I used Dialed Health for a while but have to agree with you. The interfaces are terrible enough that I printed the workouts but the lifts are often so complex that I need to go back to the videos to figure out what I’m doing.
I’m back to using StongLifts 5x5 because it’s dead simple. It may not be designed for a cyclist but I can do the workouts with minimal fuss.
Shy away from overly complex stuff. 5x5 is good, as @mtbjones recommended. I’m scrolling through this Dialed dudes insta and the only truly agreeable thing I’ve seen so far is a hanging leg raise. All the pics of him doing compounds are… perplexing to say the least. Clearly I’ve missed an opportunity to make some $$$.
Here’s a sketch of a plan for ya:
It’s not fancy, just tuned for time efficiency and gains. Fwiw, I have been lifting for my entire adult life and follow a lot of literature-based lifting content (Nuckols, Nippard, Israetel, Horschig). My squat and DL are in the 85th+ percentile of lifters my weight (no gear) and I train less frequently than one might guess. What you see above has yielded more gains in less time than the stuff I was doing when I was younger. Fancy programs are fancy in order to convince you that the person selling them has some secret sauce that’s worth buying. Not worth it. Getting strong is about quality training stimulus at enough volume, which is a lot harder to achieve doing some exotic 5-step kettlebell sequence. The most complicated lift you should devote your time to is squat, and that is because it is hands down the GOAT lift (especially for cycling).
EDIT: since this is getting more attention than I anticipated, I’ve reorganized and added more details.
Squat and deadlift are the two compound lifts most relevant to cycling, life, the universe, and everything else. They are technical movements and create high levels of systemic fatigue, so each get their own day. If you could only do one lift for the rest of your life, it would be squat. Despite its reputation for developing quads, it is also a solid glute and posterior chain developer. Deadlift is certainly more posterior chain, including more back. If you are paranoid about putting on weight, deadlift is probably the lift that is going to pack on the pounds fastest.
You need to learn the proper skill and form in order to adequately load these lifts. You can pick up the basics pretty quickly, but expect to spend the rest of your life perfecting them. Squatting above parallel is leaving some of the best training stimulus on the table. A box squat progression can be used to get squat down to proper depth. High bar, low bar, your preference. For DL, trap bar is always an option for those who are worried about their back. iirc, there isn’t a measurable difference between the two. My instinct says that sumo is not as useful for cycling compared to conventional, but I wouldn’t be surprised to be totally wrong on this.
I used to simply alternate squat and DL days. However, I have more recently elevated single-leg leg press to its own day for a couple reasons. Squat and DL are skills, and part of what you are training is the skill and coordination, as opposed to merely strength and hypertrophy. Additionally, as double-leg exercises, they can mask asymmetry between the legs. You want isolated efforts to deal with asymmetries. You also want less freedom of movement in order to safely pile on bigger loads. The rate-limiter of single leg squat/DL variants (eg, Bulgarians) tends to be balance, not strength. So you never get to properly load them.
Leg press takes most of the skill and balance and danger out of the equation. That’s why they’re done at higher reps, closer to failure, really dwelling in that stretched eccentric phase because you’re no longer scared of failing the lift. Ideally, your legs will be shaking for a few minutes afterward. That’s the training stimulus you’re after. Probably should be timed after your hardest bike intervals of the week.
You could fold leg press into one of the other two days, in the “accessory” slot. It just takes a lot of time to do high reps single leg.
The basic structure of my sessions is:
For upper body I have my own supersets (mostly for delts, lats, and tris). These are complimentary exercises (not working the same muscles) that are convenient to perform together, giving the location of equipment in the gym. For example, I might pair seated cable rows with tricep pullovers because the stations are next to each other on same cable machine. For core I try to make sure I’m covering upper rectus, lower rectus, and obliques over the course of a few weeks. The extra credit accessory work is usually single leg variants of squat and DL. Or whatever I think might be fun to try any given week.
