JuiceWillis

I have been an avid weight lifter since 2002, cycling for fitness since 2010. I was a competitive track athlete (high jump, hurdles, 400m) in high school and for my first 2 years of college. High rep weight training is counter-productive for sport. 20 reps of anything especially one of the compound movements (squats, deadlifts, overhead press, bench press) will make you good at one thing...doing 20 reps of that exercise. Concentrate on form and actual progressive resistance and you will see marked improvements in your athletic ability and power output.
Professional athletes have been training for years this way, and now for some reason with the popularity of crossfit, machines, and doing plyometric exercises for time and in a circuit seems all the rage. IT WILL NOT make you a better cyclist or better athlete for your particular sport. It will just make you really good at working out.

Nick Bain

All I can say is, I never loose weight going to the gym, even lifting light weights and high reps. I could be just water weight though, i don't know IM not a doctor, but I do fell it is good, for total body maintenance. I do feel better overall.

dorianr

i've started doing "winter training" last year... and it did work great for me. However i didn't stop going to gym when spring came, i try to work out 5-6 times a week, doing 5-7 hours of spin class / week, 4-6 hours of TRX training and some 4 hours / week of weight lifting with some additional time for "fun" workouts with friends.
results for me are just great.

duane_pipe

Good post.

grygt

Heel weights are a great addition to stationary (spin) training for performance cycling.
I have used such to recuperate from injury (retuning muscle balance) and regular training as well.
More info @ gg-fit.com or EBAY auction "business industrial, heel weights"
Conversation about such devices and their usage methods needs to be struck by those who would seek to keep up
with the fast group year over year.

Carbonfiberboy 

No, you haven't used your glycogen but your blood sugar is dropping out anyway. Weight work is very intense, though it may not seem so because of the short duration of each set and the resting between sets. I used to do 3 sets of 30 when I was first starting to lift, years ago. It's a good thing and will help you build aerobic power while it strengthens your connective tissue and improves your balance and flexibility.

What to do: I wear a heart rate monitor. When I lift high reps in a circuit, I let my HR go down no further than 100 between lifts. I'm 70, so set a higher number for you, maybe 115. You'll have to see what works for you. The idea is to stay aerobic because being aerobic causes your metabolism to behave differently and encourages fat burning. This will take a while to have an effect, so don't expect miracles right off. Give it a couple of months.

In the short term, bring a water bottle to the gym with about 150 calories of some sports drink in it. Cytomax, HEED, anything like that. Take a sip from the bottle after every set. The bottle should last about an hour, so you'd finish it by the end of your 3rd circuit. I would go: barbell squat, step up, leg extension (only from 150°-180°, so only through 30°), lat pull, seated rows, Roman chair with bent knees, ab twists, standing one-legged calf raises. After you've done the 3 sets of 20 or more for ~3 months, be sure to follow Friel's program into the multiple sets of each lift with decreasing reps, like Friel outlines.

I did my circuits using the same amount of weight for every circuit, and using an amount of weight that would cause me to fail near the end of the last set of each lift. Similarly, when you start to use lower reps, you want to fail the last set once a week. The weights you use should slowly but surely go up. With the step-ups, you can add dumbells. When you use higher weights at lower reps, rest one minute between sets, by the clock.

I'm using a different program now, but what you are doing will work fine. I only lift twice a week because I don't want the lifting to take away from cycling, but you can change that proportion however. I ride my bike either indoors, outdoors, or do a spin class 5 days/week. That means I ride for about an hour before I lift. You'll hear people say "never ride before lifting" because it'll spoil your lifts. Not once you get into shape, it won't. It'll make your lifting better. So do the endurance ride first. Remember that the pro sprinter sprints at the end of the 200k stage, not at the beginning.

Being 70 means that I've been training for longer than most folks here have been alive.

jsk

You get away with this because of doing low-weight, high-rep work. For somebody trying to get stronger by lifting heavy, your advice would not be so good. I suppose an easy spin in the morning and lifting after work would be OK, but riding within a few hours before lifting is not the best approach if doing a more traditional strength routine.

