Debusama

I spent my high school years rock climbing, snowboarding and mountain biking, which led to a lot of falls and minor injuries that I never got any medical attention for because they apparently healed on their own. I have also always lifted weights at least a few times/week just out of habit because my parents did and I had just kind of accepted it as part of bodily maintenance (like brushing your teeth). Last year, I quit lifting a few months before and during race season because after lifting it takes a day or so to fully recover, and I felt that the time I spent with fatigued muscles from lifting weights was taking away from my on-bike training.

Anyway, after a month or so of not lifting, I felt like every old injury I ever had came back to haunt me. My shoulders popped out of joint from time to time and ached for days afterward, and I developed some tics in my right knee and hip (I can remember the falls that caused those injuries). It seems that those injuries back in the day weren’t actually healing completely, but I had essentially become my own physical therapist and was using muscles to compensate for damaged soft tissues that are no longer holding my Joints together properly. I started lifting again and a few months later, all the aches and pains were gone.

This year, I’m following a plan that actually called for me to have stopped lifting a few weeks ago, so it is no longer built into my schedule and I’m noticing once again that my workouts are suffering. I always make sure to lift after my bike workout, but I noticed that even my workouts the following day are suffering. On Wednesday night, for example, I lifted weights after my on-bike workout, but I noticed that during my Thursday AT interval workout, my muscles still weren’t recovered enough to push my heart rate up to the levels I normally do during similar workouts. So, to clarify, my intent is not to start another debate about whether or not a bike racer should lift; I have already made that decision. For those who do lift through race season, how do you schedule your lifting such that it doesn’t interfere with your bike training?

rkwaki

Let Jumbo (i.e. ole rkwaki) think about how to answer this question properly and get back to you...

Debusama

Yes, I thought I might hear from you since you seem to be the resident weight lifter/bike racer.

rkwaki

To put it in perspective a couple years ago I squatted 605 one day and raced two days later.
I anticipate that there may be some dietary deficiencies that may come out. As I sit and think about this I need a liittle bit of info (you can PM me if you like):
Age:
Height:
Weight:
Racing Cat:
Years Riding:
Hours/miles/days on the bike a week:
Approx BF level:
Do you track diet?
Weight Training Program - do you lift heavy, light, high rep, low rep, whatever.

Once I have a snapshot (to be kept confidential) it makes a response much easier as I can relay it in general terms.

Debusama

Age: 32
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 160-170 (currently 166)
Racing Cat: 4
Years Riding: Riding of some sort since I was a teenager (started on mountain bike), this will be my third season of road racing
Hours/miles/days on the bike a week: three 1-1.5 hour rides (AT intervals/ LT intervals/ sprint drills), two 2-3 hour rides (one easy pace ride, one climbing ride), and one long ride at fairly high intensity with teammates (3-5 hours). I did everything is hours because right now about half of my training is indoors due to weather.
Approx BF level: I had it tested at 8.5% before I started racing, I suspect it's a bit lower now
Do you track diet? I'm always mindful of what I'm eating, but rarely write things down.
Weight Training Program - do you lift heavy, light, high rep, low rep, whatever. My workouts are usually a warm-up with a set of 12-15 reps of an Olympic-style lift (snatches-cleans-clean&jerk) at fairly light weight for a full body warm-up, then some core work (usually a variety of planks), a big lift (Squats, Dead-lifts and variations of them), an upper-body push (overhead press, bench press, weighted dips), and an upper-body pull (Weighted -pull-ups and various rows). I generally only use free-weights and, depending on the intended workout, do sets of 5-12 so the last rep is very difficult, but rarely to failure. Usually 2 sets per lift twice a week when I'm training and/or racing. Every other day and 3 or 4 sets in the off season.

rkwaki

Some quick comments/observations/jumping to conclusions:
1. For a relatively 'new' rider you are training on the bike 6 days a week and between 10-15.5 hours with 4 days of intensity. This doesn't include any off bike work that you are doing (i.e. weights). This load early on in your 'career' is a lot.
2. You are mindful of what you eat but I can assure you that if you were to analyze your diet that there is a big protein hole. As we all know this is so important not only for a cyclist but also for a weightlifter, as you are doing both it is even more important. You should be shooting for 180 grams a day, I would hazard a guess you might hit 95-100.
3. Your weight work is hitting your entire body and being under-nourished therefore you are wearing your muscles down and not giving them the fuel they need for recovery.
4. You are lean and owing to this your body doesn't have a 'store' to go to for added energy, this means that it must come from your nutrition.

If I were to make some suggestions this is what I would say:
1. Track your diet and shoot for the higher protein intake
2. Shoot for a gallon of water a day
3. Follow the on bike schedule I posted a while back
4. When doing any weight specific training focus on two bodyparts chest/triceps, back/biceps, shoulders/hamstrings, quads/core. Try to do the weight work in the morning. Your rep range of 5-12 indicates a moderately heavy focus, you may need to dial that back a little and go in the 12-15 range. 5-12 tells me you are trying to grow and I do not think that is your goal. Try and stay away from the big lifts (i.e your Olympic lifts) as they wear you out.
5. Make sure you up your sleep to allow your body to recover, you recover while sleeping not while you are awake.
6. Depending on race schedule I would look at doing my weight work 2-3 times a week. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday with Friday completely off anything (bike, weights)

Most importantly clearly define your goals, is it to get stronger, leaner, bigger, or to maintain you muscles and protect your old injuries. Once you lay that out it is much easier to develop workouts.

