Hi all, I’ve spent a lot of time in the past creating complicated workout routines, and what eventually happens is I slip for a while due to a busy cyling or non cycling calender, or I end up doing most my core/strength work in the form of construction/trail building, then instantly forget, and cant get back into my old system.
What do folks find is the easiest way to compile a list or a circuit of the best basics that compliment time on the trainer well. I am not going to a gym (live in a rural place) but, have a good basement setup with a TRX, and a full range of dumbbells.
Is there an app that you can combine a bunch of workouts based on the equipment you have? I find that general videos are tricky, since they are so based on the equipment, IE a TRX workout, only uses the TRX, and skips things that would make more sense without it.
I’ve gone pretty old school and have my workout written down, admittedly not super old school as it’s on Google Keep but nothing higher tech.
I update it as things get easy/hard or if an off day but it’s the basis for most strength things. Might not be the best plan but it’s easy enough to follow.
You could check out Dialed Health - subscription based website and app. They have loads of workouts/routines tailored to cyclists and based around a variety of equipment.
Otherwise, you can try to create your own workouts. No need for complexity, especially if your strength work goals are secondary to your bike fitness.
What’s worked very well for me over the years is to organize workouts around two basic principles–basic movements and unilateral/bilateral, and then pick specific exercises/sets/reps based on equipment/time/goals/phase.
Movements–knee dominant (squats in all variations), hip dominant (deadlifts in all variations), vertical push, vertical pull, horizontal push, horizontal pull, core, rotational core, and then rotate between unilateral/bilateral. One advantage of the unilateral exercises is they also hit the core in useful ways.
So, for example, for twice a week whole body, with a TRX and dumbbells, something like
Day 1: Goblet squat, single leg Romanian deadlift, pullups, single arm shoulder press, TRX pushups, renegade rows, TRX supermans with one arm at a time for combined “straight” and rotational core
Day 2: Deadlift, rear-foot elevated split squat, pullups (hard to find a unilateral equivalent if you don’t have a pulldown machine, but don’t think it matters so much here), two armed shoulder press, single arm bench or floor press, TRX rows, ab rollout (worth the investment)
I personally do only maintenance work during my training and racing season and proper strength training is during off-season. These maintenance workouts are short (15-30 minutes), fairly easy and I try to do them 3-4 times per week during my work day before lunch.
I mainly focus on imbalances, hip stability and mobility which are the main causes (for me) for possible problems on the bike.
A short 20min circuit might look like:
10 single leg deadlifts with kettlebell (hamstrings, core)
rubber band walk, side to side (glute medium, hip flexors)
20 lunges with kettlebell, short steps (glutes)
15 hamstring curls with medicine ball (hamstrings)
10 box step ups (glutes, quads)
straight leg sit ups with kettlebell (abs, hip flexors)
No plan required if you just want access to the library of exercises. App is cheap. He’s legit.
I have a Rogue pull up bar over a walkway and do various leg lifts and pull up combos throughout the day. I spray painted mine white to minimise the industrial look since the wall is white. Left the bar black.
I keep this close to my desk (WFH) too:
I think the YAROG app above is probably what you’re looking for, though.
I currently have about 5-6 Fitness Blender videos I rotate between (1 upper, 2 core, 2 lower, sometimes 1 full body). From their website, you can narrow their videos down by difficulty, time, equipment (not sure any use TRX though), style, etc. Their plans are usually very time-efficient, and they list the exercises in text format if you don’t need/want to watch along.
I have been working to heal a back injury and used that as a starting point. I added some more strength movements as well as paired stretches for the following.
I do them one row as at a time, then on to the next row.
One set each at this time, done once per day (after dinner) for my recuperation.
Will probably reduce to every other day once I feel ready to ride hard again. But will keep in rotation since I want to prevent a future injury (at least limit likelihood) if possible.
Cool. Back injuries are not good especially if you’re trying to ride a bike.
I’ve been doing this core workout post indoor rides twice a week. I’ve also found the planks help my shoulders and upper back/neck.
Im training for unbound so I want to make sure my core is strong as I’ve had issues with my lower back on long rides. So I’ll keep this up twice a week through unbound for sure.
It takes me about 15 minutes which is long enough to feel productive but not so long that I feel like I’m doing another huge workout after an indoor ride.
Nice, sounds like a good plan. Mine with the extra is about 20 mins. But I do it while winding down after dinner and watching TV vs just sitting on the couch. Partly free time & having motivation (event Mem. day weekend) are what I need to keep these up as well.
I think the other thing I’ve learned about myself is I’m not particularly motivated to set aside lots of time for stretching. So often I do little bits here and there throughout the day. While I’m heating up breakfast or often times since I WFH I can do some stretching while I’m meetings where I don’t need to be actively involved.
The Strong app mostly does that. You have to pick the exercises initially but you can pull up previous workouts as a template and show previous weights/reps etc. It sometimes has odd bugs where it’ll have the wrong weight listed for todays set but it tends to be obvious and it’s usually a value I was going to override anyway.
