Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Just wondering how many of you out there incorporate weight training into your weekly schedules? Or does weights just get in the way of more riding?

If you do incorporate weights what kind of sessions do you do?

No weights.

If you're doing weights as part of a whole-of-body fitness thing, or for general health, go for it.

If you're doing weights to become a stronger bike rider, you're wasting your time. You're much better off riding more.

Yes I incorporate weights. Being over 50 I find it vital for maintaining muscle mass. Being in a sedentary job (IT/Accounting) some form of weight bearing exercise is also critical for maintaining bone density. I've just returned to it this week after not doing much for a year and I'm not in great shape.

If cycling is your sole form of vigorous exercise then you'll naturally suffer the consequences of working some parts of your body a lot and others little or not at all. This will eventually impact your riding adversely (eg back pain, scapula pain, knees...) not to mention other aspects of daily living.

So while it may not have a direct impact I view it as essential preventive maintenance to keep me balanced and functional.

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If doing weights keeps you injury free then they will make you a stronger bike rider... I expect finding someone who knows what you need to do personally to achieve this is the hard part!.

amongst the many cyclists I know, the strongest climber and fastest sprinter, is a roofer.
compared to office workers, he regularly lifts many heavy objects, up and down ladders.

more than half the strong riders I know are manual workers who lift heavy things regularly.

interested in da bro's comments.

I have always done weights since I was middlehigh school and have adequate equipment and space at home. I do it because I believe it is good for me in it's own right. Those who see me on the path attest that, appearance wise, I have more than the average amount of muscle regardless of age. A surplus of muscle and strength is useful at all ages.

Even a short heavy weights session will burn substantial calories. (The idea that it has to be high reps of low weights is held in less regard than it used to be.

There are risks if doing it wrong so understanding and experience is a necessity. It does require attention to detail, a strong commitment and much self control. Which many riders would have in spades.

Any benefit to your riding is a bonus. But iI suggest that most of us would be better off even leaving aside riding.

I did weight sessions when I raced, you just don't go over board.

If you don't have a strong upper body and core strength you are at a disadvantage,don't believe me? Try sprinting, standing starts or increasing speed quickly by just sitting up and not pulling back on your bars and try it on the trainer as well, see, you're not half as good with out the upper body strength as you thought you were. Enough said!

Foo

Thanks for all the replys. I have come from a pt back ground revolved around weight training but I am now in a physical labor job (concrete polishing) I have only recently become more serious in cycling after finishing up footy (afl) in the pas year. So I was interested to see how the cyclist on here viewed weights. It seems that its benificial in injury prevention and in some areas transfers to more ability on the bike but I am guessing there is a line where weight training is at a detriment to cycling and that's when there is too much excess muscle resulting in extra kg's to lug around.

I too do weights (er ...actually crossfit but dont tell anyone) for the same reasons. In addition I have found that the cross training (eg rowing running using lots of muscle groups) is beneficial for fitness overall. But my sole form of exercise was cycling for many years and it started to get stale. Never really a strong rider or climber but deadlifts are the biz!

On the % of 1RM* versus number of reps thing, I find going high weighs, low reps to the point of failure (the old-school strength and muscle hypertrophy approach) does too much damage and adversely impacts the next few on-the-bike training sessions more than I'm prepared to cop.

So I tend to go middle of the range %1RM to higher reps.

*1RM is the maximum you amount you can push/lift for one repetition - "1 rep max"

I have noticed the same trailgumby I have had leg sessions on a Wednesday the hampered my Sunday ride which is what got me thinking of changing my training plan!

I never did leg work sessions specifically, on as a off shot of doing other workouts.

My reasoning was you don't get into the position of a squat when riding but I would do some calf raises as that was closer to the action of pedalling when you push down for drive. This would not impact on your knees like doing squats.

Foo

winstonw wrote:amongst the many cyclists I know, the strongest climber and fastest sprinter, is a roofer.
compared to office workers, he regularly lifts many heavy objects, up and down ladders.

more than half the strong riders I know are manual workers who lift heavy things regularly.

interested in da bro's comments.

Ahh C'mon, you're makin' that stuff up! Roofers., builders and other tradies don't ride bikes - they play Footy and go fishin"! No way a builder is going to shave their legs and become a skinny, lycra wearin' Poof!

Chookman wrote:

winstonw wrote:amongst the many cyclists I know, the strongest climber and fastest sprinter, is a roofer.
compared to office workers, he regularly lifts many heavy objects, up and down ladders.

more than half the strong riders I know are manual workers who lift heavy things regularly.

interested in da bro's comments.

Ahh C'mon, you're makin' that stuff up! Roofers., builders and other tradies don't ride bikes - they play Footy and go fishin"! No way a builder is going to shave their legs and become a skinny, lycra wearin' Poof!

Yeah - wearing lycra would be a bit like cross dressing. I am sure that there are cross-dressing roofers, but they would keep it to themselves.

Chookman wrote:

winstonw wrote:amongst the many cyclists I know, the strongest climber and fastest sprinter, is a roofer.
compared to office workers, he regularly lifts many heavy objects, up and down ladders.
more than half the strong riders I know are manual workers who lift heavy things regularly.
interested in da bro's comments.

Ahh C'mon, you're makin' that stuff up! Roofers., builders and other tradies don't ride bikes - they play Footy and go fishin"! No way a builder is going to shave their legs and become a skinny, lycra wearin' Poof!

About 25% of the traffic on my commute to work is tradies.

