My comment was less about the strength program to make you fast, more about a strength program for overall fitness/readiness for our door activities - like cycling, hiking, skiing, climbing, etc.
Functional exercises with lots of compound movements and core work are great for this.
We built a handy little tool to calculate your strength training requirements. Check it out in this post.
Brilliant. Thank you.
I am no sprinter, but the sprinter weights for my body weight are pretty stock standard weights and/or reps. I am surprised how little weight on the bar a cyclist needs.
Great idea to have these benchmarks. For good health, everyone should be working at it.
Hey guys,
which body weight strength exercises and what set/rep quantity would you recommend for somebody lacking weights?
After watching Chadās video, I currently do 5 sets of 10 pistol squats per leg, 10 spiderman push-ups and 20 Side planks per side. And I do this 2-3 times per week, after the harder workouts on the bike.
Which other exercises would be beneficial? And do you think the above volume is sufficient to see some benefits during the base phase or should I do significantly more work? (Havenāt done any strength work last season)
Would appreciate any tips and tricks 
Thanks, Moritz
Chad, does this mean that eating after an endurance ride actually reduces adaptation?
I think what he meant was that the vast, vast majority of people here should probably be focusing on the basics rather than following a program like Ninoās. Nino is undoubtedly very, very good at the basics of strength and conditioning and what you see him doing is the icing on the cake.
But before you can ice your cake, you of course need to bake it.
That said, if you are looking for something like Ninoās training that can scale to your ability level and grow with you, check out the strength and conditioning plans on Enduro MTB Training, run by a coach named Dee Tidwell. Heās the strength coach for Yeti Factory Racing and no slouch on the Enduro course himself. You have to pay for them but theyāre exactly what youāre talking about in that theyāre focused on mobility, durability, etc. Itās good stuff.
This it?
Looks like a good program.
Yes, Ninoās videos (and MTB training videos more generally) focus on the 20% thatās unique - the 80% is mostly the eating your vegetables of lifting.
Many coaches focus on building their business, so there are a lot of āone weird trick to get fasterā style articles and videos out there that - in my opinion - significantly distort a lot of peopleās self-made training programs.
Most (MTB) people would be hugely helped by a program like the following:
I mean, itās not rocket science but itāll get you most of the results with a minimum amount of fuss. Itās a lot of work, though, so thereās always an impulse to find shortcuts (like weird indo-board workouts, yoga ball stuff, etc) and that impulse lends itself well to people trying to sell a product.
Again, sometimes you have to meet the Man with the Hammer.
Please note that Iām not professionally qualified so donāt grab this workout and just immediately slip a disc
Thatās the one!
Just to throw in my personal ānā here, I had not read this thread or these recommendations. I had been lifting in the off-season, following a power-lifting type program that began with high volume to build that metabolic capacity, then sharpening to heavier lifts. I split it up so that deadlift and squat were on separate days, and the bigger sets were pretty taxing. Like an AMRAP at 65% of max could end up being like 15 reps, taking over a minute.
when I added cycling back in, I wasnāt sure how to make them work together. I was doing cycling on separate days because the lifting sessions were long and i was tired afterwards. I thought this would work best.
Well reader, it most certainly did NOT work best. HRV was all over the place, resting heart rate was consistently high, and I started getting sniffles after workouts even though I new I wasnāt sick. And I felt hot all the time. Clearly I was struggling to absorb and adapt. I thought it was because I was overtaxing the anaerobic system (the energy system that was backfilling those long sets once CP ran out), but it probably was because I was effectively blocking the hard days. And my understanding of the latest research on block periodization is that it does not result in performance gains but DOES make it easier to accidentally slip into non-functional overreach. I clearly was doing that and the engine was sputtering.
I took two weeks off lifting to reset and just yesterday had my first day back in the gym, then later in the day, after work, went for a ride around the city, just to see hwat it would feel like to do them both on the same day. And it felt amazing. Crushed it. Felt like being on ārace form.ā So, in other words, Iām now converted. I will only be doing strength on a hard day from now on.
Iām currently following a half-iron triathlon base with the swimming eliminated, not because iām doing a triathlon but because i like to cross train with running in the off-season. The goal is to get in a good XC and XCM MTB season this summer before taking the fall off to get married, then ramp back up for fat bike races in the winter. For the base, each week I am going to add:
a heavy lifting day with the big 4 compound barbell lifts, followed by some core. No accessories. This will be in the evening on either Tuesday or Wednesday, after intervals in the morning. Each week Iāll alternate which of deadlift vs. squat comes first.
a day with just a bunch of accessories / general strength and athleticism movements (like single leg squats and pushup progressions) and then maybe a Crossfit WOD. This will again be in the evening after a hard day on the bike in the morning. either Friday or Saturday.
progress on the big lifts will stall but i think thatās okay. The big question iām working on right now is whether to break up the heavy lifts into two days. The advantages are clear but thereās also disadvantages. For example, I only have a couple days a week I can do two-a-days, and I like to double up endurance sessions on some of them. If I were to break up the big lifts into two sessions, something would have to giveāiād either be doing one fewer endurance session or eliminating the WOD day. And I like WODs! Theyāre fun.
Sorry for the long post, any other thoughts are welcome.
Bit of a random question - is lifting barefoot a big deal, or can I just take off my running shoes and get on with it?
Barefoot is the absolute best way to do Olympic lifts like deadlifts, squats, overhead press.
It would depend on the gym you go to. Most have rules about barefoot lifting for both safety and hygiene reasons. Though for deadlifts and most other general lifts I would say barefoot is great or just a flat, stiff soled shoe like chuck taylors or wrestling shoes are best. For squats, same thing but if you squat high bar and ATG then a slight heel might be helpful like weightlifting shoes have. For Olympic lifts I would definitely get weightlifting shoes with a heel.
Not to be a nit picker but Olympic lifts refers to the Snatch and Clean and Jerk (and their variations).
you mean literally barefoot, or simply taking off your shoes? I went to a gym that encouraged no-shoes, but most people kept their socks on because gross.
Edit to add: I do bare feet for get ups because socks are too slippery. I was taught that no-shoes helps you stay planted, and you can grab the floor with your toes. Also most people wear running shoes to the gym, which are a detriment to stability with all the squish.
Because socks would be slippery.
I shower before the gym, and socks and shoes are removed each visit anyway to use the scales that scan for composition.
If someone out there thinks clean, bare feet are weird, Iām afraid theyāll just have to suffer 
I think feet are gross, but hey I do barefoot in the gym with my old man razorclam nails and bunions in full effect. 
You only need a shoe with a raised heel if you have poor ankle mobility. Otherwise barefoot/Chuckās/vans/wrestling shoes are fine.
And I mean in socks when I say barefoot. Thatās nasty to have no socks on In a public gym. If itās your house, do what you want.
Question for the group. Do you guys try to come into your weight lifting days relatively fresh?
I use HRV as an objective measure helping to inform my subjective ones. I used to ignore it and just train however i wanted, but i found I got bad results trying to do intense intervals on mornings when my HRV was well below baseline. I can do easy stuff on those days, though.
So in other words, for my high intensity days iām always gonna try to be fresh. Curious whether to start approaching weights days (to the extent they are not the same day) the same way.