I don’t do any planning based on days of the week (eg, no “Monday is Bench Day”); the Big Lift is whatever is next in the rotation when I happen to get into the gym. Big Lifts, upper body, and core tend to rotate around independent of one another. Squat might be paired with delts and hanging leg raise one week, but tris and sit-ups the next week. The modularity allows the program to bend around my schedule and is fairly robust to missed sessions. When I’m pressed for time, I try to get my warm-up + Big Lift (#1-2) in, and then maybe core (#4). I might swap which Big Lift gets hit based on proximity to cycling workouts.
Timing around cycling workouts is going to involve some trial and error. Leg press is the main thing I’d keep away from high intensity work on the bike. DOMS is more of an issue if you haven’t been lifting recently, and mostly goes away after a few weeks. Fatigue for lower body tends to be worse on the second day, so sneaking in interval session the day after hitting legs, before DOMS hits, might be an option. Deadlifting affects cycling the least, in my experience, except I’ve had some issues with back tightness during very long endurance rides immediately following deadlift days. I’ve had luck stacking squat or DL lifting sessions right before interval sessions, but everyone is different.
I tend to lift 2-4x a week when I am not training for cycling, and 0-2x a week when I am actively training for cycling. No crazy hours in the gym, which is the benefit of focusing on quality training stimulus. For someone starting out in their off-season, just try an average of 3x week sessions and see how that goes. If you are still learning squat and DL, you might skip the leg press day (or fold it into Squat day as extra credit) in order to get more frequent technique reinforcement. During season you can cut the down the frequency to 1-2 sessions a week, with working sets of 3 as opposed to 5.
The set, performed within 0-3 reps to failure, is the primary unit of volume. If you’re not training close to failure, you’re not getting much in the way of stimulus for strength and hypertrophy. This is why fussing around with body weight and fractions of one’s body weight (KBs and DBs) is chump change when it comes to strength training for lower body. It’s a poor stimulus, and you’ll need lots more volume to equal efforts that are close to failure. Gymnasts can become jacked with mostly bodyweight exercises because they have no lack of volume—it is the entirety of their sport. You are a cyclist who can barely make it into the gym a few times a week.
There’s quite a lot of factors that contribute to the rep ranges prescribed in a program: strength development, hypertrophy, fatigue, injury risk, technique development. Most lifters unconsciously learn appropriate rep ranges through osmosis over the years, but here’s a good video explaining the rationale. Having explained the rationale behind leg press, you can start to extrapolate why squat and DL are in the 5-10 rep range with 1-2 RIR (“reps in reserve”). For lifts that are a potentially risky to fail, we prefer 1-2 RIR, which should be sufficient for the majority of gains compared to training to failure. 12+ reps for complex, high-amplitude movements tend to hit technical failure far sooner than muscular failure. That’s part of the reason why squat and DL are programmed at 5-10 reps. You don’t want to be cranking out reps of squat and DL after your form has collapsed. < 5 reps is great for strength adaptations with less mass gained, but the fatigue and injury risk are much higher. Powerlifters (who regularly do sets with lower reps) have much higher injury rates than bodybuilders (who almost never do lower reps), and 99.999% of cyclists are less skilled at lifting than the average powerlifter. There’s a hypothetical 1-in-a-million pro cyclist who is also an extremely skilled powerlifter that might benefit from min-maxing the mass-to-strength ratio by pursuing the lower rep ranges. But that is probably not you.
The relationship between strength and hypertrophy is still murky, and even murkier still is how strength training impacts cycling (we’re fairly certain it has a positive effect on performance, but we’re not sure why). With that in mind, I think a lifting program for cycling should pursue strength and hypertrophic adaptations, leaning towards the strength range, but not to the point of significantly raising injury risk and fatigue.
Total training volume (# of working sets per week) matters more than training frequency (# of sessions per week). This has interesting implications for cyclists. For example, if you’re time-crunched, you could try one long lifting day per week, and see how that goes.
