I never worked out. I am 62 and after I started leg press, split squats, lateral bear crawl, step ups, and cable hip flex pulls. In only 4 months I saw new PR's in 1 sec power of 50% from 600W to 900W. and nearly 40% improvement at 1min. It has clearly help me avoid walking up a climb I could not do last year.
@@musclelessfitness2045 no it´s not another story the studies sugested that strength training will improve your cycling economy and also fatigue resistance therefore your long efforts as well
Funny how this video has come up today. Yesterday I went to the gym to tour facilities and discuss how they can help me. It’s a big financial commitment but I can see how important it is and confident having watched your video that I will get some sort of gains from it. Thanks Ed.
I lift twice a week as well a 30 minute dumbbell routine with a total body focus and the. A 5 minute core session. I’m have more energy and have been able to stay injury free both cycling and running. At 46 I think the weights are key to keeping what muscle mass I have my bike power and staying active and mobile well beyond my 60’s. Good work Ed go smash it this weekend you got this
Would you mind sharing your workout routine in more detail? I only have dumbbells right now and it sounds like this is a solid supplement to cycling. Thank you
@@tdsifers after warm up stretch 1x16 hammer curls 1x16 single arm curls 1x16 bent over rows 1x16 overhead press 1x16 over head hammer press 1x32 deadlifts 1x16 front loaded squats 1x32 weighted glute bridges 1x32 dumbbell press 1x32 rotating dumbbell press 1x16 decline dumbbell press 1x16 lat extension. One weight only lower tell it touch’s the ground Then I drop 5 pounds off each dumbbell 1x16 flys 1x16 skulls crushers 1x16 triceps press Then I do the triathalon Taren core one routine he has it on UA-cam to watch and follow along
Good luck for the weekend Ed. I hope that you get the performance, from yourself, that you are expectiing. And fingers crossed that it results in a faster time than anyone else.🤞
Good luck tomorrow, and well done for all the massive gains in adapting for the shorter efforts - let's hope this brings you the result you're looking for on Sunday!
I started lifting weight on the advice of my Dr. Dealing with a ropey knee, he said get strong and you'll be fine. Worked and 10% increase in FTP. Win win.... 😊
I’m 72 and have started doing quite heavy squats. I soon found them getting easier, and I’m pretty sure that my ftp is now higher. But a great side benefit is that it has cured a leg imbalance (identified on my Wattbike)
I strength train a lot, at the moment it is pretty exclusively that as part of a Body Recomposition to lose weight, fat and build muscle and hopefully fix my knee for good. I mix it up between single leg and dual leg exercises to work on imbalances and build that power. I go 3-4 times a week; 3 lower days and 1 upper day. I'm as heavy as I can for 3 sets of 6-8 reps with progressive overload when I can increase the weight/ reps. For example, Hip Thrust are 140kg - 6x3 but I can do 150kg for 5 reps. Will try again in a week or so. I have been on one ride since I came back from the Alps which was at the start of October and I noticed this; Average speed for was 2kmph quicker, Ave Power was up 27 watts, Cadence was up from 82 - 89rpm and I recovered from climbing efforts much faster. Single Leg exercises: 1) Bulgarian Split Squats 2) Leg Press 3) Leg Extension Dual Leg exercises: 1) Hip Thrusts - more cyclists should do these!!! 2) Squats 3) RDL's 4) T-Bar Deadlift. I also do/ finding upper body exercises that I enjoy doing like weighted back extensions, lay down rows, ez bar curls, tricep pulldowns etc.
When you enter off-season, make a point to focus on more of the balance part of strength. So no Smith machines for example. Also add in exercises that aren't the same plane as riding a bike. We are already good at that. We need those little activator muscles to wake up.
Awesome video Ed. Coincidence this came up, I'm just about to start my first "consistent" strength training routine, so I'm keen to see how it will affect me being more of a sprinter type rider
A bit of a full body gym work is great for everyone, especially as we get a bit older. I feel so much better for it. You're not going to stack on kilos of weight, especially if you're still riding. Longevity for the win 🥇
Ive just done my first hill climb race in Torrox ( Spain ), my next race is in December in Velez Malaga, it's about 20km hill climb ( over 1200 meters elevation) after a bit of a road ride warm up. I need to use some of this strength training to help with my speed/ endurance up hill.
