OldsCOOL

This will be my first winter hitting the weights in 4yrs, the first time lifting since serious cycling these past 4 summers or so.

I love heavy squatting. I competed in powerlifting some years back and will continue that program of fairly intense lifting. Will the strength in the quads serve me well or perhaps improve the fast rides, hillclimbs and shorter TT style rides I enjoy?

I am 5'9 and will be cutting fat to make room for added muscle mass which will take place. Since the 4yr layoff and cycling I have lost significant muscle mass. I will stay in the 181Lb bodyweight range.

Thanx!

Carbonfiberboy 

This is what I know about it:
https://www.bikeforums.net/training-n...-cyclists.html

I posted that 6 years ago and have little to add to it today. It works. This year I've gotten interested in body recomposition and have done 2 months of bodybuilding style trad lifting so far. I'll continue with this for another couple months. So far I've gained weight and lost fat but have not noticed any changes in on-bike power. Probably a little slower if anything. But that's not the point of the exercise. I'm reasoning that if I can gain muscle, I can use it to cut fat, and then lose the unneeded muscle in spring bike training just by steadily increasing the distance.

You should also read this valuable thread in the 33:
https://www.bikeforums.net/33-road-bi...-workouts.html
and note this post:
https://www.bikeforums.net/33-road-bi...l#post14942751

OldsCOOL

Thanx for the links, I'll take a look!

OldsCOOL

I am more specifically interested in the effects of the squat. But then, I will find out in the spring when I step away from powerlifting (squat, bench, deadlift) and hit the fogline.

qualia8

The scientific literature I've seen supports significant performance enhancements only for explosive lifting (Olympic lifting). But I think overall health and core stability and power on the bike cannot but improve from heavy squatting. I'm doing it too. Would love to do Olympic style, but can't do it in my gym and I'm sure I'd injure myself anyway.

OldsCOOL

Heavy squats should be right up there for promoting fast twitch muscle mass. I'm thinking strava hillclimbs would be affected in a positive way. I'm working squats twice a week, with the heavy day working sets of triples. The only downside is cutting the spinning back to once a week.

Bridrider

I fully believe in the squats and deadlifts. I'm just getting into this sport transitioning from 5 days a week of running/ lifting. I vowed to not cutout squats and deadlifts. I think deadlifts and cycling go together like bread and butter. The only issue is they are extremely hard, exhausting, and make you extremely sore. The plus side is they strengthen your back and hamstrings something crazy. I usually do 3 x 10 sets. This literally only probably takes 15 minutes out of the week but the power you have to put into the exercise is so intense that it will floor your legs. Now there are other legs things I do but the squats and deadlifts are the pillar of the leg workout in my opinion.

I think it really helps the back muscles you use in cycling especially the ones that get exhausted over long rides.

gregf83 

Cycling is primarily an aerobic sport. There is no evidence that heavy lifting will help your cycling and it could decrease your performance if you end up adding weight.

Leg strength can be a limiter, but it isn't for most people. Increasing your 1RM strength isn't going to help when you're pedaling with not much force for an hour or even as short as 1 min. It could help your sprinting but it won't turn a primarily slow-twitch rider into a sprinter (Sprinters are born not made).

If you're currently 181lb with more bodyfat than you'd like, replacing fat with muscle isn't going to improve your climbing nearly as much as just cutting the fat and leaning out.

McRussellPants

lol, 3 months of off season lifting isn't gonna make you accidentally snap your crank/bars in half guys.

I've been following the low rep/big weight plan, get into the gym, lift heavy then hop on the bike.

my newbie tips:
Follow a strength program like Starting Strength or Strong Lifts. I do some upper body pulling and core work as accessories
Have someone teach you squats, do them light till you know what you're feeling for.
Do everything light and work into it, coming off the "gym doesn't help on the bike" your hams and quads rip, but your core and stabilizers are weak, Makes the ticket to snap city cheap.
Deadlift and Deadlift type lifting. for me, doing these with proper form is saving my back and shoulders on longer rides, its been magical.
I don't lift Oly, I don't have someone I trust to teach me, and don't I won't do it heavy enough to matter till I know it inside and out.
Gym will help you keep weight off way easier than on the bike.
Stretch and Roll a lot.
warm up a lot

Edit, came back to say, if you're cycling but not deadlifting, you don't know what you're missing.

