On bike strength training, get strong like Conan

*Big note, keep in mind that the training I’m doing is specific to my strengths and weaknesses, If I was able to ride 25-30MPH for a few miles, but had trouble finishing a century ride, then my training would be very different.  But I have no trouble with endurance, it’s my strength and speed, acceleration etc. that have always been my weak point. I spend 80% of my time working on my weakness and 20% of my time improving and maintaining my endurance.

Having strong legs in cycling is an asset no matter the naysayers might preach. Of course strength isn’t everything, but I believe it is one of the main raw ingredients to improvement in most sports including cycling. Being stronger means that you can convert this new found strength into endurance so that you can ride fast for longer periods of time. Yes spinning is important, but if you’d try to “spin” the kind of gears the pros are spinning you’d quickly find out in a matter of seconds, that there certainly is an element of strength involved when you try to ride or “spin” the same gears.

I’ve been training strength and muscular endurance over the whole winter and it’s really amazing what it’s doing for my riding. I’ve been at if for 6 months now, and I’ve seen my 1 mile TT test I do on the stationary bike jump from 330watts to 500watts average. My longer ~12minute TT test I’ve also seen improve by over 100watts as well. And that was only after Base1 cycle, now I’m in Base2 cycle and the ME muscular endurance phase, which is where I last saw the biggest jump in my times and power and expect to set some new PB this month. I can hold over 500watts for about 3/4 of the distance on my short TT test course, and I’m sure once I do 2-3 weeks of ME muscular endurance training, I’ll be able to finish the last 30 seconds of the course over 500watts. And I’m sure the longer 10 minute TT should see some improvement also hopefully.

I think it makes sense to do both weight lifting and on bike training to build cycling strength.  I think starting the offseason by emphasizing weights, and then as spring draws near doing more on bike strength training so that your new found strength is specific and translates to real improvement on the bike.

I split my offseason training into two periodization cycles, the first was more general, building raw leg strength in the gym, cardio endurance, core strength etc. My periodization plan has been roughly a 15 week cycle as follows

1. 1 x month of Hypertrophy
2. 1x week unloading/rest preparing for the start of the next 4 weeks of hard training
3. 1 x month of MS maximum strength training
4. 1x week unloading/rest preparing for the start of the next 4 weeks of hard training
5. 1x month of ME short/medium/long – Since road racing, requires not only endurance, but the ability to close gaps and sprint to the finish
6. 1x week rest again

Now I’m on the second strength cycle and I’m alternating between working strength in the gym and on the bike.  I still like doing to the gym once a week or every other week, because I find that I can work on my main weakness which is strength more effectively in the gym, but I can’t do it all in the gym because it’s not specific enough to rely on by itself, that’s where on bike strength training kicks in.

I’m also starting to build up my base miles more around this time as well, but I try to keep my long 2-3 hr rides at an easy or moderate pace so it doesn’t interfere with my hard key training days of the week, but I find it’s difficult to have an easy to moderate day around here, because I live in a hilly terrian, and I’m at least 25lbs overweight from my ideal weight.  Plus it’s hard to ride slow on the roads, with cars flying by you. I find it easier to go for an low intensity mountain bike ride instead, just drop it into the granny gear and spin away for hours.

Depending on which of the 3 periods I’m in, I’ll adjust how I do my on bike training sessions.

1. For Hypertrophy periods, I do on bike training by focusing on short efforts like short steep hill repeats, maybe for 1 minute or so and I try to keep the rest between short too, the idea is fatigue the muscle fibers and exhaust them, not necessarily push them as hard as possible. If I was in the gym, I’d be doing squats and leg presses aiming for 10-15 reps, with short 1 minute rests between sets. and doing enough sets to make sure the muscle is exhausted.
2. For MS maximum strength periods, I’ll do very steep but short hill repeats with a long break between sets so that I each hill repeat is maximum effort. I the idea is not to tire out the energy reserves in your muscles like Hypertrophy, but to stress out the muscle fibers ability to maintain maximum tension. I drop the bike down into a low gear to where I’m barely able to pedal up the short steep hill, I get in maybe 20-30 pedal revolutions. It’s almost like weight lifting on the bike, and I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before I snap another chain doing this lol. This is my first offseason training for cycling, so I’m just experimenting and trying different things. I still think that nothing beats weights to train strength, you’ll break your bike or hurt your knees or simply fall over if you really pushed hard enough I think ahhaa. The neat thing is that it’s gets so hard going up hills like this I start using my upper body and I get out of the saddle like I’m doing a sprint, pulling on the bars etc. I’m sure this is building core strength too, it looks really stupid, but I can’t image doing super hard hill repeats like this isn’t beneficial. If I was in the gym, I’d be doing really heavy squats and leg presses where I could only do the maximum 6 reps.  I’d take long breaks between sets, and possibly do a high number of sets.
3. For ME Muscular Endurance short/medium/long – I do more cycling specific training as I think you want to be much more careful about translating ME strength to the specific motion of cycling then with Maximum strength, you can only really train MS in the gym. You can train ME in the gym also, but I focus mostly on the stationary bike, and single leg exercises. I do some high rep squats, with some sets having 50 reps or more, but I do this mostly to build endurance in my back muscles,  and pre-fatigue my legs for the real torture that’s to come.  On the stationary bike, I’ll do a few hard 2 minute all out efforts, for ME short/medium, then I’ll also do 1-2x 10 minute TT efforts on the expresso bike, these are basically all out efforts. I’ve read that some coaches say on bike strength training should have your heart rate in zones 1-3, but I don’t know what they’re talking about, because when I’m donig high reps in the gym with a moderately heavy weight, my heart rate is high, same thing when I’m on the bike. Also I think ME should be trained at a high intensity, each repetition should be preformed explosively and fluidly and without stopping, you should not be executing this reps slow or pausing and taking breaks, even though it’s very tempting as this training is some of the hardest I’ve done, but also the most rewarding as it forges together in a hot fire the raw ingredients of raw strength and cardio endurance you’ve been building, into one synergistic effort that resembles the most demanding aspects of cycling, charging up hills, closing gaps, Time Trialing turning yourself inside out.  Also it only makes sense that your big leg muscles being worked to the max are gonig to send your heart rate flying, as your heart is a muscle too that feeds those legs. Keep in mind that one of the most significant improvements to cardiovascular endurance is increased heart stroke volume, and doing really hard efforts in ME can only help this, I’m sure that your LT/AT will also go up as well.