I’m a general fitness / love of cycling rider, as opposed to a competitor. Over the past few years, I think I’ve been overdoing saddle time at the expense of gym time (The 8 and 16 FEB Knowledge podcasts seem to confirm that.). I’m in excellent aerobic health, but I’ve lost some muscle mass and feel it’s time to rebalance.
That said, here’s my question: what do you ride for the couple of days after Leg Day? I can’t manage any workouts more difficult than inspiration videos: the pop simply isn’t there, and I’ll often erg out before a tougher video’s final push.
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I’m terrible and honestly don’t fit gym/leg day in around my bike sessions but entirely around convenience and doing it when my children are at their club swimming sessions. Otherwise ai just can’t do it. It’s not optimal but it definitely has made a (positive) difference. The main thing is to do it. You can worrying about optimising when you do it once it is routine.
Oh, and expect to be SUPER slow and lethargic on the bike until you adapt to the strength work. Like for 3 months. It sucks but then BOOM you’ll be on fire after that
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And here’s me thinking there’s a special on fried chicken
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@AlexEllermann i started squats and deadlifts at the beginning of the year after going through the SYSTM strength progressions last year.
it was ugly at first but now I am okay with most cycling sessions for the day or two after. The best pairings are workouts like GOAT and the NM stuff but I have done Z2 and some HIIT workouts as well. For me the key is to warmup and slowly increase the weight so that all of the connective tissue is able to properly adapt.
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I did a 48m Z2 session immediately after Full Body 9 on the 26th Jan, it was my first strength session since the 1st Nov and DOMS was so bad I didn’t ride again until the 1st Feb. Not doing that combo again.
I’ve since gone into the calendar and dropped all the strength workouts by 1 progression level and have been able to get through them since.
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