You’ll notice for extra credit I put a hamstring developer on squat day, and a squat variant on DL day (as opposed to making it push/pull ant/post). There’s a bit of evidence that given two isovolumetric weeks, increased frequency can give some marginal gains. But I wouldn’t stress about this at all; if you want to double down on hams during DL day instead, no big deal.
There’s quite a lot of valid ways to warm up for squat and DL, ranging from 30-min sequences to the minimalist “just do fast and light reps of the same exercise.” It’s all diminishing returns in terms of time spent. My warm-up for each Big Lift, not including ramp-up sets of the lift itself, is a superset of 2-3 exercises/stretches. I’ve found that anything above 3 sets of 3 exercises starts to be a drag, but this is highly personal. My efficiency hack is to sneak in auxiliary exercises (that are worth progressing for their own sake) as primers for the Big Lift. These are performed at moderate intensity compared to what they would warrant as a solo act; this creates enough training stimulus for long-term improvement without accruing too much fatigue in the short-term, so as to compromise the Big Lift.
I like ATG split squat as a warm-up to squat for a couple reasons. It moves you through the whole ROM from extension to hyperflexion. Pausing in the hyperflexed position can also hit ankle mobility, one of the big form-killers and rate-limiters to squatting. There’s a huge chain of progressions you can find for ATG split squat; start easy, foot on bench, and work your way up. One of the big goals of the lift is to progressively load the patellar/quad tendons in a way that builds tendon strength. Cyclists use these tendons repetitively, but rarely load them. Knee tendons often hamper beginner progress in the gym because they need a lot more time to strengthen than muscles. (Note: for actual patellar tendinopathy, see Jake Tuura.)
A glute activator exercise prior to squatting is great all lifters, but particularly cyclists. Cycling is like 95% quad, and when you take someone who is so quad-focused and have them start squatting, you’ll find they often skip the glute activation/hip hinge, which puts way too much load on the knees (whose tendons, as mentioned before, aren’t used to serious loads). In fact, I might recommend, in addition to a glute activator warm-up, using a band around the quads to force the glute activation during squat itself.
I am lucky to have a hip thruster machine right next to the squat racks at my gym—otherwise I don’t mess with loaded BB thrusters as an activator because the setup is too onerous for a warm-up. If you have the time, why not. The modified clamshells were recommended to me by Horschig, and I’ve found them to be annoyingly effective for such a dorky looking movement.
Seating good mornings. I’ve been evangelizing this lift for the past two years. It’s a warm-up to deadlift, but it’s also a heavy-ish lift that should be progressed for its own virtues. I haven’t worried about low-back issues with DL since using these as my warm-up. The lift will prime your back for the immediately following DL, all the while building long term strength in the erectors and low back. It will also improve one’s ability to hinge at the hips, which benefits squat and the TT aero position on bike. Cyclists live in a state of spinal flexion. Some spinal flexion is fine, lots of flexion severely compromises the ability of the erectors to take shear load off the vertebrae. With cycling, the less you can hinge at the hips, the more you have to compensate with lumbar flexion to reach the bars. I’ve heard of many Unbound DNF’s due to hydration bladders + rough terrain causing back spasms over long distances. You’ll never regret beefing up your spinal erectors. Good for cycling, good for a life spent sitting in at a desk with bad posture.
You’ll notice is that I have slots for 1-2 prehab/rehab exercises built into the warm-ups. Most athletes develop this or that nagging issue, and most PTs assign way too many exercises that would eat up the entire lifting session if the Rx was followed to the letter. Whole sessions of boring PT are demotivating, and often decrease lifting frequency. It’s better to just pick 1-2 exercises per session and still love going to the gym. Consistency and sustainability is more important. Rebuilding Milo is a good book for self-diagnosing and managing issues that might crop up.
After the warm-up superset, squat and DL sessions have 2-3 ramp up sets working up to your heavy sets. There’s a variety of ways to ramp the load up for these lifts, maybe try the progressive pyramid. For upper body I have my own supersetted rotations (mostly for delts, lats, and tris).
