For the last few years I have had back issues that were mainly caused by becoming relatively sedentary during Covid. I managed to hopefully solve most of those issues by concentrating on strength over fitness from about late September last year until mid dec, at which point I started picking up the riding more. I am on week 3 of a build and the last week or so has been troublesome mainly due to DOMS from weights causing me to call it a day on a number of workouts. I realised that trying to do weights on a Sunday right after sweet spot and following a threshold workout didn’t really work, so I tried other options including doing weights on Monday which was a rest day, that also didn’t work as I had to bail on Mills +3 last night.
I want to be able to maintain the strength without sacrificing the bike, how do others manage this when doing 5 days on the bike. For reference, I am nearly 50 so age might be becoming more of a factor.
I keep my weights sessions to intense bike days (anything with intervals over 80% FTP), however if you are on a TR plan that’s probably most of the bike sessions
I would pick the hardest session of the week and try to lift on that day. It will be tough but gives you a fighting chance to recover for the next hard day. Your legs will hurt. Accepting that during build you are probably just maintaining your strength rather than increasing it is my advice, personally I do not continue with progressive strength overload along with progressive bike intervals - it just frys me. During base when I do hard sessions every 7-10 days I can lift 2-3x a week no problem. Build/Race period - no way, 1x a week mtce.
I just reduced my expectations and make sure I lift something, rather than nothing. Build up again slowly over a few months and you’ll be able to balance it a bit better.
Swap some exercises for single leg, or single arm exercises so you use less total weight but are equally challenged or challenges in different ways. Or I’ll do pause or goblet squats if back squats are going to be hard graft.
I’d Evaluate your strength too as you don’t need to be super strong on a bike yet can still have healthy functioning movements and balanced musculature for injury prevention. I reckon I still lift weights that are probably heavier than I need to but still less than 50% of what I did when I lifted seriously.
I try to do strength gains during base phase and only strength maintenence during build phase.
This picture is from “The Cyclist’s Training Bible” by Joe Friel… Not saying that’s the only way but it may help you, I follow that advise and it’s working for me, no more knee or back pain and can finish my workouts (both cycling and lifting).
I’m 47 and do 2-3 (mostly 2) strength sessions per week and I’m on a MVSSB program right now. What I’ve done to help is that I will do 1 lower body day per week now that the volume has ramped up and the other days I will do upper body or combine uppper/lower body in a session. My sessions are short at 35 minutes and focus on the compound movements. Also, I will go a little heavier on my recovery weeks and lighter on my other weeks. If my strenghth day is upper body I don’t mind stacking it with my VO2 max sessions, if it’s a leg day I might stack it with endurance or maybe sweet spot base.
It has taken my about 2 months to get through the initial hump as to where these workouts are not beating me up, but I’ve also dialed down the intensity of my strenghth sessions and cut back on the leg days. I also make it a point to refuel after both resistance and endurance workouts with at least 25 grams protein plus 80 + grams of carbs. In addition I will add maybe 5 minutes of warmup to my VO2 max sessions and make sure that I’m fueling on the bike.
To summarize - it took me about 2 months to get where combining strength and TR felt productive, I cut back on my lower body sessions to 1x week and lowered intesity for the most part, I refueled after all workouts and added some warming up.
Good luck and modify the plan according to your priorities.
Hi, I’m 47 and I’ve been doing compound excersizes which TR suggests plus arm curls and calf raises 2 x per week. I ride Monday,Tuesday, Weights Wednesday, Thursday Ride, Friday Weights, Saturday outside endurance 3-4 hr ride and do whatever goes but never under Z2 for total Average Watts and Sunday total recovery. Eat shit loads of food but I have a fast metabolism.
I started consistently in about September last year (weights). I was absolutly dying on some of my base plan workouts. I could only just complete them. Basically I dropped my ftp down by about 20 watts from which TR suggested. The workouts are achievable now but still test my mental and physical strength.
My general life is so much better as I’m more stronger overall. My cycling doesn’t seem to of suffered and I’m no pro so Id take the slight hit on the bike is im a better person off the bike.
I may of lost the point of the thread with my drivel but hopefully it shines some perspective on it.
Expermentaion is th only way of finding out unfortunately. Cheers.
