Back-to-back bike workouts and single-set strength training

Training
1

Guten Abend.

Has anyone tried doing single-set heavy weight training back-to-back after their bike workouts? How did that work for you?

Here’s the background: the back end of last year has been pretty exciting: we bought a house in September and got a baby in November. Even before we moved and the baby arrived, my training suffered - primarily from emotional stress and life changes related anxiety. My primary (training-related) problem now is that I can no longer do double-days with strength work and bike workouts. It’s just too much. Now, I tried switching to a low volume masters plan and organised my week like this:

Tue - off
Wed - bike hard
Thu - strength full body (15 work sets + core work)
Fri - off
Sat - bike hard
Sun - bike endurance
Mon - strength full body

This is me trying to be sensible - it didn’t feel good: a) I felt like my bike training didn’t progress b) I missed the stress release I get from riding (I like lifting, but it’s simply not the same). Also I’m gaining/retaining weight if I don’t change the amount of food I had consumed on a higher volume plan… Some of the weight visibly is muscle mass, but there is also some belly fat that wasn’t there before.

So, what I want to try now is doing single-set weight training in combination with a mid-volume training plan. My impression is that single-set training does not have a huge toll in terms of muscle soreness and fatigue on me (I’m not telling anyone to do this). The training effect is hard to gauge though. I looked for articles on single-set training, and they were promising in terms of the effects of single-set training on strength gain and muscle-growth. The problem is that these articles did not focus on athletes and certainly not on the back-to-back combination with bike workouts. Still, I think this is worth running a little trial on myself.
The plan now looks like:

Mon off
Tue bike hard + strength I (5-10 reps squats, 5-10 reps deadlift, twist with rotation)
Wed bike easy + strength II (dips and chin-ups to exhaustion (ridiculously low), standing twist)
Thu bike hard + strength I
Fri off
Sat bike hard + strength III (TRX push-ups, TRX row wide, cycle crunches)
Sun bike endurance

The heavy lifting, squats and deadlift, is done till proper form cannot be maintained (let’s call it failure). My trainer lives next to my squat cage - so no additional time is invested in going to the gym etc

I want to monitor the following:

  1. long term maintainability
  2. on-the-bike performance
  3. will I effectively stop lifting altogether when I do “very hard” and “all out” workouts and have to skip strength training? (I’m only in base now)
  4. will it be possible to maintain the current level of strength?
  5. (how) will my motivation to train change?
  6. body composition

If any of you have tried something similar, I’d be interested to hear what your experiences have been.

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I’d be interested in this too, as my strength sessions have fallen off the weekly calendar since I got injured at Christmas.

First thought is that a single set of a strength exercise wouldn’t be enough. How long does the strength set take, almost feels like it’s 5-10mins max if you go a couple of types of exercise and to me that just doesn’t seem enough to cause adaptation - or especially after the first week or two.

I’d be looking to periodise your calendar and prioritise riding for a period of weeks (or months) and then prioritise strength for a period. And if that doesn’t do it for you mentally, then you have to work out whats most important. Something might have to give :slight_smile:

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FWIW i did the Jeff nippard 3x week minimalist program this fall. It has very low set counts, mostly one set and sometimes with a drop set.
Compared to my previous experiences with lifting, I was pleasantly surprised by how little doms I felt.
I’m saw progress in the weights, and felt I was able to balance it with my riding (Hv plan)

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4

Yes, that sounds about right. I wouldn’t expect much in terms of improvement (adaptation) either, but the question is if and for how long this might be sufficient to maintain strength. I did a strength block in December prior to shifting towards bike training in January.

Anyway, I think this might be a better approach than having only one longer strength session per week. On Tuesday, I did 6 squats after Coy and on Thursday 8 after Geiger (same weight). I’ll simply have to see if I can maintain weight and reps.

6

So you don’t think the aerobic cycling exercise will mute the adaptions or maintenance the strength reps are trying to achieve? I know theres so much stuff on strength sessions and aerobic cycling sessions opposing each other so far as the adaptations they’re trying to achieve, which is why I try to keep strength and cycling separate by at least a few hours.

What’s your baseline strength like? When I do no strength work during summer, I can still go back to it in winter and hit the kind of numbers that that Trainerroad article on benchmarks for the different riders types proposes. When I get into strength I do like doing it, but I don’t think my riding actually suffers when I don’t.

Is there a reason you’re trying to keep strength in your training? What’s the overall goal?

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How so? I only do body weight exercises for the upper body - that’s more stability training than anything else and I don’t see that interfere with my bike training.

General health and well-being I’d say.

8

People saying to Make sure you get your cycling in before weights are really rolling the dice in my opinion - what you said is true about trying to lift on a tired body and increased risk of injury

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11

You might consider doing super slow to failure single set type work as outlined in Body By Science by Dr. Doug McGuff. Its more suited to machines than free weights, but seems to be effective in terms of stressing the muscles, with minimal time investment.