It is very hard to load legs without a squat rack or barbell. You’d need some serious DB’s (50-100+#), lifting straps, and should probably focus on more single-leg work. If you’re saving for a squat rack, get the barbell and plates first for DLs, thrusters, and landmine work. Landmine is the best way to fill in the gaps of a home gym left from the lack of cables or machines. If you don’t have access to a leg press, you can do single leg/split/tripod variants of landmine hack squat. That should provide more stability than traditional Bulgarians or lunges. Replacing isolated ham work is tricky with a home gym. Reverse nordic might be best bet, or single-leg RDLs, using a low-mounted barbell right at the hip crease for support. Be careful with reverse nordic, as people have injured knee caps.
You’ll notice I don’t do planks or other isometrics for core. This is partially because I find doing core for reps & weight to be more motivating and easier to progress, and also partially because heavy compound movements already hit isometric core through bracing. Core exercises need to be properly loaded and progressed like every other lift. The king of core is hanging leg raise, and you can employ lifting straps if grip is the rate-limiter. The progressions and variations for this are enough to keep most people busy for a lifetime, but if you’ve somehow reached a plateau doing a controlled toes-to-bar, you can start grabbing DBs with your feet.
I’ve put a decent amount of emphasis on the patellar and quad tendons. The knee is a major pain point for cycling, and a rate-limiter for lower body lifting. Squatting with proper form (including glute activation) will improve the whole chain of biomechanics often implicated in knee pain. The tendons themselves also deserve attention, and we’re fortunate to live in a time where there has been much advancement in our understanding of tendon and ligament strengthening.
The vast majority of cyclists are nowhere close to needing an advanced lifting program. Sustainability is the main pitfall. There is always this inevitable exercise creep that happens where you keep adding to a program and never subtract. Then the program becomes overwhelming and you start dreading your gym sessions. At some point you have to cut everything back to the basic lifts and the few additional exercises that can be reliably done each week. At the end of the day, consistency is key. Non-optimal lifting done consistently beats optimal lifting done inconsistently.
I have recently subscribed, and I agree, the app and web interface are, hmmm, not great. A few observations:
That’s why I still hold out hope that @Nate_Pearson and him are in talks of a collaboration. TR takes over the software aspect of the equation and perhaps figures out the customer service bit, too.
In order of importance, presuming concrete floor:
Without #1-3 you’d need some serious DBs (50-100#) to load lower body work, with lifting straps.
Totally agree, I do have a pretty good set up ( squat rack, barbell, adjustable dumbells, TRX bands, etc) and still found the program frustrating. I found it hard to choose where to start and then progress.
I think Dereck spends most of his time on social media platforms instead being focused on developing his product. I think social media can be a great driver of demand for your product but the experience needs to be there to retain the consumer. TrainerRoad does a great job with their podcast and YouTube presence and then delivers on the end user experience and support.
This is awesome thank you.
Dialled is offering some very expensive calisthenics from what I can tell. It doesn’t seem he’s properly loading his own workouts, from the half a dozen or so pics I’ve seen of his compounds. He’s using less weight than I would throw on a barbell for my first warm-up set. It’s just… odd, but it fits the archetype of whole-body kettlebell bro. You can find videos of the skinnier Dylan Johnson repping out much higher working sets (with some room for improvement on form).
That said, going from 0 to something is going to yield results for most cyclists. If the novelty keeps people engaged more than an SS 5x5, so be it. The best lifting program is the one that you actually execute. With enough volume, you can get quite strong using calisthenics (eg, gymnasts). But not in a million years would I recommend this as an efficient program. It surprises me to hear that TrainerRoad might collaborate with him, as it is far from the evidence-based strength training camp.
And before someone suggests “perhaps it’s a program geared towards gaining strength without mass”—if that were the case, the rep ranges and loading pattern would actually move the opposite direction, on the very low rep, 85+% 1RM range. Fancy KB workouts are like 90’s “tone” for men. For lower body, it’s not much better than body weight exercises. There are lots of merits to calisthenics and KB movements for building functional strength and balance, kinda analogous to how one might pursue yoga or pilates to round out their athleticism. It’s just not efficient for strength training, and some exercises start to approach aerobic conditioning, which isn’t what a cyclist needs.