Carbonfiberboy 

As Greg says, there's no evidence heavy lifting will help your cycling. If you find a study showing that it does, please post.

That said, my 82 y.o. aunt has been deadlifting. She just started training about a year ago. Her trainer won't let her do aerobics until she has some proficiency with free weights and can move some weight. I don't really know why, but maybe she's worried my aunt might fall and hurt herself or something. Anyway, that sort of brings on another thought. I think that anyone who has tried to learn a new skill has heard it said that, "It's just technique. It doesn't take much strength." Like kipping into the rings, for instance. The problem can be that it's impossible to get the technique right unless a certain amount of strength is there.

So in this sense, perhaps some heavy weight work does make sense. If someone is complaining about getting tired on the bike on long rides, well they need to ride more. But maybe some folks have trouble revolving the pedals just right, and then there's steering at the various speeds, holding the posture, just being comfortable on the bike. That does take some strength.

It's true that some off-bike core work helps, but we're talking about 20 minutes a day and doing exercises that don't impinge on bike riding at all. But if your weight work is interfering with your bike riding, you're doing it wrong. What improves bike riding the most is bike riding. I try not to do any weight work that takes away from bike riding. In fact I do my ride before I do my weights. If I can't do the ride, I sure have no business lifting more weights! That's just not how you improve. You want your weekly training load to be dominated by riding.

OTOH, if your goals are to achieve some particular appearance, or get good at a sport other than bike riding, have at it.

jsk

The science is not exactly settled on this issue. More and more studies are finding benefits from strength training for endurance athletes. A lot of the studies have been focused on running, but not all of them. For an overview of some recent cycling specific research, see the chapter on strength training in Performance Cycling: The Science of Success

It's not that simple. Stronger legs means a given power output will be easier, which means onset of fatique will take longer and your efficiency will be better at submaximal efforts.

This seems rather disingenuous. Are you suggesting those who aren't born with the genes of a world-class sprinter shouldn't do what they can to improve their sprint performance?

The problem with this advice is that you're not just going to lose fat. It's very hard to lose weight without losing muscle mass if strength training isn't a part of your weight loss plan.

Also, while W/kg and climbing ability may be the most important thing for some racers, it's not the most important thing for all of them.

gregf83 

No I'm just suggesting spending a season lifting weights may not be the most efficient use of limited training time if you're not a sprinter. You don't need to be world class, just well above average compared to those you're racing against. If for example you're a cat 3 it doesn't usually take too long to figure out if you can sprint well. If you're competitive in sprints, whether it's a field sprint for 5th place or a prime or even just a group ride it might be worth working on. The question is: is there some aspect of your sprinting that's better to do in a gym or could you gain as much or more on the bike? If you're a slow twitch, diesel type of rider there is nothing you can do to turn into a sprinter. You can convert fast twitch to slow twitch muscles but not the other way.

If building strength in your legs caused less fatigue during sub-maximal efforts that would be very easy to see in a study but there isn't a lot of support in the studies that have been done to date. Some strength work isn't going to hurt and it might help a little but a 50% increase in strength isn't going to raise your threshold power. And bulking up your legs by adding weight will very likely hurt unless you are racing on the track.

Voodoo76

Some anecdotal stuff. I was a much better crit rider when I was lifting, squats, deads & bench. In season training and wear and tear from racing kept my body mass in check.

I looked at it as simply another training zone (call it Z8 or whatever), a step above Neuromuscular on a bike, and fit it into my program accordingly. Also think that heavy is the way to go (my squat maxed at 415 @ 175 lbs), you can't get that amount of force on a bike. And for some of us warped individuals it's fun! I have not lifted heavy for quite a few years, plan to start up again. I would also add my +1 to deadlifting, a great exercise.

Carbonfiberboy 

You have the book and say it has reputable scientific studies of cyclists. Hey, post the links!

BTW, when they say the "strongest rider" will win the Tour, they don't mean the guy who squats the most. It's possible to have very strong legs and still have a low BMI. You just have to lift with that in mind. It's also possible, though not recommended, to bulk up with weight lifting and then ride it off by going calorie negative and riding a terrific amount. The fat will burn off before the muscle, but you also want to burn off as much muscle as possible while retaining the same watts/kg.