Carbonfiberboy 

Uh, no. I've always lifted to failure, which is what counts. I used to do sets of 30, now during the season I'm doing 2 sets of 5 hopefully or else I rep it out to failure, maybe 7 if I've guessed wrong for that day. No difference in biking before or not. I almost always bike about 20 minutes before I lift. Works great. I don't think I'm any stronger now that when I did 3 sets of 30, but 2 sets of 5 sure takes a lot less time and takes less out of me. I work harder on the bike in summer, so the next day's performance matters more.

It's funny how so many people know so much about something they've never done.

pagedeveloper

Is this forum dead???

Carbonfiberboy 

Only if you don't post.

Lucy.P

Hey - some easy reading gym training advice for peeps here - How getting in the gym can save your 'off-bike' season

KraneXL

I'll give you that. However, that should never mean there's no room for improvement. When it comes to the science of exercise, we're learning something new everyday.
Case in point. Explosive strength needed in anaerobic exercise requires fast-burn carbs which will be depleted in you perform aerobic exercise prior.I had some trepidation about that myself.

Carbonfiberboy 

I'm one of those people who's constantly experimenting on themselves. Being self-coached means that one has to gather all one's data from oneself and one wants a broad spectrum of activity and activity scheduling from which to draw inferences. I've been trying to learn something new everyday for almost 73 years now. I read all the applicable studies I can find.

Riding for an hour before lifting, which has been my practice, means that one burns hardly any carbs. I usually do the whole hour without eating or drinking and feel only good effects from so doing. People think they burn a lot more calories than they do. Riding for an hour's going to be mostly fat burning with a little carbs here and there - maybe.

I don't notice any real difference in max weight whether I ride first or not. If you aren't getting the same results, try doing your training rides up to 2 hours or so without eating during, to stimulate fat burning. A few weeks of that should make a noticeable difference. And then limit riding before lifting to only an hour. I should also note here that I only lift for 1 to 1.25 hours, twice a week. Any more than that has been detrimental to my other training. One's HR doesn't get up while lifting, at least not if one is in good condition, but that doesn't mean that lifting doesn't qualify as intense training - it does. YMMV.

Yes, I've experimented. I experiment on everything. One of the things I tell myself and anyone who'll listen is that getting older means you can't train harder anymore, you have to train smarter. But why be such a nut and insist on riding first? Simply because that's another 2 hours of aerobic training for the week. And it's a good warmup. One notices that the gym rats all lift first and then do their aerobics. That's because one should do one's goal activity first if one's doing two. My goal activity is cycling.

My latest experiment is training according to HRV. That's complicated and will take a while to show whatever results. I also have a couple of other experiments going, too early for results.

It's too bad that this thread has gone dead. Have at it!

wolfchild

it all depends on the length and intensity of aerobic exercise ...I never had a problem working out in the late afternoon after my low-intensity 50 minute bike commute and my workouts involve doing fast explosive exercises.

wolfchild

Yeah me too...I like to read and study anything related to fitness and nutrition and experiment on myself but in the end I only absorb what is useful and what works for me and I reject what doesn't work for me...Just because something is producing results for somebody else doesn't mean that it will work me.

Carbonfiberboy 

OTOH, I've picked up many ideas on BF which have worked well for me, kettlebells being the most recent. I've also started doing a couple bodyweight exercises most mornings. HRV, with which I'm experimenting now, is another one from BF. I've been the grateful recipient of countless ideas and good advice over the years here.

I doubt that lifting heavier has worked any better for me than the 3 sets of 30 to failure which I did for years. I switched to heavier weights for 2 reasons: I spend a lot less time in the gym, and I can keep doing maintenance during the season. 30 reps was too much of a metabolic strain during the season.

My current gym practice is here: https://www.bikeforums.net/training-...e-athlete.html
if anyone is interested.

KraneXL

To be honest someone could likely make it through the work day with only 4 hours sleep but you certainly won't be as productive as compared to having a full night's rest.

