Would it perhaps make more sense to look at typical numbers pro cyclists are hitting in the off season for the various disciplines, and then kind of break things down into strength categories on %'s of that? Like people striving to be x% of the pros at various milestones, based on their ambition level. I’m not sure how many pros post their accurate lifting personal bests online - it would be very interesting to see!
How useful are push ups or bench presses in real life though? You certainly need squats and deadlifts. And perhaps rows and rarely overhead presses. But I don’t see any use for the bench press. I’ve done strength training with a coach for 3 years (while cycling or running) and I’ve done the bench press only a couple of times to learn the movement. However, I can see it might be useful when presenting yourself as a “real” male 
Pushups are better than bench IMO for people looking for general strength and conditioning, vs building bulk for a specific reason.
Pushups also engage the core, and are critical IMO for MTB - in particular long downhills.
I played rugby for years and bench press was important for that. But I don’t do bench anymore since I retired, and just do pushups.
I’d recommend push-ups to anyone as part of a balanced strength program. And there’s well documented evidence that strength training increased bone density. That’s important for everyone IMO. Including cyclists for when they crash 
4 Likes
This.
3 Likes
I just crashed yesterday (nothing I could do, sprinting child hidden behind a wall straight into my bike). It is a second bad crash in a year and luckily I ended up with only a road rash again (although last time it took a couple of months to heal). I attribute that to strength training for sure!
However, as a I do only road cycling I don’t see much use for press strength. Moreover, there is a significant barrier of entry for push ups (it is not easily scalable) and being that weak as I am I would have to start with bench press. Not interested though. But I recognize it might be useful on trails!
From the article:
All of these benchmarks are aimed solely at endurance athletes concerned with enhancing their endurance capabilities, improving their basic quality of movement in day-to-day life, decreasing their likelihood on crash-related injuries, and decreasing their odds of bone mass loss and related diseases as well as decreasing the rate of muscle loss that takes place with aging and/or disuse–these standards won’t stand up when leveled at dedicated strength athletes.
These benchmarks are simply enough to be considered strong enough to compete in those given cycling disciplines. It is not aimed at being a strong “athlete” but rather a strong enough “endurance athlete”. Obviously, 5x40% bench press isn’t going to be enough for a football player or even be considered a strong human by almost anyone.
I’ve listened to many interviews with professional and world tour cyclists who say that many of their teammates would struggle to do more than a single push up. But they are among the best in the world at their sport.
If your goal is to be as good of a cyclist as you can be AND be as healthy and strong as you can be then you should definitely not see the level one (or even many of the level 2 benchmarks) as a stopping point. It’s just to say that you are ‘good enough’ to compete.
1 Like
Not true! You can definitely scale push ups by doing them on your knees or by raising your hands up and doing incline push ups. Depending on how weak you are you may start with your hands on a wall, then move them down to a bench or the back of a couch, then keep lowering your hands until they’re on the ground. You can use a staircase, railing, park bench, etc. Though starting out with bench press won’t hurt your strength, it won’t translate 1-1 with push-ups so if you want to get better at push-ups then I would definitely throw some incline ones into the mix.
1 Like
I concede, I was exaggerating slightly. But I would have to start with wall push ups for sure if I were to do it with proper form. Proper shoulder stability is important and hard to check by yourself.
1 Like
Agreed. It’s very important. If you do start training for push-ups then I’ll suggest doing some sort of band pull aparts or face pulls to hit your upper back and help with that shoulder stability.
And if you need to wall push-ups are great. If anything, you get the opportunity to experience beginner gains all over again!
1 Like
I do this everyday to combat poor posture working at a computer. Stand up once an hour a do a quick set of band pull apart to open up the chest and encourage better posture. Those exercises also help with supporting upper body on long rides.
2 Likes
Yeah that and some chest stretches can really help your posture and even fix a lot of shoulder discomfort that comes from sitting at a computer.
Yup.
Well said and I agree. At the end of the day I’m feeling like the Level 1 benchmarks are a bit too participation medal-ly feeling for me. I guess I respect the fact that Coggan lists you as untrained for what can be a real hurdle for some cyclists to overcome.
The article suggests that, “To be a faster cyclist, you need to be a strong cyclist.” I’m just not seeing these numbers as sufficiently strong for any athlete endurance or otherwise and perhaps that’s why so many minor road race crashes turn into major injuries if there are literally road cyclists that can’t do a single pushup.
Chad says suffer rhymes with tougher and you have to get tougher to see improvements. I’m not advocating we all post our PB bench press to prove our alpha male abilities, but to me the level 1 benchmarks don’t align with the “coach speak” we hear on the podcast.
I appreciate the commentary and I feel that for the most part there is a similar sentiment amongst other posters but I did not expect everyone to agree 
Thank you for the input.
1 Like
Yeah I agree. There are certain phrases in the article that seem to clash with eachother.
But the gist that I got from listening to them on the podcasts is that these guidelines are “if you meet these targets then your strength will not hold you back from competing”. That doesn’t mean that these should be your ultimate goal and then you stop or that exceeding them will make you slower or even that you will be a sufficiently strong human by meeting them. But rather these should be seen as more of a minimum benchmark than an optimum level of strength.
I know they did this for simplicity’s sake but there should definitely be more than 3 levels. Rolling road racers do not have to be nearly as strong as cross country mountain bikes. That’s another discussion but I think that may also cause some confusion.
1 Like
8 Likes
That really doesn’t look healthy 
Ha ha, but would you do it for the yellow jersey?
1 Like
5 Likes
Theres an awful lot in this thread and its all good info, just hard to disseminate. I’m looking for the simplest, no background in weights/gym required advice on what exercises i should start with to add strength to my week. I have an FTP around 3.6 and have a long history cycling (and avoiding gyms). I feel like my pedal force and core strength are limiters to my improvement.
I’ve started copying chad’s youtube exercises as best I can. i can’t complete the spiderman pushups yet so sticking with normal pushups and trying for 3x7 of them each workout day (low volume sustained power build at the moment). I’m then adding 3x7 pistol squats though i have poor control and sticking quite high to ensure good form. Then 3x7 side planks with the arm motion he does, though no weight to start. Finally the planks with the weights, i’m trying them but i can only do about 3 each side with my 5kg weights. I don’t have any equipment at home for deadlifts.
Is that a reasonable place to start? Should i just keep this up until i have solid form, then start to worry about other weight work?
Thanks
Jamie