Caveat that I am no expert cyclist, lifter, or TR user, but I’ve spent lots of time reading and learning about all 3, and I’m sort of similar to you, lifting history, back to cycling now and trying to train both sports, with a focus on shorter efforts and sprints on the bike while still aerobically fit for road/MTB/gravel etc.
On the lifting side I think the area to process, especially if you want to get faster on the track, is rat workforce development. Lifting for strength and hypertrophy will train that quality but with diminishing returns as you become more trained.
Focusing on doing your compound lifts quicker, or adding explosive lifts might help you keep the same strength base but keep developing your speed.
I’m in the same boat of trying to maximize both my lifting and riding but with the knowledge that while I can’t truly maximize either of them if I’m training both, I don’t want to, and would rather be as good at both as I can be.
FYI, even with low reps heavy weights I never train to failure. Always 1-2 reps in reserve.
Learnt from my weightlifting coach, you don’t need to go to failure to build strength and as you said, that extra fatigue and stress from 1 or two final reps to failure add significant time onto recovery.
That being said, I do agree there will be a point sooner or later where recovery is my limiter for further progression.
At that point I guess I’ll need to decide what goes on the back burner.
This week is the final week of SSB lv 1. I usually do an additional z2 ride and as it was lost last ride before the easy week I pushed it a little with a few tempo efforts during the second half of the ride. Legs were toast during the gym session today.
It taught be a lot about session order etc.
And you make a great point.
Absolute strength is nice but power is more useful and potentially less fatiguing and impactful to bike work.
I’m going to see how I get on in base 2 with strength work, easing up if the bike sessions are being impacted. Then when going into build, as you said, a little less weight and move faster.
All the while, pulling back lifting if and when the bike is being impacted.
I can never give up lifting but the help here in understanding how to manage fatigue from both is very helpful
Overtraining is a widely misused phrase, what we really mean here is suffering from training fatigue such that you aren’t really ready for the planned workout.
Everyone’s experience will vary, I’ve described a common one that yours may not match.
I’d imagine that’s what many mean when they say overtraining. Whether that’s the correct word to use or not, i don’t know.
But i agree. There is a difference between the fatigue from a single session effecting the next session, and cumulative fatigue from consistently going slightly over your recovery capacity.
The latter i expect is ok, as long as a recovery period (day/days/week/weeks) comes at the right time, that being before you dig a hole that takes more than a week to get out of.
If I (or anyone else) is keen to push lifting alongside the bike work, it may be that more frequent recovery periods are needed to stop fatigue climbing too high.
I’ll be keeping an eye on this in base 2 as 5 weeks of work is a fair chunk if lifting as well as riding SS and Threshold. I did learn on Sunday that my Z2 ride needs to be lower in ZONE 2. Dont add tempo efforts, dont ride top of Z2 as the lifting session the next day is horrible.
Lesson learnt and hopefully one that i’ll remember.
Functional Over-reaching - GOOD - what we should be striving for in all our loading weeks. Synonymous with progressive overload.
Non-functional over-reaching - NOT GOOD - digging the hole too deep and/or for too long and needing to take more than the planned number of recovery days / weeks to get back to a place where we can start to functionally over-reach again. Pretty common.
Overtraining - VERY VERY NOT GOOD - digging the hole so deep that you’re going to need months to get back, and you may never do so. Rather rare.
Bingo! Lifting heavy to gain strength should be during the off - season or during base, IMO. During late base and build the focus should be on your cycling, and leg session should be aimed at maintenance or keeping some reserve so you are not wrecked.
I work in sports science and S&C. A lot of people will tell you they know how much strength is enough. But very few truly know, because it’s so hard to prove causality in most sports. For every Kate Courtney (who trains hard in the weight room for XCO), there is another rider who won’t touch a weight and is just as successful. That doesn’t mean there isn’t causality — it is just such a complex system to understand and explain, especially the more other factors impact sporting outcomes (powerlifting success is predominantly driven by maximal strength; however, other sports may be more highly influenced by technical skill, tactics, bioenergetics, luck, opponents, environment, etc)
FWIW you and I are very similar. 31yo, 155 lbs, and very very similar lifting totals.
My take… you are “strong enough” to never let chasing strength get in the way of building fitness on the bike (so long as the latter is your personal priority) In other words… for much of the year — if I were you — I would do just enough heavy loading to keep my strength relatively intact without adding undue fatigue that could hamper my key rides. 2-3 lifts per week, touching heavier loads once every 1-2 weeks in low volume (or 3-4 weeks in higher volumes) and spending the rest of the time focusing on rate of force development, and doing anything else that “feels right” (to counteract hours in the saddle)