OldsCOOL

We could probably train together. I used to be a competing powerlifter.

In April I will leave the gym for the open road and return in September. This is my first winter of training heavy in a cycling offseason.

I've cut weight and trained heavy when going from 181 to 165 in order to harass the bench and total records. This is familiar territory. What is new is adding in 5-6mos of TT style riding. I have no aspirations of racing except by myself and perhaps a riding partner or two. Base miles are under 100 miles. Fast 20's and 30's are my zone.

McRussellPants

Lifting promotes bone density, wolfs law and what not. PT is trying to save her a broken bone if she falls.

Maximal strength training improves cycling economy in competitive c... - PubMed - NCBI

The intervention manifested significant (p < 0.05) improvements in 1RM (14.2%), RFD (16.7%), CE (4.8%), work efficiency (4.7%), and time to exhaustion at pre-intervention maximal aerobic power (17.2%). No changes were found in Vo2max or body weight. The control group exhibited an improvement in work efficiency (1.4%), but this improvement was significantly (p < 0.05) smaller than that in the intervention group.

Its kind of baffling to me that everyone thinks three months of lifting is gonna ruin their watts/lb by instantly putting on 40lbs of muscle. Not really how it works. also there are also rep/set schemes to get strength up without adding mass. Also baffling that nobody even wants to talk about phased training plans, obvi we're deep in January, come closer to season and you phase out the lifting for more intense efforts on the bike.

babbys first barbell set in here.

Carbonfiberboy 

Thank you for that link! Training methodologies seem to have become more targeted with experience. These studies are relatively new and new to me. That link provides links to the abstracts for other, similar studies. I found that by googling the study title I was able to find some PDFs of the full studies. The abstracts leave a little to be desired in terms of training information.

I note that body weight did not increase at least in the studies where it was measured.

I've been weight training for decades, but not exactly as was done in these studies. I'll head in that direction. Huh - half squats. I used to avoid squatting deep until my local gym rats convinced me to do otherwise.

I used to race Nordic 50 years ago, so I was watching Norwegian summer training videos. Those folks do a lot of high intensity explosive work. I used to do some of that just for fun, not knowing what I was doing. I see there's one study there that used a combination of sets of cycling sprints and 20 single leg jumps. That sounds like fun.

Actually most of us are very interested in results, however they are obtained! Show us studies with results and we're on it.

Voodoo76

If you keep volume down and mind your recovery I think there are benefits from subing a squat workout for a sprint workout even during the season. Again, think of it as a higher zone workout.

OldsCOOL, with your power lifting background I have a question regarding lifting. My old squat program was pretty simple. Objective was to build power, with the least volume I could get away/recover from. At the time I was training for Omnium type events on the track. Typical would be a warm up on bike, 1 to 2 warmup sets (4 to 6 reps) and a heavy 20 rep set ( I peaked at 345 for 20). Two sessions a week, 5 lb/session progression, if I could not complete would drop 40 lb & start over. I'm starting this back up, going to get back on the track for 60+ events ( in a little over a year), is there a more effective way to approach this?

achoo

Climbing performance is based on aerobic W/kg. Squats aren't going to help the aerobic W much if at all, and will drive up the kg. You say you're cutting fat to account for the added mass, but you could cut that fat and NOT add the mass...

But the added mass and resulting increased anaerobic strength can help. But not in the way you'd think. Leg strength is never the limiter in cycling outside of track standing starts - even in an all-out sprint when you're totally fresh, the force from your legs won't be anywhere near the force you generate in a 1-rep max. Where the extra strength is going to help is holding on to your sprint power 10, 20 or even 40-50 seconds into the sprint. And/or you'll be able to do sprint efforts more often.

Twice a week is probably a bit much. When I was competing as a powerlifter, I'd due legs hard only once a week. Of course, it was a 3-hour workout that left me literally unable to walk down stairs without holding onto a handrail or drive a stick-shift car for an hour or two after the workout....

