IMHO the other plan worth serious consideration is ScientificTriathlon’s 19 week plan. The FasCat plan is based on science and 20 years of coaching experience. Good stuff. Has increased my force production in the gym and now working on transferring that to the bike.
Base Building for Cyclists by Thomas Chapple is a classic and should be on your shelf:
How much space are you putting between your squats/deadlifts and your bike workouts?
I dabbled with doing them immediately before ir after for convenience, but Im thinking you dont get so much benefit unless you get signifcant recovery between.
I don’t have a lot of experience yet, and work starts very early. I’d like 12 hours of separation (morning / evening) and have settled for as little as a couple hours separation up to 6 hours separation. More is better. Bike earlier and strength later.
Excellent. I just purchased an Olympic weight set, along with some miscellaneous free weights, and am ready to go. I like Frank’s approach, but obviously a gym isn’t happening so I’m interested in his at-home plan. Funny enough, I emailed him about a plan like that last year and he never got back—the pandemic made it a reality.
Can’t wait to build some functional strength. Like you, my plan is to do bike rides (mostly all low intensity endurance rides) and weights later in the day. I fully anticipate a fair amount of adjusting in order to get the right balance of bike and strength.
My 2 cents: during early base and mid base use the gym to increase max force production. Progress your resistance training thru 4 phases, this is documented in many places. I used the FasCat resistance plan with modifications based on input from a strength coach. That is ~3 months of dedicated resistance work, and the rest of the year involves maintenance including functional strength.
There is a paper just referenced on Emperical Cycling’s weekend instagram. The biochemical signaling from intense endurance exercise subsides after 3 hrs. The signaling after strength exercise lasts 18 hrs. At 66 I do an hr early in the morning, the weights at 1 pm. Take the next day completely off. If you ride after lifting too soon you block the biochemical signaling and dont benefit in terms of strength or hypertrophy
If you have tried the squat test you would probably have found out the answer for yourself.
Most will find that they don’t have the appropriate muscle strength to do the test very well, that they can’t balance, and hence feel as they are going to fall backwards. So rather than developing the strength (the whole objective) they learn to balance by counter balancing their body mass (defeating the objective). The form you develop through mastering this test targets the appropriate muscle groups, mainly the gluts.
You can often see this same process when observing people lowering and rising from a low chair. Most without the appropriate muscle strength will roll their torso forward to use their body mass to help them (often using their hands and arms to assist), whereas the stronger person can use their leg strength with an upright torso.