direct benefits for my cycling as well (my cross remounts are WAY better with improved hip mobility).
So my typical weekly off-season routine is 6-7 hours on the bike/trainer (LV with extra Z2), 2 hours of strength training with about 40% legs/60% upper body core, and 1.5 hours of mobility, along with work, kids, etc. This has worked out for me and I’ll probably keep it up until I retire, when I’ll try to up my bike volume.
As you say, this would not be optimal for someone who wanted to push the pedals harder, but that’s not my primary goal with the strength workouts.
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I guess I’d also add that it’s not inherently true that anything not directly related to the legs isn’t “directly related to pushing the pedals harder” if by that you mean going longer or faster in a race. Core strength is relevant to ability to sustain a riding posture, especially for long events. In cross, anti-rotational strength and mobility may not help “push the pedals harder”, but I’m pretty sure they’ve helped me get around certain courses with lots of dismounts and run-ups faster.
Most things in life are an optimization problem. Here, it’s “What’s the optimal strength training routine that will help me achieve (a) one or more goals given (b) time constraints and (c) other resource constraints (access to equipment, injuries, etc)”. My answer to that is based on goals of (a) overall health and function as I age and (b) trying to get competitive enough to beat enough guys 10 years older than I am so that I can cat up to the 60+ 1/2/3 in my state series, which is likely to be a different answer than for someone whose focus is on XCO competitiveness
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Come on dude.
That’s not what I said and you well know it. I thought we were better than that in here?
I’m going to devil’s advocate myself.
Here’s the alternative proposition that I’ve not had argued at me.
Assuming you aren’t older and so focused on gerontology (as that would outweigh any of these arguments), or generally weak (e.g. you can squat your own bodyweight for, say, 5 reps, you can do a pullup without assistance etc etc), and you’re not using it to manage or recover from an injury - maybe strength training is a masturbatory distraction from more time on the bike?
Aka maybe as cyclists all we need to do is work out minimal dose, not the most effective dose.
So if you could, for example, just get just enough dose to prevent sarcopenia and injury and keep your bones dense enough that you don’t turn into blancmange when you crash, but as a result manage another 90min vo2 workout a week over the bloke who did 3*5 deadlifts, aren’t you the faster rider?
I ask you, how much do you think pogacar squats?
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My bad. I posted a general template that has been useful to me for a long time and that is readily adaptable for different settings, not “What do you think the best strength training program to meet a specific cycling goal is?” The phrase “have a gym balance that appears to lean heavily into upper body and away from anything directly relevant to pushing the pedals harder.” can be interpreted in a number of ways, and I took it to mean that what I proposed was "the kind of quackery the dialled health bloke was pushing a few weeks ago; although it could be that I’m still missing something,:
I don’t disagree with you all that different approaches are probably optimal for different goals.
Sorry, the use of the word “quackery” in the context of what I’d posted made your intent and meaning somewhat ambiguous. I don’t disagree at all that different goals require different programs, but my sense of the thread is that not everyone on it has a pure focus on getting faster on the bike
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Sensible comments here. In the past I have attempted 2 or 3 sessions a week incorporating leg work along with 8 - 10 hours bike. Legs were constantly sore, seemed to make no progress on the bike and no longer enjoyed my bike workouts.
Following season I ditched the leg work (mainly barbell squat, leg press and dumb bell lunges) and maintained the core and upper body stuff and found it better. I ride mountains most weekends so asked myself do I really need leg work in the gym for leg strength given I am riding steep gradients at low cadence most weekends and what benefit am I really getting here.
So fast forward to another season and I am back in the gym doing the leg work this past 6 weeks and had knee pain yesterday in the mountains.
So your post has prompted me to at least ditch the barbell squat as I think that is the culprit for the knee pain that has crept in and just do the leg press or possibly adjust to a single day total body including the leg routine and the other day omit the leg exercises totally as I definitely want to maintain the upper body stuff.
Hey question for all here.
I’ve never lifted weights seriously…but have started my ‘offseason’ earlier than I normally do this year, and I’m getting serious of weight training.
Has anyone tried something similar to Fastcats 10 week off season plan? I listened to a podcast of theirs about it…and it seems bonkers…
Basically a 3 week ramp up phase, then followed by 2 weeks of FOUR workout a week, 6 sets of 10 reps. So basically 240 squats a week. It then afterwards goings to less frequency, heavier weight, lower volume of sets.
Is that a normal progression? That 2 week, hypertrophy phase they call it…seems like a lot.
I’ve been loving the 15 minute workouts here:
The subscribe to the “minimally effective dose” idea just like TR. It’s been a realy easy way to fit in stregth work that doesn’t interfere with riding a whole lot, too.
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Some info here
I listened to that podcast as well and was shaking my head in disbelief about the 4 times a week sessions…it seemed like too many sessions to recover from. As someone who has lifted weights pretty consistently these past few years I would never implement that routine. I also don’t happen to agree with skipping the upper body work. I guess if you are a serious racer that get’s paid to do so…then maybe, but for us regular joe’s I think the upper body work is so important for quality of life and general health.
Personally, I’d look elsewhere for a routine to follow.
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I’ve concluded that conditioning in the form of endurance riding and weight lifting is job 1 for myself. Kettlebells for warmups and swings and deadlifts and squats.
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It takes time and experimenting to find these things out - but that’s all part of the process. Once you’ve got it figured out then you just keep it going and make adjustments along the way. I’ve been lucky to have started lifting weights in high school and then I found cycling so I have that foundation.
Good thing is, it’s never too late, until it’s too late. It’s great that you’ve found what works for you and makes you feel good.
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3 years of experimenting to figure it out!
24 sets? Assuming those are within 2 or 3 reps of failure that’s A LOT of work.
I did a 3 month hypertrophy block recently. Knocked my riding back to (hopefully) maintenance and focused on lifting. Squatted 3 times a week, doing a mix of back squats and split squats, gradually upping the volume from 9 sets per week to 15. I’d have struggled to recover from more than that (at the grand old age of 54)
Moved my back squat from 3 × 8 × 60kg to 4 × 8 × 75kg and built a decent bit of quad mass.
Definitely worth looking here for guidance:
Look for a climbing chalk bag and find one you like. That’s been my go to for over a decade (same bag) in the gym.
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