Weight training, dead legs and pedalling

Are you riding the bike the day after doing squats?

If so you probably need a day or so to recover the legs before going on the bike.

I don't do weights but I do yoga, and if I include some pistol squats in my routine and then go for a decent bike ride the following day, my legs are doomed. Give them a days rest and they're okay.

I’m fine riding in zone 2 for hours, but any real effort and just don’t have it in the legs, will this pass as I get stronger or recover better, or always going to be this way whilst trying to gain some more strength?

Certainly for me it got better (assuming your not deadlifting/squatting the night before) it did take several months before this was the case, however I'm new to lifting.

You’ll adapt, suck it up for a bit and your body will get used to it. When I started lifting I could barely walk up stairs for a few days after leg day, but now I can train MMA sane day and ride day after no problem. I mean it still sucks a bit but it’s fine

115kg squat is a lot 6 weeks in though, make sure your form is proper dialled as that also helped me, goal is to make light weight look heavy by executing perfect reps with slow return not make heavy weights look light by forcing reps and screwing your back up. If you have form dialled and are just a beast then as I said at the top, suck it up and let your body figure out it has to crack on

No, if you maintain the same intensity as you progress then I don't think it will get much easier.

I have 1 leg day per week in the gym and it goes as far away from any intense cycling as possible (Tuesday usually).

Realistically, a hard deadlift session takes 5 days to recover from. You've either got to reign in the gym intensity, or else you sacrifice some of the bike work. Training seriously for strength is not compatible with training seriously for endurance sports.

 Training seriously for strength is not compatible with training seriously for endurance sports.

To some extent that is true but Francis Ngannou, David Goggins, Cam Haynes and a few others would disagree. It’s about how much you’re willing to put into it and how much you’re willing to suffer

Thanks for all the replies, I have good form, I used to play rugby for a living and did a lot of weight training, but it was easy when that was all I did, and my idea of endurance was one end of pitch to the other!

I think i'll suck it up for the winter, stick to weight training and some decent zone 2 efforts, then drop weight down and use more reps, as i increase to harder efforts on bike and turbo in spring maybe, enjoying the weight training at the moment.

I am in my 50s and I find I can't lift heavy and ride hard in the same week, this is what I now do.

In winter,

For 2 weeks, 2 days a week lower body, 2 days a week upper body training fairly hard with the weights, 2 zone 2 rides a week (1-2 hours on midweek, 3+ hours on Sunday) a short 20min session or 2 on the rower if I have the energy.

Week 3 is a deload week for weight training 2 whole body workouts at about 60%. My midweek ride becomes an interval session usually on the trainer, and my long ride I don't throttle back on the hills as I do on the other 2 weeks, plus longer sessions on the rowing machine.

In Summer I basically switch all my weight training to my winter deload sessions so 2 times a week whole body not too heavy, and mainly ride for fun stop watching the power and heart rate numbers while I ride and maybe look at them later, or if the weather is really bad or time is very tight I might do a structured workout on the trainer.

Also you have to decide exactly how far you want to push yourself with the weights, I was getting close to deadlifting and squating 200kg, but I enjoy biking more than lifting weights, so I have throttled back and max out at 150 now, that is still plenty of stress on my body for my needs and leaves more capacity for biking

I'm doing Wendler 531 so I normally find I'm fine for biking 3 weeks out of 4.

If I'm pushing myself both on the main lift and the assistance work for a cycle then once I'm into week 3 I'm generally feeling a bit knackered but a couple of days into the deload week I'm fine again.  Also, if I'm taking it a bit easier on the main lifts (ie, stopping 4 reps short of failure rather than the usual 1 or 2) and only doing 3 sets of assistance work rather than 5 then I'm fine pretty much all the time.

I tend to go for more intensity/volume over the winter when I want to build strength and then ease off during spring/summer when I want to get out on the bike more.

A lot of people think a deload every 4 weeks is too much but I honestly couldn't manage without it.  I'm probably just getting old.

To some extent that is true but Francis Ngannou, David Goggins, Cam Haynes and a few others would disagree. It’s about how much you’re willing to put into it and how much you’re willing to suffer

Don't know who these people are, but I'm presuming you've listed three professional sports people?

Obviously selection bias makes them largely irrelevant. The average non-professional individual can't even manage to train 10 hours per week in ONE sport, never mind two which are diametrically opposed.

The problem is not how much an individual is willing to suffer, it's simply a matter of what they can recover from whilst holding down a job and handling life's responsibilities. The body only has a certain amount of stress (and it all goes in the same pot) that it can recover from in a given time frame (hence why zone 2 training exists - a lot of people overestimate the amount of intensity/stress that they can recover from).

Strength training is high stress - the deadlift is one of the highest stress lifts that you can train for. If the OP wants to keep getting stronger past the newbie gains phase, then he will have to compromise his cycling. That's not to say you can't find a happy medium and be average, or even quite good, at both (that will depend on your genetics), but you won't get close to your maximum potential in either one whilst training for while training for both at the same time.