As a personal trainer that got into cycling last year I found the years of strength training gave me a great base. I seem to be one of the better hill climbers in my group. However this year I decided to cut down the lower body strength (I tend to stick to upper body) and utilise just cycling for lower body and noticed I progressed more this year. Planning to incorporate leg strength back now that I’ve tried both separately. However it’s hard to see how to schedule these sessions without it affecting cycling and vice versa.
As I'm just about to head out the door for a 2 hour ride, Ed's here to remind me that the real way I'm going to raise my FTP is not the upcoming ride, but the addition of strength work to complement riding. I just added calf raises on the stairs from the garage and body weight lunges for two weeks and saw my second-best all time 40 minute power on Zwift pop up and surprise me because I didn't notice an RPE approaching what I typically associate with an all-out long effort.
I started back strength training because I couldn’t work out why my body hurt much more than it used to after hard riding. In 6 months it’s made a world of difference to my overall fitness and performance on the bike. I began taking Creatine as well after I got over the fear of weight gain. I’m glad I did as the extra 1.5kg is not noticeable due to the much greater gain in power I got!
I was about to ask Ed a question about whether he was using Creatine in-conjunction with his strength training or more generally. I'm in my third week of trialling Creatine, and in the fifth month of base-training and some strength training (after a return to riding). Up to today there was no noticeable impact from the supplement / strength training combo: Last night I did a hard criterium, first one for over a year. Today the legs have minimal feeling of fatigue - which is a surprise.
@@stevenbalderstone709 I have a similar experience, I have much more energy and can repeat efforts daily with far less fatigue. Recovery is super quick.
i think i am guilty of overdoing the strength training especially as i hate to ride indoors but obviously don;t mind to lift indoors. Anyway best of luck to you Ed!
Good luck at weekend. I think the legwork has benefit you but also perhaps a little fresher going in to a pb effort having spent way less time in the bike.
Good luck at the weekend first of all. I am 87kgs and would love, at some stage, to see you do a hill climb with 26th of spuds in a rucksack on your bike. Joking apart..and I know it won’t be completely scientific..I think it might be a good video to encourage controlled weight loss to those that want to take things a bit more seriously. That said, did you see the GCN video about Cyclors? These are the 100kg cyclists that pedal the America’s Cup yachts. Insane!
So what we really want to know is what do you do in between sets when at the gym? I find that 3-4min soooooooo boring. I’m just standing or sitting there trying not to make eye contact with anyone else (for fear of having to talk to them). In fact what I tend to find myself doing is creeping around UA-cam, in the comments section … like right now 😂
This is a great vlog strength so important to build for the climbs and as we age for health & longevity, thanks for posting Ed! and hope you get a result this weekend!! 🚀
Just doing weighted squats a few times a week consistently gives me massive cycling gains (massive being of tens of watts which is massive in cycling terms). I believe that it’s the biggest, easy gain that most people probably are not taking advantage of.
Not necessarily max weight. I’ve always found that any weighted squats help, as long as I hold good posture. I guess it differs for everyone. It genuinely makes a big difference to my cycling.
Us cyclists are silly. We won't get buff and huge with 1 or 2 hours of lifting a week. If you went and found the biggest monsters in your gym and said, I want to be huge but I am only going to lift an hour a week and meanwhile do endless cardio, they'd laugh at you. Unless you're going full Jay Cutler and eating every 2 hours and spending all of your time in the gym, and then riding 1 hour a week, we'll be okay. More plates more dates.
nowhere near you level but the results were surprisingly similar and i was so surprised of my results - same formula - i did 2 session session dead lift + squats + one leg lunges with weight over 3 - 4 months + around 10 to 15h riding a week (80% in Z2 and around). Riding for 15 years raced some TT and recently some gravel. I did increased volume on the bike at same time so my results are not like for like 78kg 2min - from 420w to 515 5min 370 to 409 10min 330 to 390 20min 310 to 356
Has anybody seen the photos recently of Giulio Ciccone's legs? Super strong! I think for non full time pro cyclists strength training is important for general health and fitness.
3:16 maybe you’re going to explain this after this point in the video, but i would love to know what you do for anaerobic training. I can hold a good power for hill climbing up to 1 minute, but after that i crash hard. I would love to get better at climbing. Any advice is greatly appreciated!!!