All of this. If a cyclist has the time and discipline to learn clean, or already knows it, it’s an excellent lift to throw in the rotation. You could also throw in clean + jerk (very technical) or clean + push press (less technical). That overhead position really forces you to brace and works in a touch of lateral core stability that often gets omitted in minimalist programming. Front squat is also a great, assuming people can get used the awkward loading and actually do heavy sets. For a beginner on time budget, front squat and clean should be learned after squat and deadlift form is locked in. Learning front squat will help develop the wrist/elbow/shoulder mobility you need to properly catch a clean.
Front squat is brutal. Try the seated good mornings and lmk how you think that compares to front squat for trunk. I’m a high-bar squatter (usually), so my default squat mechanics are a bit closer to front squat.
I mean, I have a whole A B C delt routines that have zero relevance to cycling. They are only relevant to the mirror. CdA++ and I’ll gladly take more.
Runners also want to focus on tendon health and landing from a jump is great for strengthening tendons. I’ve started doing some footwork drills, which is silly for cycling, but the focus actually loading the knee tendons with more dynamic movement. Cycling is an incredibly artificial movement; sometimes I feel I’ve lost some mechanical abilities that all normal homo sapiens have.
WUKAR is really solid.
I was following it 2 offseasons ago, would’ve continued but had surgery that made most of the work too risky. Now I basically do my PT home exercises + upper body days.
What’s the reasoning behind this combination? I’d argue for a home gym, 25’s are never really needed. In my home gym I have:
Bumper plates - (4)45’s, (6)10’s
Iron plates - (4)5’s, (2)2.5’s
Short of needing more weight, I can do every combination easily that I need to. No need for 25’s or 35’s.
Interesting. Some of this is definitely personal. I find that 25’s provide just the right amount of granularity. I have a friend with 15’s and 35’s and it’s too much.
However, I would miss 25# bumpers. The amount that I ramp up big lifts during warm up sets tends to be between 50 lbs and 90 lbs. 10# bumpers are the most fragile and prone to warping; if you’re doing a lift from the floor between [95-135), you’d rather it have it dropping on two 25’s than four or six 10’s. It’s an extra $30 or so for convenience and extending the lifespan of the 10’s. This is more an issue with olympic lifts, until you get to a level where everything you do overhead is 135+. The main purpose of 10# bumpers as opposed to plates is to cover the range of [65-95) lbs from the floor. On a rack it makes no difference.
The iron 25’s and 10’s are useful for 1) the EZ bar, 2) plate raises/abs/etc, 3) providing weight progression for deadlift. Once you’re repping above 225 on DL, sliding 10# and 25# bumpers on and off can become more of a hassle without a jack. The iron plates have a smaller diameter, and can be more quickly exchanged compared to bumpers. (I might add another 10# or or 5# iron plate to my list above for that matter.) Iron plates are a lot cheaper and can be picked up at thrift stores.
Great couple of posts, excellent write up of strength training fundamentals. For your equipment list here, I’d add that a smith machine on the squat rack and/or a leg trainer attachment for the bench are great ways of getting the isolation leg work done at home for not too much extra money or space.
Just reintroduced myself to the five fundamental movements this week as I’m transitioning to a strength focus.
Calf strain doesn’t feel affected by squats so far, but I’m seeing a physio on Monday for first treatment.
I have a bastard bar (always makes me chuckle) 15kg, plates are in true units - bumper: 4x20, 2x10, 2x5, tri-grip: 2x2.5, 2x1.25
I don’t see when I’d ever need to dead over 120kg, 1.5x BW but who knows I may be convinced that maximal strength is a worthwhile goal as I shift up an age group in Jan. I’m favouring 3x5 over 5x5 for the same reason but that’s a paper based decision not a capacity one.