How much rest are you getting between sets? You probably want to avoid the bodybuilder-type rest intervals use to stimulate muscle growth. I'll assume you're doing the powerlifter-type rest intervals - 3-5 minutes between sets. The bodybuilder-type rest intervals of 30 sec to a minute between sets will tend to add more mass. See here:

https://www.fmh.utl.pt/agon/cpfmh/doc...t_interval.pdf

And how many reps are you doing in your sets? Doing 3x3 isn't going to help cycling all that much. I'd say 15 or 20 reps is better.

Try this:

4x15, 10-second rest between sets

Literally. Finish a set, rack the weight, count to 10, and do another set.

First set? You'll be asking yourself, "What's so tough about this?" Don't worry, you will NOT be asking yourself that come the 8th rep of the 3rd set - if you get that far...

Oh yeah, first time you try that? Do it with a really, really light weight.

OldsCOOL

Your approach sounds good. As you already know, recouperation is the main concern. Keeping a good compromise/balance between volume and intensity will be challenge yet produce some benefits to track-style riding. The bike is your guage.

OldsCOOL

I'm continuing with my powerlifting routines for this winter. It came to a point where I just wanted to be and feel strong again. The fat is steadily melting off and poundages are coming up. Whether it helps me in cycling will be determined sometime in March/April. High rep squats wont be a part of my program. Typically, there will be a progressive warmup with single plates at 10reps, add 45's with 5reps, triples from there on up to the target weight for the day. The triples are probably one rep short of max and I do 4-5 sets with that weight. This is on Saturdays and my deadlifts will directly follow and use a similar approach. Form is crucial (competition form) in preventing injuries.

It was nearly 4yrs ago our small town gym closed and that's when I grabbed my Trek 460 and hit the fogline. Back then I could do a 350 bench, no spot, no bounce and at the end of my workout. There is a battling passion for both activities. At this point I would consider going back into competition moreso than a Cat 7.8 race.

I turned 57 this year.

Thanx for posting the workout! I like reading what others are doing and especially among riders.

Carbonfiberboy 

I don't quite get what you are saying here. Your link recommends 3-5 minute rests between sets for maximum strength and/or power gains. However your prescribed workout is rather the opposite. IME to translate gym gains to bike performance gains involves training the muscles to perform at high power with maximum lactate clearance. 4X15 with short rests is that sort of thing. Climbers do 3X30 with short rests because their goals are similar: low body weight and high maximum power for long periods.

This year I was planning on doing 3X12 for a while, then 4X10, then a 50-5-50 progression (2 exercises per session), then 3X30. I'm still in the 3X12 stage and thinking maybe I should change and head for 4X4 for the next stage.

Carbonfiberboy 

One thing I don't recall seeing discussed vis a vis gym work is energy production rate. My experience is that this is the slowest thing to train. Strength comes much quicker.

On the bike, one of the things we seek to maximize is kj/hour over long periods. This requires recruiting calories from various sources and converting them into energy which can be applied to the road. Similarly, in the gym we can lift a great 1RM, but what are we doing to do with that? My experience is that going for increasing tons moved per hour is the way to stimulate the energy systems which will translate gym weights to long-term power on the bike. Thus I always rest as little as possible between sets. If I'm doing sets of 30, I'll rest until my HR comes back down to 100, then go again. Heavy arm work is the slowest for me but rests of no more than 1 minute. Maybe arms for me because I've worked them the least over the years.

When I started lifting intensely 35 years ago, I'd periodically have to sit with my head between my knees or I'd pass out from the gap between energy use and production. I haven't felt like that for many years.

OldsCOOL

Short rests between squats and deadlifts will do that and in a big way. Of all the moves I do, the big three get a standard PL 4min rest or poundages wont be there. Yet, that extra rest can be right on par with the bodybuilding 1min rest due to the near total body involvement. Apart from the three, all others are minute or less to keep core intensity on line. Light days (the other two per week) are significantly reduced in volume and weights.

If your workouts move along without breaks you can put quite a positive and significant strain on general core strength. I started in '74. I am grateful for my condition and health, some of which could be due to weight training.

achoo

Rest intervals under 30 seconds build muscular endurance - which is directly applicable to cycling. Third paragraph of the introduction of the paper I posted. And high reps with short rest intervals promote serious capillarization - something powerlifter-style lifting doesn't.

What 4x15 with 10-sec rest intervals feels like: getting driven into a progressively deeper and deeper anaerobic pit that's utter hell to climb out of.