HMF

If you have an iPhone (or Android?) then the app myfitnesspal is really awesome for easy tracking. After reading what rkwaki said I went into the summary for this week to take a look at my protein intake. It only accounts for 12% of my diet Carbs were 61%, Fat was 27%. Fat and protein should be flipped, in my case.

Enthalpic

I generally support increasing protein intake but 180g protein for a 166lb person is overkill. Muscle protein synthesis rates max out at ~1.6g/kg/day in strength athletes.

Racer Ex 

I'd schedule one lifting day at the end of your workout before the day off, the other the after you workout before your easy pace ride day.

Debusama

If 180g/day is necessarily, then I'm sure there is a whole. Generally, I make sure to have a good-sized serving of protein with each meal. Typically a few eggs with breakfast, and a big hunk of some kind of meat with lunch and dinner. I get some protein mixed into my dairy and grains, but I'm sure it doesn't add up to 180g/day. Maybe I'll have to start having some hard-boiled eggs and/or Jerky as snacks throughout the day. My goal for the lifting is mostly just holding my joints together. I'm not sure exactly what it was about my workouts that was helping with that, so I just do what I was doing before. I kind of presumed that it was the stabilizers that were getting worked during the big compound lifts that were doing the most good. Perhaps I could instead do things like single-leg body-weight squats or lighter weights on unstable surfaces in order to recruit more stabilizers without wearing out the large muscle groups?

Also, although we do have a weekly crit series in my area, they usually don't have large enough fields to count for much in terms of upgrade points. If I am to make CAT 3, which is my goal, I'll have to be able to get on the podium in the longer road races with quite a bit of climbing that are available in my area. Getting big is definitely not my goal. In fact, I wouldn't mind losing a little weight.

rkwaki

Good point enthalpic but that puts him at 120 grams per day. That would put me under 200 a day. I can feel the difference in recovery when I hit my goal of 220 a day, just seem to sleep and recover better.

Enthalpic

If you were recommending within ~10% of the optimized value (220g versus 200g) I wouldn't have said anything as that is probably within the 95% confidence interval and therefore could still be of some value in a small number of subjects. However, saying he needs 50% more than what the literature reports as the maximal beneficial intake is no longer reasonable. Some very smart folks research this stuff both from lean mass and strength perspectives as many medical conditions involve wasting or weakness and knowing how to prehab or rehab them optimally is important, not to mention all the work done on athletes.

Lastly 120g of protein is not a trivial amount, it takes some effort to hit that target. If you consume 20g every 3 hours during the day that's 120g. Any more than 20g in a single feed is likely to be deaminated for energy instead of using the amino acids to construct new proteins; other macronutrients could provide that energy. I propose that your increased recovery from higher food intake stems from the calories and other nutrients in the food, not the additional protein.

rkwaki

Good points enthalpic. Not to argue with science and research as much of what I write is based on experience. My highest protein consumption has been between 350-400 grams a day and I grew like a weed, sure I probably waste some and was pretty stinky but I accomplished my goals. To deb, shoot for 120, see how your recovery is and adjust accordingly. I'll shoot you some workouts when I get to my office on Monday.

Debusama

OK, so I wrote down everything I ate yesterday, which was fairly typical of my eating habits. Since I don’t do a whole lot of eating of packaged foods that have convenient nutritional data on the package, it took quite a bit of Googling to get some rough protein estimates.
Breakfast- 2 eggs (14g), ½ cup of raw rolled oats (6g)
Pre-ride- 1 orange (2g)
During ride- 16oz Gatorade, Granola bar (3g)
Post ride- 1 cup 2% milk (8g), banana (2g)
Lunch-Leftover chicken stir fry W/ brown rice: Chicken thigh (8g) green beans (1g), Onion (1g), red bell pepper (negligible) 1 cup brown rice (5g)
Snack- Tuna salad: tuna (10g), cabbage (1g)
Dinner- Okonomiyaki (made by my wife): batter (3g), cabbage (1g), Scallops (6g), shrimp (8g), fish flakes (2g), carrots (1g), green onions (0g)
Sometime between dinner and bed- 1 cup 2%milk (8g).
That’s a grand total of 90g of protein on the day. While I don’t see myself looking up the protein content of all the ingredients of my food every day, I can recognize that I would probably benefit from increased portion sizes of meat/seafood/eggs and possibly some more protein-rich snacks throughout the day to get up to 120-ish grams/day.

thplmn72

I been lifting heavy for years on and off. I have always read in the mags 1 gram protien for each pound body weight ie: 166lb = 166 grams protien intake that's been info I know for last 25 years.

tombailey

Are you lifting just for the "healing" benefit you describe? Or is there another reason for wanting to lift heavy (don't care what it is - just if there's something beyond it's what you've found helps with the aches and pains)?

Debusama

That's mostly it, I lifted before when I wasn't having joint issues, so I'm going back to it. The only part that is new is the Olympic lifts... hoping the explosive movements might help with my jump.

rkwaki

I'll send you a workout that will help you with your jump. There are many on here that LOVE IT

tombailey

OK. So if you're not lifting for size or strength then I can't help thinking that doing heavy lifting (heavy enough that it impacts your bike training the next day) is unnecessary. Wouldn't you be better with stabilization or recruitment type work? Or even yoga? Just to be clear - if you want to lift heavy for vanity or any other reason then obviously carry on. It just seems like if corrective-type exercise is the desire then heavy lifting isn't the optimal way of going about it.