Obviously, I know having this many strength training workout sessions is not a good idea. Especially for me whose main focus in life is to improve on the bike, and don’t care about any muscle groups that beyond a certain point won’t make me a faster cyclist .
To provide some context, I have just started my junior year in high school. I have used TR for a couple years and am currently doing a high volume plan with around 10 hours a week. I feel like this is a decent amount and that I am improving at a great rate, as well as it being a manageable amount for me personally. While I think I am doing just about all I can on the bike, I have never really looked into strength training. I would really love to access these untapped benefits.
In order to balance this addition to my schedule with my already busy day with school and riding, I chose to take a weight training class this year. Classes are 45 minutes and I expect to have about 30 minutes to lift during this period. The downside of all this is that we are required to workout in every class, 5 days a week. I am concerned that it will be easy to overload given my extensive time on the bike outside of school and generally busy schedule. My questions for the Trainer Road collective are are along these lines:
How should I structure my weekly regimen of 30-40 minutes 5 days a week to be optimized as first and foremost a compliment to cycling?
How can I structure daily time in the gym to avoid over training and having too much fatigue for my rides later in the day?
What are everyone’s favorite exercises to strengthen cycling specific muscles? (I can see there are several other threads addressing this, but thought I would compound it here)
And just what general or additional advise could you offer me in this venture?
As a experienced cyclist, yet completely unexperienced body builder, I am sure my questions sound weird and would ask you to forgive me for my lack of knowledge on the subject. I invite you to share anything you think would be helpful. I greatly appreciate all responses!
How many weeks is the class? I’m all for learning correct form, and a class is a great way to do that, but as someone who just spent 3 weeks lifting 3 days a week as part of my off season, I don’t envy the idea of doing 5 days per week for… months on end? At least not if you intend to ride a lot at the same time.
Oh man…. You got so much time! It seems like too much gym to me. I’d honestly suggest putting it into an endurance ride once a week
But to answer your questions - you need to do a maintenance type routine in the gym. Lots of reps of light weights - while each session can hit all the things - use one week for more core focused, one for arms, one for legs etc
Biggest tip I’ll give is stretching is gym work. Use that to get a better range of motion. For every hour I spent in the gym 15 would be stretching
I am in the class for the semester/I think about 18 weeks/end of Decemberish.
Good to hear from someone who has experience balancing like that. The bulk of my racing starts in February so i guess you can say im in a sort off season (though im not doing the best job of that doing high volume lol)
But yes thats my dilema as I really want to keep riding a lot.
Hoping to not have to change too much with riding but i guess whatever you gotta do…
I agree! Way too much gym in my opinion
I appreciate your thoughts cause thats kinda what i had in mind, lots of stretching/flexibility light weights and such. Was thinking probably 2 or so more intense days while making sure to alternate muscle group focus periodically to avoid too much fatigue
My objective is to meet class expectations of daily workouts (rather than being on the ol cellular phone;) while trying to keep the actual intense work limited to fewer days so as not to endanger my riding.
You’re 16 or so? Perfect age for lots of training, including strength training, as your ability to recover is insane. Take advantage of this time in your life!
Assuming you are in the gym M through F, a good setup would be: Legs Monday and Thursday OR Tuesday and Friday (i.e. two full days between workouts). The other days you can do upper body, and if you want to avoid weights with that just focus on pull-ups, dips, push-ups, and some core work. You might find that being able to do 30 dips and 30 push-ups helps when your arms are getting tired or sore on the bike. Check out various calisthenics videos on youtube and you’ll see you can become strong and shredded without gaining much weight.
Leg work will be fantastic for your riding, but you need to think long term (i.e. years). Smashing legs at school then going riding afterwards (endurance or, at most, mixing in some tempo) is fantastic training, but yes your legs will suffer a bit - that’s part of training and if you plan recovery during the week you’ll be fine (plus we’re soon going to be in fall and winter so if you race the season will be ending). Start with 5x10 bodyweight squats to warm up, then 1) 3x12 leg curls, 2) leg press, 3) 3x8 squat, 4) 3x8 leg extensions. For the leg press, do the most weight you can for 3x4, build to 5x4, then as weeks go by slowly increases reps until you get to 15 reps with that same weight. For the other leg exercises maintain the reps and focus on increasing the weight over time. Full range of motion and slow, controlled form at all times – feeling the muscle contraction and being strict in your form is more important than adding 10 or 20 pounds and being sloppy or needing to use momentum.
No need to rush - at your age, combining leg strength training and cycling is a fantastic, long term method of training especially if you aim to race in your 20s.
Make sure you’re eating enough carbs and protein to handle the work. At your age you could recover very well over night.
If you start feeling fatigued from lifting, try very low weight and work on perfecting your form with the lifts. Idk what your teacher or whomever will have you doing, but that’s my 2 cents.
If it’s a high school weight training class you will very likely not be structuring your own program, and the actual lifting will likely also not be 5 days per week. We had assigned lifts and had to have the instructor, who was my football coach, watch the last set and sign off on it. It’s been about 16 years since I took a high school weight training class but the structure was something like:
Mon: Bench/Squat
Tuesday: Make up day/accessories (pick mobility things)
Wednesday: Deadlift/Power Cleans
Thursday: Free Day (walk/run the gym, basketball, etc)
Friday: Towel Bench/Box Squat
Rep scheme would be something like 10-8-6, 5x5, and then a 3x5 1RM with various percentages scaled to your 1RM. I don’t like that rep scheme at all for strength building, but that was my school and I would hope others would have better programs
If you are going to maintain high volume I would discuss with the teacher what additional training you are doing, or if there are cross country runners in the class see what they would do. Likely though you are young and can probably recover quickly. If you do get a structure like above just do your main sets and when you get accessory work keep it light and mobility focused.
I would hope that the instructor would take this into account, but lots of coaches and teachers forget that athletes/students have numerous other things going on.