I would check out Joe Friel's Training Bible for info on the weights. It's a lot more complicated than "just do it" if you are going to DO weights, rather than simply as an extra to your regime (you might like jogging occasionally or swimming or playing some indoor soccer too, but you don't TRAIN for them). Joe has specific guidelines about what your goals are in certain times of the season. Very very much worth considering the risks to your riding, because you should be doing a couple of sessions a week of cycling that are excruciating. Weights does slow that down (any kind of maximal effort will) if you aren't balancing that effort against your regime. I've found I just don't have the ability to incorporate weights into the mix because I'm not going to pay for a gym. When some pushups and swiss ball work does just as much as inconsistent weights training for free, I'll stick with that.

donncha wrote:No weights.

If you're doing weights as part of a whole-of-body fitness thing, or for general health, go for it.

If you're doing weights to become a stronger bike rider, you're wasting your time. You're much better off riding more.

But if your office has a free gym (and you have a personal trainer, albeit bodybuilding, not cycling although she does know a bit about cycling, at said gym) and you are time limited outside of work....?

Some friends who I was at least on par with last xmas have been doing serious training for a few months. They are in a different league to me now (literally and actually). They do 10+ hours a week of proper training + a turbo class, no or very limited junk miles etc. I just don't have the time for that (they have no offspring), except I have started going to the turbo class which appears to be making a difference after only three sessions. However, when I ride with them (or at turbo) it is not my cardio that goes first, but leg strength... I can say shut up legs all I want, but they don't listen. I discussed this with my PT and she is going to give me a leg program so hopefully that will help... I will report back in a month or two.

Then again I am not a born athlete, doubt I'll ever be racing A grade (or even B) and enjoy audax rides*, so tend to be more concerned with overall fitness and avoiding old/fat man troubles/diseases/illnesses than being able to ride very fast, so I guess the first sentence of the quote above applies more to me more than the later.

*Remember though that the difference between an audax ride and a sportive is that on a sportive you pretend to race and an audax ride you pretend not to

So limited time but access to a gym at work.

Forget weights then do high intensity sessions on the exercise bikes.

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simonn wrote:However, when I ride with them (or at turbo) it is not my cardio that goes first, but leg strength... I can say shut up legs all I want, but they don't listen. I discussed this with my PT and she is going to give me a leg program so hopefully that will help...

Wasting your time. It's not your leg "strength" that's going, it's your leg endurance.

Next time you get dropped, I bet you can get off your bike immediately and jump into the air. That will prove that your legs are MORE than strong enough!!

Your legs just aren't fit enough. Skip the weights. Ride your bike.


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who can be first to find a pic/vid of Anna Meares and Shane Perkins lifting weights!

I haven't been to the gym in years but I do body weight exercises at home 3 times a week. Most are just hangovers from my army days trying to still maintain an "A" standard for the old BFA test All are good for core strength which helps your cycling.

I usually do 60 push-ups, 20 heaves, 100 sit-ups, 3min planks and 50 torso raises. 1 set, that's it. It's seems to of helped. I don't have a gut, nor a girly upper body build from to much cycling and I can open all jar lids. What else could you want.

winstonw wrote:who can be first to find a pic/vid of Anna Meares and Shane Perkins lifting weights!

What's the point? Are you seriously arguing that the training program of two track sprinters (where explosive power is hugely important) is immediately relevant to someone getting dropped by his mates on a group ride (where endurance is hugely important)??

My argument isn't that weights will not improve your cycling at all.

My argument is that weights is not the best use of a rider's *limited* time.



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donncha wrote:

simonn wrote:However, when I ride with them (or at turbo) it is not my cardio that goes first, but leg strength... I can say shut up legs all I want, but they don't listen. I discussed this with my PT and she is going to give me a leg program so hopefully that will help...

Wasting your time. It's not your leg "strength" that's going, it's your leg endurance.

Next time you get dropped, I bet you can get off your bike immediately and jump into the air. That will prove that your legs are MORE than strong enough!!

Your legs just aren't fit enough. Skip the weights. Ride your bike.


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Not convinced it is just leg endurance. That's my thing (kinda). I regularly ride 200kms and 300-400km infrequently in a day. I'm talking about getting dropped on climbs on much shorter rides.

And, I just don't have the time to ride more, any more.

I think donncha would just say go and find some hills and do some repeats if that kind of challenge is getting you dropped. Yes you need horsepower but you will get more benefit from effective hill repeats. A mate has been doing repeats of a nasty climb - 2.5kms of 10-12% then 800m of 18-20%. He is building muscle no question lol
I think the weights question is more useful if you are doing 12 hours already on the bike and you are looking for something else. If you have that time, maybe weights will help. Perkins and Meares are a great example.

Simonn, if you do lots of long rides at endurance pace you get really good at long rides at endurance pace. Spending time in the gym humping weights won't improve much on the bike if you want to ride harder faster. That takes training at higher intensity on the bike.
Remember "It's an aerobic sport, dammit!" - Andy Coggan
Unless of course there is an issue physically that would benefit from time in the gym... and I expect nearly all of us have "issues" somewhere or other. Knowing what they are is probably the hard part, spotting them before they become real problems is probably even harder.
Reading that Cyclingtips post on climbing better got me thinking... not straight away I must admit, but I have come back to it. It talks of glutes turning off after injury and people using their quads too much that their glutes don't come back like they were. Thought I would do some tests today to see how strong my glutes really are. Yeah didn't go so well as the big bruise on my thigh and the whip lash I got yesterday from sliding 50 meters down the road has hobbled me a bit .