Just listened to the Roadman podcast with Cavendish’s coach. He said Mark doesn’t do any strength training for the past 3 years other than some core work. Found that pretty interesting.
Did Nate say we can add strength workouts in TrainerRoad? How do we do that, or is an upcoming feature?
Back in July 
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Interesting pod, I love how the subject progressed from high level into specifics.
Is there any good research and comparison between abbreviated strength training forms versus traditional gym workouts? I’m thinking specifically of something such as the ”simple and sinister” dumbbell program (which is quite high intensity, when comparing against the podcast around 6:15). Many of these programs can be done from home versus visiting a fully equipped gym with free weights and machines.
The latter obviously offers almost endless opportunities for movement but at what point does the former, abbreviated kind, stagnate leading to diminishing returns? Let’s not compete against ”doing nothing” but rather between the two alternatives. The abbreviated forms obviously offer lesser options for progressive overload versus adding say 0.25kg weekly to a bar.
As a time crunched father I’m all about efficiency, IYKYK 
Mark is on another level physically. He was laser-focused on a specific goal and he didn’t need strength training other than core work to achieve it.
I’m on another level physically myself (a low level)- old and below average. So 1-2 days of strength training for me works wonders to keep the “old man” at bay.
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A few ideas to get more out of the dumbbells for the squats.
- slow negatives
- iso hold at the bottom
- combine both of the above
- wear a weight vest or a backpack with weight inside
- add bands or chains to the dumbbells (creative thinking required)
great ideas. I’ll try and work those in.
If you are limited to dumbbells and want to work legs, rather than squats or lunges, do Bulgarian split squats. All you need is a stool, coffee table, step, box, etc. to elevate your rear leg and you will get significantly more out of the exercise. Plenty of YouTube vids on how to perform a BSS.
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With dumbbells, stiff leg deadlift (with focus on hamstrings), split stance deadlift, single leg RDL’s, and lunges are also all great leg exercises.
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I’m especially unclear as to why going to failure ia not only desirable but superior to the opposite.
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I would love if they were to get legendary strength coach Dan John on the podcast. He has experience coaching a whole variety of athletes- be they endurance athletes or more those with a focus on speed/power. I think his patient approach to answering questions about training (on his own podcast) would jibe with @Jonathan
I like your thinking
Get to the chopper
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To be clear I look at it like other topics: they often have PhDs, pros, and specialists on for other topics like nutrition, hydration, aerodynamics, and so on. Having someone involved in strength research and coaching doesn’t seem any different.
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First, I want your gym!
More important, thanks for suggesting this podcast. I’m just over halfway through episode 2 (it’s 5 hours long) and it’s incredible! “Optimal protocols to build strength and grow muscles”. Probably the single best discussion I’ve heard on this topic. I’ve been taking notes and going back to try and fully understand the basic information because there is a lot of it. But it’s explained in an easy to follow way, even for someone with no background in physiology.
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Glad the suggestion gained some traction! I learned a LOT and the videos, and it also reinforced and expanded upon several things I had believed to be true. Fortunately I didn’t find too much I seemed to be doing that was vastly in the wrong direction lol.
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Want to also say how great those Dr Galpin episodes are. In episode 3 right now and they are awesome.
I know Dan John was suggested for a podcast guest but I think Dr Galpin would be much better. While I love Dan John, cycling is not his thing. He also doesn’t get into the science of it, which I don’t mind at all but Dr. Galpin would be a better fit Ask a Cycling Coach’s research based approach.
Interestingly, Dr. Galpin backs up Nate’s suggestion that you need to go close to failure. One aspect of Nate’s suggestions that still seems off (or is missing details) to me though, is the question of recovery when going almost to failure during hypertrophy type training and still doing cycling workouts. Maybe I’m remembering wrong but I’m not sure how well this was addressed. I’m sure I’d have a lot of trouble doing hypotrophy properly and still doing quality rides as my legs would be fried. I think the better call would be to focus more on strength/ power in weight room with lower reps/higher weight most of the time. Easier to recover from.
If focussing on hypertrophy, which is a good idea especially for older athletes, I’d think it would need to be for a small portion of the season for cyclists. Say during base. Or maybe even before base and that block is lower volume Z2 stuff with a few <1 min intervals thrown in? Then back to strength/power weight work while doing more intense cycling workouts and/or volume? I have not heard or read of this specifically being addressed though so I’m just guessing.
Please correct me though if Nate addressed in the podcast and I missed it.
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This deserves being said again. Andy Galpin is one of THE experts on this area. Start with the Huberman series (really, it’s worth it), and then you can get into some of his detailed explanations and content here:
Huberman Lab Podcasts, Start here, this episode pre-dated the full guest series:
Then, the full detailed series.
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Listened the pod and…it was sorta tough pill to swallow 
I mean numerous podcasts and somehow overall high performance main philosophy for TR in my eye for months and years, talking aerodynamics and exact kj’s and different sugar ratios and tiniest pieces of optimisation we can imagine and know.
And now suddenly talking how with weight training you feel more confident and look better and it’s easier to pick up/grab your kid for example. Wait…what?
So hovering to the fitness direction really. And sounded like ‘get big’ and ‘bigger muscle is stronger’. What it is: Up to a point. Up to a point, if you for example need to carry ‘all the stuff with you’, meaning all your good looking nicely formed muscles and whatever bike you grabbed with you, on your way out.
Because if it’s high performance, then modern thinking is small muscles with maximised strength output. Meaning maximised neuromuscular power with decent needed muscle mass. Optimal modern endurance cycling athlete is short to semi long skinny one, because better temperature regulation surface ratio, than big muscles in a same frame. Better energy exchange conduction distance from blood vessels to muscle cells, better heat removal transportation. Remember, if you’re going 300w, you put 900w heat load in your body at the same time if your efficiency is 25% (in cycling it typically is 23-25%). So this temperature regulation is actually very big thing.
There was a talk in podcast that not everyone wanna win the Tour or something like that. True. But if and as the audience and customers in TR is very big group already, should there big clear segmentation, tagging: For beginner, recreational, fitness, racing, top performance in these podcasts for example? Can’t be too general, we’re specialized these days (actually I prefer giant…)
Weight training goals and needs are just so individual and case by case scenarios. I understand perfectly well needs and reality for beginner and fitness athletes, they are very different thing. You may be talking first and foremost how to arrange your liferythm to be able to train like 4 days a week continuously for year/years. No straps needed right away.
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Look up the Mike Menzter HIIT/1 set protocol. I’ve been using it for a year and it is surprisingly effective. 1 set workouts (that is, 1, all out set to failure (aiming for 6-10 rep range) per compound lift). So maybe 2, 1 sets to failure per workout, then 4 days rest and then hit another body part(s).
Skip chapter 2, 48:50 minutes in. Listen at least 20 minutes but the whole chapter (45 minutes) is very interesting. Strong argument. Think of it like a podcast episode.
Does research (particularly for strength and performance) also back their suggestions?
And have they considered the side-effects on recovery (and performance) which IMO would be a key factor in choosing a methodology when lifting as a complement to cycling vs stand-alone?
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