The assumption here is that you're seeking to increasing your anaerobic fitness. Maintenance would require a whole lot less effort, and of course, anyone can just "go through the motions." Make no mistake, for maximum effectiveness, aerobic and anaerobic exercises should be kept separate. That said, I agree that the impact of a low-intensity commute would be negligible in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Carbonfiberboy 

Continuing the discussion . . .

So when one goes out for some anaerobic hill repeat work, one might ride for 45' to the hill, do the repeats, and ride 45' back. Are we all doing it wrong and we should drive to the hill?

It's pretty well accepted that the fastest way to get fast is to do group rides with riders who are faster than you. This forces you to go anaerobic considerably more than you are used to, those efforts being separated by long aerobic periods. The best thing I ever did for my aerobic and anaerobic fitness was going anaerobic on every hill in group rides. I advised the newbies to hold their wheel until the blood started from their eye sockets. Same thing with racing crits. It's constant random anaerobic surges. Racing improves one's ability to do these. Are we all doing it wrong?

Maintenance isn't "going through the motions." I hold the max weights I've been using during my strength maintenance period. That's "maintenance." Anything less is losing strength.

KraneXL

Actually it kinda is. The key behind weight training is "progressive resistance." Therefore, if you're not moving forward, (even by small increments) you're stagnating at a less than optimal rate. At that point, you need to "do something" different to regain your progress.

Carbonfiberboy 

Hillarious. Let me know when you're making progress on your lifts while your aerobic TSS is ~600. Last Sunday I rode 75 miles and 5500' then hiked for 4.5 hours the next day with a 25# backpack. This coming Sunday, I'll ride 115 miles and 7000', and of course I rode during the week some, too. That should give me a TSS for the week of 659. Then I'll hike the next day, too.

Lifting at all while doing strenuous cycling training is already a bit unusual. There are serious endurance cyclists on BF who think any lifting is a bad idea. That is a reasonable viewpoint with some scientific studies to support it. It's even more outré to lift during the competitive season. In fact I had to eliminate my gym day this week because the training stress was already at (or maybe over) my limit.

Most of the year, I lift twice a week for about 2 total hours. That's enough to make progress. Once a week maintains the strength and thigh muscle size I achieved during the build phase.

You're doing everything perfectly w/r to diet and training. So go out for a bike shop group ride and see if you can stay with the leaders on the hills. That's the only rational metric for a cyclist. How much one can lift really makes no difference. Only climbing performance counts.

jsk

Different people have different goals, and even the same person may have different goals at different times. So your assertion that progression is the only thing that matters in weight training may be correct for you but it's not a universal truth. Strength maintenance is a perfectly valid reason to lift.

redlude97

Are you doing anything to estimate your TSS from hiking etc? Stravastix just added an estimated TSS calculation to their PMC charting.

Carbonfiberboy 

Well to be a little more technical I use hrTSS which is certainly not perfect. It way underestimates TSS from the gym, hiking, and similar activities, but it's really easy, just wear the watch. For instance hiking, 95 HR is working pretty hard on the trail for this geezer, breathing deeply but not rapidly, maybe like 118 on the bike. I have 2 Strava accounts, one for my singles, one for our tandem. Only the tandem account is premium because I ride my singles so little. I use TP for the PMC. I put everything into TP, hiking, running, bikes, gym, even the occasional paddle.

redlude97

I think you still have to assign an RPE though? My strava automatically transfers to trainingpeaks PMC but non cycling events don't appear to get added automatically, do you manually enter those to get a hrtss?

Carbonfiberboy 

That's a good question about RPE. I don't do it, but don't know if that's because TP doesn't implement RPE or whether I just don't know how to do it. My Polar V800 watch uploads right to TP. My HRV software also uploads to TP. I only have to enter weight, sleep, etc. (metrics) manually.

AFAIK, TP assigns hrTSS according to some secret formula off HR. I put in my cycling zones and that's what it uses in its formula. It can also use running pace for TSS, maybe other things. I think I can assign different HR zones for each individual activity, but wouldn't know how to do that sensibly.