Pogacar works the gym a few days a week and you can bet his explosivity comes from weight training reps. You can reach some muscle groups better using weights than on the bike.
Creatine is questionable specifically in that context. It's a great supplement for strength training and breaking through plateaus in the gym, however it causes increased water retention within the muscle and thus adds overall weight. Thus it is detrimental in optimizing W/kg which is essential for hill climbing. So, as with all things in life you would need to find balance between gaining more anaerobic power from the gym with the added weight gained. What might be a better strategy is to use creatine for the gym block, but then phase it out to drop the water weight in time for the races. You will lose some mass, but not all the gains will be lost. Maybe that would result in the best results. Personally, I'd just skip creatine or just use it during gym time over the winter and stop in spring when the hours on the bike increase.
@@mrm95 water retention isn’t really an issue when using low doses, 3-5g daily, rather than the traditional loading method and has been shown to improve power in well trained cyclists for efforts in in the 1-5 minute range which is why I’m specifically interested in whether a rider like Ed utilises it in his preparations.
I never worked out. I am 62 and after I started leg press, split squats, lateral bear crawl, step ups, and cable hip flex pulls. In only 4 months I saw new PR's in 1 sec power of 50% from 600W to 900W. and nearly 40% improvement at 1min. It has clearly help me avoid walking up a climb I could not do last year.
For short efforts, of course it helps. You can see that all the fastest track cyclists have big muscles. For long efforts, that's another story.
@@musclelessfitness2045 no it´s not another story the studies sugested that strength training will improve your cycling economy and also fatigue resistance therefore your long efforts as well
@@musclelessfitness2045increases torque output as well, thus power.
Funny how this video has come up today. Yesterday I went to the gym to tour facilities and discuss how they can help me. It’s a big financial commitment but I can see how important it is and confident having watched your video that I will get some sort of gains from it.
Thanks Ed.
I lift twice a week as well a 30 minute dumbbell routine with a total body focus and the. A 5 minute core session. I’m have more energy and have been able to stay injury free both cycling and running. At 46 I think the weights are key to keeping what muscle mass I have my bike power and staying active and mobile well beyond my 60’s. Good work Ed go smash it this weekend you got this
Would you mind sharing your workout routine in more detail? I only have dumbbells right now and it sounds like this is a solid supplement to cycling. Thank you
@@tdsifers after warm up stretch
1x16 hammer curls
1x16 single arm curls
1x16 bent over rows
1x16 overhead press
1x16 over head hammer press
1x32 deadlifts
1x16 front loaded squats
1x32 weighted glute bridges
1x32 dumbbell press
1x32 rotating dumbbell press
1x16 decline dumbbell press
1x16 lat extension. One weight only lower tell it touch’s the ground
Then I drop 5 pounds off each dumbbell
1x16 flys
1x16 skulls crushers
1x16 triceps press
Then I do the triathalon Taren core one routine he has it on UA-cam to watch and follow along
Good luck for the Hill Climb Champs 💪
Good luck for the weekend Ed. I hope that you get the performance, from yourself, that you are expectiing. And fingers crossed that it results in a faster time than anyone else.🤞
Good luck tomorrow, and well done for all the massive gains in adapting for the shorter efforts - let's hope this brings you the result you're looking for on Sunday!
I started lifting weight on the advice of my Dr. Dealing with a ropey knee, he said get strong and you'll be fine. Worked and 10% increase in FTP. Win win.... 😊
I’m 72 and have started doing quite heavy squats. I soon found them getting easier, and I’m pretty sure that my ftp is now higher. But a great side benefit is that it has cured a leg imbalance (identified on my Wattbike)
I strength train a lot, at the moment it is pretty exclusively that as part of a Body Recomposition to lose weight, fat and build muscle and hopefully fix my knee for good. I mix it up between single leg and dual leg exercises to work on imbalances and build that power. I go 3-4 times a week; 3 lower days and 1 upper day. I'm as heavy as I can for 3 sets of 6-8 reps with progressive overload when I can increase the weight/ reps. For example, Hip Thrust are 140kg - 6x3 but I can do 150kg for 5 reps. Will try again in a week or so.
