I know many people do weight training during the off season, but I was wondering how many of you weight train year round. How do you fit it in with your riding schedule? Im training for a century ride and with the increase in weekly mileage, Im wondering where I could fit the weights in. I feel like the weight training keeps my knees strong and would like to keep it going.

Im riding sat (pace), sun (hard), tue (pace), wed (long ride), thur (pace) Fri and Mon off. Right now Im riding a little more than 100 miles per week.

Thanks for any help.

I would not do it before or after a hard day. I did weights until a month or so ago. I did them all through my base period training and early build. I stopped when I started high intensity and hill work on the bike. Once I get through a series of races I will probably start them up again during transission to keep from loosing strength.

I feel they helped my sprint a bit this year, peak speed is about 4 mph faster than last year.

I know many people do weight training during the off season, but I was wondering how many of you weight train year round. How do you fit it in with your riding schedule? Im training for a century ride and with the increase in weekly mileage, Im wondering where I could fit the weights in. I feel like the weight training keeps my knees strong and would like to keep it going.

Im riding sat (pace), sun (hard), tue (pace), wed (long ride), thur (pace) Fri and Mon off. Right now Im riding a little more than 100 miles per week.

Thanks for any help.

I would not do it before or after a hard day. I did weights until a month or so ago. I did them all through my base period training and early build. I stopped when I started high intensity and hill work on the bike. Once I get through a series of races I will probably start them up again during transission to keep from loosing strength.

I feel they helped my sprint a bit this year, peak speed is about 4 mph faster than last year.

I do weights on Sundays, but my schedule is different than yours, I'm peaking for races on Tuesdays so Sundays are non-riding days and Mondays are easy spins to keep the legs loose. I continue doing simple weight training (squats, deadlifts, good-mornings, or lunges depending on my mood) all season long. But I keep it fairly light and I limit it to 3 sets of 10. I also use lifting to supplement riding during rest weeks, but that's just a result of how my body reacts to the lifting. This is certainly a to each his own kind of issue.

Thanks for the help guys. :)

All the literature on training stresses specificity in conditioning for a sport. Riding is better exercise for riding than is weight lifting.

If you want to develop strength in cycling the means to doing it is to ride hills. Hill riding requires strength to extend the hip and knee and this will both strengthen muscles and the joints involved in riding.

Trying to work in a weight session while attempting to peak for a long ride holds every potential for over-training and burning out. You'd be better served to spend time in recovery than in the weight room. Studies show (Friel) that intensity in the workout is the key to improved physical conditioning, that athletes who reduce total hours but maintain intensity remain fit or improve performance. Athletes who reduce intensity but maintain total hours lose fitness.

When you're trying to peak for a distance ride, it's easy to overlook recovery.

Mondays are my off days so I'm starting to work in light lifting.

I used to be a heavy lifter before I got into cycling, I was in the gym for a couple hours every day.

Now I'm just doing core stuff since my back's been giving me trouble and playing basketball with some buddies. I'm going to move into upper body (shoulders, upper back, arms...) in the next few weeks.

All the literature on training stresses specificity in conditioning for a sport. Riding is better exercise for riding than is weight lifting.

If you want to develop strength in cycling the means to doing it is to ride hills. Hill riding requires strength to extend the hip and knee and this will both strengthen muscles and the joints involved in riding.

Trying to work in a weight session while attempting to peak for a long ride holds every potential for over-training and burning out. You'd be better served to spend time in recovery than in the weight room. Studies show (Friel) that intensity in the workout is the key to improved physical conditioning, that athletes who reduce total hours but maintain intensity remain fit or improve performance. Athletes who reduce intensity but maintain total hours lose fitness.

When you're trying to peak for a distance ride, it's easy to overlook recovery.


I don't think that anyone here is saying to skip recovery and lift instead. We're talking about adding it to your training program.

Specificity in conditioning is important, but some muscles and muscle groups that are often instrumental in racing are not worked at all in riding. Lifting to improve tricep strength, core strength and lat strength shold be included in a complete training routine. I only lift legs during rest weeks to keep from catabolizing muscle and aiding my recovery. But on the other hand before I was a cyclist I was an amateur bodybuilder, so I know pretty precisely how my body reacts to weight training and how to allow it to grow while recovering.

instead of doing weights on your recovery day like many have suggested, why not do them after a hard day? you will derive more benefit from this approach. recovery days are very important, and, quite simply, you will not recover properly if you do weights, especially high intensity low rep. the goal is the breakdown of muscle fibers with gradual rebuilding in the days afterwards. if you go to the gym and do legs after hill repeats, you're further breaking down the muscle and on your rest day it will rebuild even more. that is where increases in power will come from. however, if you lift on days you're supposed to be rebuilding, all you're ever doing is breaking down. lifting on off days is BAD. this is a great way to overtrain, and a great way to have dead legs for months. rest on rest days, work on work days.

also, think about your goals. are you trying to build power? if so, there are plenty of on-bike exercises you can do, like very low cadence seating hill climbing, power starts, or sprints. you will see more immediate results from these exercises than from the gym simply because they work your bike specific muscles.

I would do legs on Thursday am, super easy ride thur. pm. Age might be a factor though. For me a hard ride on Sunday would be tuff after a hard weight sesion on Friday