I am currently doing the Fascat 10-week off-season weight lifting plan. It’s three weeks of adaptation, two weeks of hypertrophy, then a few weeks of strength and then “power” focusing on explosive movements.
The plan calls for barbell back squats, leg press, and leg curls at a cycling specific range of motion but I have added Romanian deadlifts to strengthen my upper back because I find that it helps my form on the bike.
Fascat does not recommend year-round strength training but last year I lost the sprint gains I made by the time race season came along and I also lost the gains in posture I felt I had made.
What would be a good plan for maintaining some of that strength during base and build and maybe even in-season? How many sessions per week, how many sets, reps and what % of 1RM?
Edit: Thanks for fixing the typo @mcneese.chad. In the title no less. I’m embarrassed.
Purely for strength maintenance I’d do something like:
Monday
Bench Press - 3 × 5 with my 8 rep max
Pull ups or chinups - 3 sets. 3rir, 2rir, 1rir
Thursday
Squat - 3 × 3 with my 5 RM
Trap Bar Deadlift - 1 × 3 with my 5RM then 2 × 5 with 10% less as backoff sets
This assumes that Friday is my day off the bike completely or max 45 mins at max 40% of FTP recovery ride. Obviously you’d choose different movements to suit your purposes.
Anyway, that seems like a good program but I was wondering about recommendations for session/set/rep/%1RM numbers to maintain my above lifts throughout base and build (and maybe even specialty/race season.
Reps in reserve. So for your first set you’d stop when you think you have 3 good reps left in you. Second set you’re stopping 2 away. Last set 1 away.
Typically (depending on how long you rest btwn sets) this’ll mean you’ll do 3 sets of 7 if you can do 10 pullups, because you’ll likely lose a rep btwn sets because fatigue is a thing.
To find out what works for you, you’re gonna have to f&£k around and find out. The sets/reps I set out should work for most compund exercises.
Focus on lower reps (like 2-3 sets of 4-6 reps) at around 60-70% of your 1RM. This can help maintain strength without overtaxing your muscles, which should keep you fresher for on-the-bike work.
Any argument to be made to drop the leg press and the leg curl and just focus on the compound movements to maintain strength after the off-season program?
Of course 50+ master athletes should maintain strength training year round. Old Fastcat Frank doesn’t race much at all now that he’s an older guy. He’d probably feel and perform better if he maintained a 30 minute weight lifting protocol a couple times per week year round.
I do 3 x 5 of squats, deadlifts, barbell chest press and chin ups once a week for strength maintenance. Over the last couple years, I’ve combined with vo2max, then moved it to an endurance ride day.
I generally do the workout year round except for recovery weeks on the bike… then I do body weight exercises and lat pull downs.
Seems to work well for me and while it can impact on the bike performance at times, having a functional body is more important to me.
I’m also on the fascat plan, and just before starting it, started doing pushups. 20 a day in the week and 40 at weekends, now on my gym days in the plan do 4 x 20 or 3 x 30.
I’m 51 and it’s nice to feel my shoulders return and the unexpected bonus is I now dont get neck soreness riding. I will keep doing them, Not sure if ill continue doing squats leg press and curls though past the plan as my legs only seem to have 2 hours of riding in them now. Maybe learn to do pull ups.
I would if my shoulders liked it, but they really don’t.
If I’m doing more than just maintaining, I’ll do dumbbell shoulder presses, close grip bench presses and lateral raises for my shoulder work. I can do all of those without my body barking at me.
Damn, I just recommended it because I like every compound exercise and doing shoulder press, it’s one of those moves that really hits the upper body. It works the shoulders, traps, and even hits the triceps
