Weight training exercises, barbell curls pointless for a trackie?

Good excercise for core is kettlebell training, it rocks

+1 very good for glute and hamstring work too.

theres kettlebells at the gym, Ive used them a couple of times but not sure if Ill add them, they are great tho.

I got a shock today, 117kg on the scales. Im getting a bit too bulky so need to get on my bike more!
strength is going up alot but I could do with leaning out a bit

add some interval training at the end of your strength session.

also try super sets and or circuits with weight training exercises and really raise your HR throughout your session.

add some interval training at the end of your strength session.

also try super sets and or circuits with weight training exercises and really raise your HR throughout your session.

why???

add some interval training at the end of your strength session.

also try super sets and or circuits with weight training exercises and really raise your HR throughout your session.

why???

Because it's a great way to reduce BF while maintaining muscle mass / strength. As we're cycling, I'd suggest short interval sprints too but that's me.

why would a shrug one of the technically easiest gym exercises need someone to be proficient at cleans and dead lift two of the technically harder exercises? As for being a "half way exercise" what a load of tish.

Only just noticed this.

A shrug, which could be more descriptively labelled as an "explosive clean or snatch grip pull from the floor" is technique wise much more challenging than a deadlift or a clean. In fact even competent lifters are wise to do actually racked cleans as warm ups to their shrugs to make their bodies extend properly and force the maximal power output/co-ordinated muscle contraction that HAVING to rack the bar forces.

For an athlete in season, deadlifts are tough to recover from and can leave the athlete well below an acceptable level of performance. You need to do deadlifts fairly often to "maintain the groove", busting heavy deadlifts all of a sudden once every 2-3 weeks is a good way to either make no progress or get injured. But doing them more frequently can overwhelm recovery capacity. So what to do?

You can just do no pulling from the floor at all. You can also rely on squats for strength and cleans for power. Or you can do squats, cleans (or snatches) and explosive pulls which are intentionally too heavy to rack. Which are labelled as shrugs or high pulls depending on how high you can get the bar.

You can vary the intensity of what you pull by how high you pull it. Shrugs can help cleans and cleans can help shrugs.

Most olympic weightlifters never ever deadlift, but they will do clean/snatch grip shrugs or high pulls to overload the back in a similar way to a deadlift and for a heavier variation of explosive pull/extension exercise. They would not do conventional deadlifts because it would cause their performance to drop for long enough to disrupt their other training considerably.

To cover one point, not disagreeing with the above, for cycling specific training I do not think a normal shrug has any place. I deadlift will work the glutes and hamstrings along with the shoulder and back muscles.

To me a shrug is a shrug and a clean is a clean.

Because it's a great way to reduce BF while maintaining muscle mass / strength. As we're cycling, I'd suggest short interval sprints too but that's me.

What's your theory and evidence behind this, Paul?

What's your theory and evidence behind this, Paul?

Only in my experiences from training and reading, HIIT has been widely used and for me worked well with a good diet.

It is always better to remain leaner and not have to do it in the first instance.

Sometimes riders will do revouts after a gym session, but that would probably be more beneficial during a plyo stage.
During a conditioning phase there's more likelihood of overreaching if riders are doing high intensity interval training after a gym session, and during a strength phase you would be jeopordising the important recovery and adaptation time by adding those on.

Not really a caveat but an addition: Optimal fat mobilising occurs at different levels of exercise intensity in different people. However, it's generally at lower intensities which is why accepted practice is low intensity/high volume exercise. Typically this exercise is a focus of an athlete's conditioning or preparation phase, by the time they get round to focusing on high intensity efforts, controlling body fat should be much less of an issue and therefore largely irrelevant to the training.

An example can be any pro sprinter: not much in the way of fat you'll agree. The strength building, speed and power training is far more effective on a fit rider, and even those national squad riders who stay in reasonable form all year round will still do a block of high volume/low intensity steady state road riding when starting a new phase after a recovery/rest period.

Obviously gym work can be used for that too (it doesn't always have to be strength work) although cycling is clearly more specific and potentially more effective. The flip side is that there is also a significant amount of strength work done on the bike, I'm always saying this, but most amateur track sprinters neglect the importance of on-bike work and are still training with the methods bandied about on forums from the Australian or East German training progs of the 80s and 90s.

There are protocols based on solid research and practice which form the basis of an effective training programme, but it's important not to rule out certain things which may be of benefit to certain riders.
Because of an imbalance or physical issue, someone may really benefit from an isolation exercise (such as curls) that 98% of track sprinters may never do. Additionally you might find that a block of interval training designed to increase a pursuiter's stamina at speed might be the very thing that a keirin rider or 3rd man in team sprint needs to help his speed endurance.

Anyway, chatting this shit on forums isn't going to help anyone unless they go and work for a reasonable period of time with a good coach.

I think you have nailed it with your last sentence, I forever hear gym users and PT's give blasé advice when they don't know or understand that persons physiology or goals.

My comment was aimed at Colm, being 6"3 and 117kg asking for info on here probably suggests he is not a pro athlete so general advice and basic guidance can help him work out what is right for him.

I think your post #36 is way out of my league and a general forum user, or mine at least. I'm not in a position to consider anything more complicated that a gym routine and some regular bike work. I would like it to be, but feel at this early stage and having mainly a gym and rugby background I cannot use any of that information yet. I think it's good to have a base, train with the club and once I feel I have the basics mapped pretty well. I will happily spend on a coach, at present the coach would be spoon feeding me.

You appear to have a large amount of information on aspects of training for track cycling, do you coach?

You appear to have a large amount of information on aspects of training for track cycling, do you coach?

Indeed I do. It's my profession.

Some might say 'obsession'

It seems to be that way for me too, it's a good thing, that's what I keep telling myself. I sold my track car to reduce my outgoings haha

Any details on your coaching? For future reference, unless you're local.....

I experimented with shrug variations a few weeks ago, doing 1 side at a time mimicking a standing start.

and
sitting on the edge of a bench with, torso at 45 degree angle also doing 1 side at a time but higher reps.

Maybe suitcase deadlifts would be good?

Just a deadlift? Or just do a big gear standing start?

Just about to start 2 weeks of HIIT type conditioning work again.

In my experience it works.

So RPM how do you organise your training without giving too much away? Im just starting getting into track cycling but i've already got a decent strength from using wendler 5/3/1. Squat 185 deadlift 210 Bench 115 FS 130 Clean 115 at 87kg. How do you do your phases. A conditioning phase of about 8-10 reps for 2 months? then a strength phase for 2 months with reps about 1-5? Cheers. Would be good to see how other people structure their training.

So RPM how do you organise your training without giving too much away? .

At the moment I don't have time for training, so I don't pretend to.

Length of phases will depend on the aim of the individual, but your ideas are pretty close to what suits a lot of people. The biggest mistakes made by amatuer cyclists in the gym are doing too many high rep isolation exercises or excessively long sessions with inadequate recovery.

I'm going to bow out of talking about this stuff on forums, because inevitably the genuine information gets heavily diluted by well-meaning but misinformed (or just uninformed) people with nothing to back up their comments but anecdotal evidence or their own personal arbitrary ideas.

I went 10% faster by doing one-armed pushups with 100kg on my back. Chris Hoys trains like this now. Fact.

If you have a wank after doing a squat session, muscle recovery and sperm replacement are both greatly accelerated. Best to make it a non-endurance wank though, or systems will be compromised.

Sounds like a ball ache

Only if you giant set your cock curls.