It depends what you want from your weight training.
I used to do Starting Strength inspired stuff for years, have had a couple of goes on Stronglifts too. I always ended up dreading the Squats, once they got past a certain weight, and I've hurt myself a couple of times with heavy Squats and Deadlifts.
So now I'm old, I just don't do that any more. I'm not a competitive powerlifter, so I don't need a massive Squat and Deadlift. I lift to make myself healthier and enhance my life, so have judged the risk of heavy Squats and Deadlifts not worth the reward, for me. Squats have gone, I only barbell Deadlift sometimes and use the hex bar Deadlift more often.  I enjoy the gym more, and am injured less.

If you must Squat and Deadlift heavy, try to keep them as far away from bike rides as you can.

That’s not to say you can’t find a happy medium and be average, or even quite good, at both

I think the 80/20 rule applies.  If you want to achieve 100% of your strength potential then it's going to be impossible to achieve much if anything in an endurance based sport.

However, if you are happy achieving 80% of your strength potential and 80% of your endurance potential then that should be possible and still only take 40% of the amount of training time maxing out your potential in either strength or endurance.

I think it's entirely possible to be very much above average in both at the same time.  This book is well worth a look, imo:

Don’t know if this has been mentioned yet but make sure you’re getting enough protein.

On training days I always have protein powder in Greek yoghurt just before bed, seems to help.

@MSP 200kg squat! Jeesus that’s impressive!

I find squats and deads don't give me dead legs, they do tire them though. So riding solo the next day is fine, but any sort of group riding is just a non starter as I can't get out of Z2. Conversely strength training (not done properly so not to failure) doesn't seem to be impacted by cycling. So my schedule is bike day, weights day, recovery or upper body day, repeat.

Leave the accessories and isolations, they just make me sore.

MSP 200kg squat! Jeesus that’s impressive!

If you're following a plan, then it's like cycling, you don't go batshitcrazy at 100% every session, more like FTP training, you do most of the work at somewhere below FTP which means you can do it more often without injury, then peak towards a target where you basically do 1-3 reps at more weight every session chasing that 1RM.

I think the 80/20 rule applies. If you want to achieve 100% of your strength potential then it’s going to be impossible to achieve much if anything in an endurance based sport.

Depends on the discipline, plenty of track cyclists have competitively powerlifted and vice versa.

But yea, I'd agree on the 2nd point. Doing 20% of a strength program is probably enough to get you all the results you need for cycling, and doing 20% of what you would do for cycling is enough cardio to supplement weight training. How you fill (or don't) the other 60% of the training load is upto you.

I follow a plan that includes three days of lifting per week plus three rides. It’s no bother at all… but I was a flanker so always had ability to sprint over and over again 😘

But seriously, it’s designed for mtb rather than out and out strength. The weight loads are far less (partly because I don’t own enough yet!) than that and typically include more sets and reps. <br />Also a lot of supersets moving from upper to lower without any ‘leg days’

I guess it's about training to match your ability to recover, which will depend on your main priorities.

And your age - it's harder in your 50s.

I do weights twice a week, and my hour includes 15 minutes stretching. If I can't eat straight after, a protein supplement. Yoga 1-2 days a week is making a real difference to flexibility and core strength. One long/harder ride at the weekend, and one or two short rides in the week.

I found this an excellent video on the subject, and he basically re-iterates what has been said above, you can weight train seriously or train hard on the bike, but not both (I'm being lazy here, obviously there's a spectrum on both). DJ substitutes heavy weights/low reps for intensity on the bike during his weight training phase.

I've not made it to the gym yet but I plan two gym sessions during the week with some Z2 on the rollers on my off days, then just ride how I feel at the weekend (long and easy would be the plan but my winter gravel rides tend to look more like cyclocross so it's pretty hard to keep that low intensity...).

Interestingly he also debunks the whole protein thing for recovery (assuming an otherwise balanced diet). I think it's because the original study was flawed, didn't control calories across the trial groups or something. I still try to eat lots of protein though in an effort to curb the appetite and get off carbs!

Thanks all...

Some good points, part of my wanting to get back to more weight training, is because i was diagnosed Type 2 diabetic 2 years ago now, for me it is a genetic thing, my mum, grandad and uncle all had it following bouts of illness.

I have been good in that i have never taken medication and always controlled it via diet and exercise, up to now, mainly by 2-3 harder turbo sessions and 2 longer zone 2 rides a week.

But there is a lot of science that states resistance training is the best for diabetics as the more lean muscle mass you have, the more uptake of glucose from the blood stream there is to fuel the muscle.

Trouble is, i train 10-12 hours a week, and i really enjoy both aspects, i have been surprised how quickly i've got back into the weight training at 48, but do still enjoy battering myself on the turbo and trying to keep up with faster mates at the weekend...

I think i am going to compromise and do one heavy weights session early as possible in the week for the big compound lifts, one session of body weight exercises including bulgarian squats, RDL's etc and an upper body and core session later in the week, so hopefully by the weekend the legs have some oommpph!

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