Cool. Squats are feeling good but pretty tough so far. In the back of my mind I’m thinking…shouldn’t I be able to do double this, or near it?
You’ve put my mind at ease 
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I’m going to add the measurement “a bee’s dick” to my lexicon. I won’t use it until summer though.
the hairs thereof are used for still-finer measurement. [precision is important, or something]
Should I have written:
a bee’s dick © ?
Just jokes. Have at it 
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No.
I try to lift as often as work, family, etc permit. Sometimes its once a week and sometimes its three or four. Gym time is usually under 45 minutes a session with a 5x5 after a brief warmup… I might cut weight, sets or reps if I’m not feeling it, but in my household I’d never lift if I tried to only lift when “relatively” fresh.
I have done only bodyweight training last couple years with “just do something” -mentality. So im just wondering how big impact strength training (with weights) could have? Is here someone who is or has been in same situation?
I guess, “impact of strength training” is defined by your objective (weight loss, being stronger, etc) 
My goal is continuous fitness improvement and i measure it by number of proper pullups i can do. As long as i am able to progress with only bodyweight training, will keep doing it. Once i plateau, will start using weights to push myself further.
Sure, maybe can achieve bigger numbers faster with weight training but as i have no deadline to train for, i don’t care.
So, set your SMART goal and off you go 
I have an old skateboard in the garage…
I probably shouldn’t stand on a ball with my eyes closed though 
Anyone know of a good 2 day plan? Mostly barbell movements? Also curious if anyone has any resources on what percentage of 1rm would be optimal to work at?
5x5 works on 2/wk
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I’m curious whether you guys feel that carrying additional upper body mass (mostly muscle) is impacting your endurance performance.
I have been gaining quite a bit of muscle last year (6ft, 195lbs, ~15% bfp) and i feel like while i increased my ftp i struggle to breath more and my RPE is higher at a given percentage of ftp.
Any resources on what percentages to work at?
Yes and mostly climbing. But it’s worth it to carry the extra weight up a hill and be slightly slower because the muscle helps with so many other parts of life. And probably makes riding mountain bikes better too, but I can’t quantify that easily.
Perspective: a few years go I dropped from a skinny-fat 145 down to a race weight of 130-132 pounds at 5-7% BF. Which is just plain skinny. FTP around 4.25w/kg. Was climbing very well. But lost a lot of overall body strength. That wasn’t healthy. Now running 140-145 in season, more like 10-12% BF and lifting year round. I’m slightly slower on the bike and work harder on steep climbs. But heck, life is much better.
5x5 type programming
Find I can lift a couple times a week in season at 70-75% of 1RM without being too beat up. Drop that to 70% and maintaining strength is fine, not too much fatigue, but won’t make lifting gains. If just maintaining, will do 70% 5x5s then every couple weeks throw in a few heavier 1-3 rep sets up to 85% Nothing fancy but lifting year round is important to me now.
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Essentially start at half your 5 rep max, or if you’re new like me, start with an empty bar (20kg).
I worked up to Chads L2 targets:
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Sounds good I like that idea above also of lifting at 70% of 1rm most the time, then go up to 85% once in a while on a good day. That puts me well above Chad’s targets, and is also light enough to me personally that I can keep form nice and strict
I would be surprised if many people do, but there’s edge cases for everything - when you say you’ve gained “quite a bit”…how much are you talking about?
I’ve been strength training since October and my body composition hasn’t changed much +1kg muscle -1kg fat, if the gym’s Boditrax machine is to be believed:
I’m 172cm, and currently 62.2kg muscle (76.3%), 16kg fat (19.6%).
When you say struggle to breath, do you mean constrained, or say, that you get to VO2max more quickly?
Wouldn’t more muscle = more ability to recycle your lactate? Even upper body muscle?
Another good option for strength / conditioning programs is The Helm . The app has a lot of different programs, and you can select which days you want to do strength training on and whether or not you have gym access.
Haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere yet, but the best thing I’ve done regarding strength training was picking up a set of 16kg, 24kg & 32kg kettlebells & working my way through the Simple & Sinister programme.
Plenty of work/weight involved & it’s literally been designed as a minimum schedule to keep your fitness/strength up for your main sport (or job!). Couldn’t recommend it enough. The book by Pavel Tsatsouline is on Amazon & well worth a read if you’re going to follow it. There’s a good outline here though - the gist of it is 5x10 swings (starting with 2 handed, working up to 1 handed) followed by 10 turkish get ups. There’s a time/weight standards to meet, but as with FTP tests you only test yourself against the time every now & again. Most days you can take your time with it if you want as long as you get it done
Part of the reason I love it so much is that the kettlebell swing, 1 or 2 handed, is a great ballistic movement done at full intensity that works the posterior chain as well as being great for your grip etc. On the other hand the TGU is the complete opposite, a slow, steady grind of a movement. I’ve noticed huge improvements in my posture and core strength after focusing on these two movements alone. I also like to pick up my combined 72kg of kettlebells & walk up & down my stairs a few times to really test my legs/grip after a workout 
There’s a good summary of Simple & Sinister here https://amp.reddit.com/r/kettlebell/comments/1s29hc/pavels_new_simple_sinister_program_minimum/
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