You are reading a single comment by @DFP and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@DFP
BMMF:
Some tips (stuff you probably know already, but ill share it for everybody)
When using the weightroom for brief cycles of strength work like this it is good to train with the basics, that is because you are detrained strength-wise and equivalent to a rank beginner.
So you will easily be able to train for 8 weeks, adding weight 3 times week on squats (do back squats!) and once a week for deadlifts. Towards the end of the 8 weeks you may need to drop to progression to two times a week, but im pretty sure you can handle 3xweek increments all the way up to the 8th week.
Forget the rows, they can be useful for a weightroom-strength-junkie who has trained for two years or so with no gaps, and is looking for something in addition to pull ups, power cleans, deadlifts and bench press they are already doing to provide more work for the back etc... It is also very difficult to use correct technique for a barbell row unless you are also (currently) strong at bench press, deadlift, pull ups, powercleans etc
For either a beginner, or someone (be them experienced in the past) doing a brief strength cycle after a break from the weightroom. Stick to Back squats, deadlifts, overhead press (barbell not dumb bell, more weight=more ab work). No extra ab work, as "the lifts" will be plenty enough, and more will interfere with recovery. For most general fitness and sports, bench press is highly valuable as it so quickly adds a ton of meat & functional strength to the upper body. But for power to weight concerns it is terrible, and the strength is unecessary for cycling anyway.
Deadlifts in particular are probably the best power-to-weight type exercise out there. They load every muscle in your body intensley, demanding massive input/stress on your nervous system. So much so, that most beginners will get pretty light-headed and come close to blacking out on heavy deadlift attempts. This is not muscular adaptation in the form of hypertrophy (bad for your power to weight) but nervous system training, teaching your body to recruit every muscle simultaneously in a massive power output attempt. They are not usually done very often, once a week for a beginner and perhaps once a month for someone more advanced because of the intensity of the stress. (this makes them perfect for power to weight) They are effective done at low reps and cause little in the way of unecessary bulk. Makue sure you do them strictly from a deadstop each rep, as the nature of the "dead" lift is what makes it intense and suitable for power-to-weight/nervous sytem training.