Originally Posted by
Jctc
Just wondering what people's thoughts are as regard to training blocks in gym
Should you be following a strict program of hypertrophy strength and then power or should you (as advised in article from an Australian national coach) work on a blend of all 3 with maybe 2 seis hypertrophy early in year and 1 strength fading towards 2 strength and 1 hypertrophy mid training year and then add power to the mix as closer to training goal whilst still not going into a power only prog.
Interested to hear thoughts and sorry if has been discussed in thread before I couldn't find it
Maybe only 30% track related. I'm a dad. My kid weight trained from age 14 and still does. Coach 1 was a body builder. Current trainer trains many track riders. The routines are similar. The timing is not, for a variety of reasons.
<18 lived in SoCal and racing was all year - USA and Europe. There was no down time to get big. The frequency of training the whole body was high and focus more on strength and endurance, never mass.
Then there were 20-30 hour training weeks (4 lifting, extra 4 sleeping).
Now living where there is snow and being 20, most of the time is gym. Junior went from 140lbs to 165lbs in 2 years, with visual same body composition. W/kg is lower. Endurance is lower. Power is up.
I follow several of the juniors, now riding for USA on endurance track. I talk to their dads, share the same training coach. In general there is block training, but that is more driven by the seasonal competition. Most of these "kids" are multi-cycling discipline, and do MTB, RR, Track. And the cycling takes priority over the lifting.
I am watching to see what seems to work best, I don't know. For long RR stuff (I know this is a track forum) the added mass and time off the bike does not help at all. On track - still not sure. Something about miles in legs and strength training (over mass) seems better.