Same here. 6x45, 2x25, 4x10, 2x5 gives me everything I need. I do have some duplicates for bumpers vs. smaller iron and you can add extras for convenience. There’s also a good possibility I never use more than 4x45 again too.
One thing that has been a big convenience factor - I think I have 3-4 sets of J Cups on my rack so I’m not moving them around. I like a set at knee height on the front for setting up the bar for deadlifts. That, and plenty of convenient weight horns / weight storage.
I’ve got a Rep Fitness setup which has been great in a small space.
Thanks a lot! It is useful to know what someone with experience thinks is important. So far I have bought yoga mats, a foam roller and a few resistance bands, simply because they were the cheapest items.
A more affordable starter BB setup would be:
45# bar and clips
2x45# bumpers
2x25# bumpers
2-4x10# iron plates
2-4x5# iron plates
2x2.5# iron plates
Maybe some iron 25
Maybe a low box for thrusters (can be DIY)
This will get you started with DL and you’ll use the BB to landmine hack squat etc until you get a rack (which is a fairly expensive item). If it’s going to be a while before the rack, you can look into hack squat attachments. Landmine belt squats are easier to load but require more bumpers or boxes to stand on. I think it’s more economical to start with the barbell as opposed to collecting heavy dumbbells to load legs, especially if you intend to have a barbell set up built out in the future. There are landmine variants of most things you could do with dumbbells, including rows, bulgarians, and single leg RDLs. Get some wrist straps because gripping the sleeve is harder than gripping a dumbbell.
There are many great core exercises with landmine as well. 180s, situp 21s, and honestly most of the overhead stuff hits obliques and trunk stability.
The biggest downside landmine for squatting movements is that it can get pretty hard to load at heavy weights. There are tricks and devices, but by that point most people have a proper rack. This is not something novice to intermediate lifters have to worry about. And there’s always single leg work.
EDIT: Some notes on DB economics. Getting DBs for the home gym has diminishing returns the higher the weight. It also largely depends on what sort of upper body work you’re interested in. The most valuable range, imo, is whatever you can lateral raise to failure at say 12 reps, that plus 5#, that minus 5#. The next most practical range is for DB curls, same idea. With any of the pressing movements (eg DB bench) the variability between lifts and rate of progress is going to require a large collection of DBs. Lateral raise-to-curl is a very practical set of DBs with other use cases, but less so if you don’t intend to do these exercises.
This is what I purchased with a barbell; 245# total, out of stock for now
I cant remember the shipping cost but overall spent roughly $700.
I also bought their T2 power rack, everything fits decently in the space in my garage. Spent a little over $1k, a good addition with my kettlebells.
It’s been a while since I’ve looked into this, but iirc, the T2 is a real sweet spot between quality and price. I think I’d go for the T3 space saving for myself, personally, in a hypothetical universe that I wanted a home gym. I have a friend with the T3 space spacing and I think it’s just about perfect. The thing with racks is that you don’t want something cheap for safety reasons, but the high end (built to withstand gym use and strongmen) is absolute overkill for a home gym. I also know a guy who reps 4+ plates on a creaky craigslist find, so, idk, people have different levels of risk tolerance.
Cheap bars can also suck. Plates don’t matter as much, especially the iron ones. Some of the best powerlifting and olympic lifting gyms will have an odd assortment of iron plates collected over the past century. It’s only when you’re dropping weight from overhead (olys) that you really start caring about bumper quality. You don’t even need bumpers for DL, it’s just simpler for a home gym to have bumpers + concrete garage floor than it is to have a dedicated DL platform.
Incredible write up. Makes so much sense. Thank you!
One of my friends who is a lot stronger than me suggested the T2. He does 300# + squats, he has been more focused on bodybuilding for quite a while now. Unless I go full bodybuilder it’s a good sweet spot, like you said.
I did spend some money on their elite series Olympic barbell. It can handle a lot more than what I can lift at the moment. I’m happy to hear someone else on here with good advice for cyclists.