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12

This is what I have found too. Two hard bike workouts, one heavy leg day and one “pump” leg day are the max I can get away with.

With three hard biking days, you probably don’t also need two heavy lifting days. Why not run an upper/lower/upper split for the lifting and instead of taking two days off from training entirely per week, take just one day off entirely? For days you do both the bike and the strength work, I’d pair upper body work with the hard biking days and lower body work with an endurance biking day.

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I’d like to thank everyone for their answers. You’re right and while I think I could pull the training-lift brick off recovery-wise, it’s probably got limited merits in terms of fitness gains and the injury risk is not worth it. So, I’ll go back to what I found disappointing in terms of training progress and will accept that at the moment double-days simply aren’t possible.

Mon off
Tue bike hard
Wed bike easy
Thu bike hard
Fri off
Sat full strength session (+ bike easy later the day if time permits)
Sun soul ride: moderate mountain bike, long endurance, café ride…

Perhaps, I’ll throw in some core and stability stuff during the week, but I’ll make that decision on a day-to-day basis.

Thanks again :smiley:

14

Here’s an article related to the topic of this thread, in case anyone is still reading:

Behm et al 2024: Minimalist Training: Is Lower Dosage or Intensity Resistance Training Effective to Improve Physical Fitness? A Narrative Review
Sports Medicine (2024) 54:289–302

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Are you doing heavy squat or deadlift on Saturdays? I tried to do endurace rides after these heavy days and felt really wrecked

17

Yes. For me, it depends on the number of reps. If I do up to about 5 per set, it works. However, I’ve done double days for years. Strength in the morning and bike in the evening.

18

This is probably a big deal. We unfortunately don’t have that in common :sweat_smile:

19

@talltill did you persist with your thoughts on single set strength exercises in the same session as the bike? Did it achieve what you wanted… Good maintenance or even an improvement??

I’m trying to get back to doing my strength sessions having let them slide a little over summer, and slightly differently was wondering if just 10-15 mins per day, but 5 or 6 days out of 7 rather than 2 or 3 days of 45mins/1 hour would work.

If I can use the squat rack for 15mins before working (from home), is this any different to people who perhaps do a stretch routine or 20press ups when they get up??

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15mins air squats or powerlifting 200% of body weight?

21

Not entirely sure on the terminology, so far as air squats, I mean squats using some kind of heavy weight like the barbell on my squat rack. And clearly not a continuous 15mins of up and down but a number of sets between 5-10 reps and an appropriate recovery in between. Or a number of different exercises, 1 set of each, and however many takes up 15 mins of time including recovery.

I’d probably manage something like 4 sets of 8 reps (of something whether that’s squats, deadlifts, glute bridges etc) with 3 mins recovery between each set.

So 15mins, filled with heavy lifts, consecutive days rather than an hour with perhaps 48hrs recovery before the next lifting session.

22

The point I’m drawing out is that the answer to your question is in how hard these sessions are.

Air squats (no weights) or very light barbell work is just going to active and wake you up like your “20 press-ups every morning” example.

If you are squatting to failure then that’s a hard session that will impact your next workout so you might recover the rest of the day.

You need to think about what you’re trying to achieve with these sessions, what your over all goal is and what your other workouts will be to decide a course of action.

…or just do it and see what happens.

23

So my initial thoughts were to split my 1 hour session. Which is heavy weights, 5-8 reps with enough in the tank to do 1 or 2 more. Never to failure, but not just the equivalent of a light warm up. It takes me 15 mins to do 1 of my super set pairs of exercises (3 or 4 full sets), and I do perhaps 4 super sets of different pairs of exercises in an hour, why can’t I just split them into 4 x 15min sessions and cycle through them day after day.

Especially if one super set covers push, one covers pull, one hinge, one core. I’m not battering the same muscles in the same way if I do them in a single hour as opposed to doing them across 4 separate days.

Re. Press ups - someone who can’t do 20 press ups, then 20 press ups might well be a tough ask. And it might give some improvement over time, and you change it up, like you would any other exercise.

24

Hi,

I actually changed my routine again at some point as I thought I could find something more effective.

I’ve now been doing 2 exercises 6 times a week 3x5 reps, 2 reps in reserve.

Mon off
Tue split squats, hamstring curls
Wed pull ups, dumbbell shoulder press
Thu side plank with rotation, forearm plank (3x1‘ each side / exercise)
Fri bench press, chest supported barbell row
Sat Romanian deadlifts, hyperextension with rotation (3x1‘)
Sun twists, dead bugs

I‘ve gained ca 5-7kg of muscle this way. The next step may be going down to 3 by 3 sets with one rep in reserve to stabilize weight, but I’m a bit afraid of the higher risk of injury with the smaller margin of error (reps in reserve).

This is not training advice for anyone but a report of my experiences.