I have been on one ride since I came back from the Alps which was at the start of October and I noticed this; Average speed for was 2kmph quicker, Ave Power was up 27 watts, Cadence was up from 82 - 89rpm and I recovered from climbing efforts much faster.
Single Leg exercises:
1) Bulgarian Split Squats
2) Leg Press
3) Leg Extension
Dual Leg exercises:
1) Hip Thrusts - more cyclists should do these!!!
2) Squats
3) RDL's
4) T-Bar Deadlift.
I also do/ finding upper body exercises that I enjoy doing like weighted back extensions, lay down rows, ez bar curls, tricep pulldowns etc.
Great comment, more people need to take note of this.
When you enter off-season, make a point to focus on more of the balance part of strength. So no Smith machines for example. Also add in exercises that aren't the same plane as riding a bike. We are already good at that. We need those little activator muscles to wake up.
Great video, god luck today at the Nationals Hill Climb Ed!
Awesome video Ed. Coincidence this came up, I'm just about to start my first "consistent" strength training routine, so I'm keen to see how it will affect me being more of a sprinter type rider
Thought provoking stuff, thanks Ed, and well done!
All the best for sunday ed go well 💪💪
A bit of a full body gym work is great for everyone, especially as we get a bit older. I feel so much better for it. You're not going to stack on kilos of weight, especially if you're still riding. Longevity for the win 🥇
I’d really you know how those, particularly young, bike racers have such defined and big quads.
Ive just done my first hill climb race in Torrox ( Spain ), my next race is in December in Velez Malaga, it's about 20km hill climb ( over 1200 meters elevation) after a bit of a road ride warm up. I need to use some of this strength training to help with my speed/ endurance up hill.
As a personal trainer that got into cycling last year I found the years of strength training gave me a great base. I seem to be one of the better hill climbers in my group.
However this year I decided to cut down the lower body strength (I tend to stick to upper body) and utilise just cycling for lower body and noticed I progressed more this year.
Planning to incorporate leg strength back now that I’ve tried both separately. However it’s hard to see how to schedule these sessions without it affecting cycling and vice versa.
Weight training definitely helps, I plateaued my progress and since incorporating weights my performance went up!
How did you incorporated strenght with HIT ?
How did your week schedule looked like ?
As I'm just about to head out the door for a 2 hour ride, Ed's here to remind me that the real way I'm going to raise my FTP is not the upcoming ride, but the addition of strength work to complement riding. I just added calf raises on the stairs from the garage and body weight lunges for two weeks and saw my second-best all time 40 minute power on Zwift pop up and surprise me because I didn't notice an RPE approaching what I typically associate with an all-out long effort.
I started back strength training because I couldn’t work out why my body hurt much more than it used to after hard riding. In 6 months it’s made a world of difference to my overall fitness and performance on the bike. I began taking Creatine as well after I got over the fear of weight gain. I’m glad I did as the extra 1.5kg is not noticeable due to the much greater gain in power I got!
I was about to ask Ed a question about whether he was using Creatine in-conjunction with his strength training or more generally. I'm in my third week of trialling Creatine, and in the fifth month of base-training and some strength training (after a return to riding). Up to today there was no noticeable impact from the supplement / strength training combo: Last night I did a hard criterium, first one for over a year. Today the legs have minimal feeling of fatigue - which is a surprise.
@@stevenbalderstone709 I have a similar experience, I have much more energy and can repeat efforts daily with far less fatigue. Recovery is super quick.
i think i am guilty of overdoing the strength training especially as i hate to ride indoors but obviously don;t mind to lift indoors. Anyway best of luck to you Ed!
Good luck at weekend. I think the legwork has benefit you but also perhaps a little fresher going in to a pb effort having spent way less time in the bike.
Did the Nationals climb today, horrible headwind, I needed that strength training...😩
excellent thank you
If you don't have kids - you have time for both trust.
Good luck at the weekend first of all. I am 87kgs and would love, at some stage, to see you do a hill climb with 26th of spuds in a rucksack on your bike. Joking apart..and I know it won’t be completely scientific..I think it might be a good video to encourage controlled weight loss to those that want to take things a bit more seriously. That said, did you see the GCN video about Cyclors? These are the 100kg cyclists that pedal the America’s Cup yachts. Insane!
So what we really want to know is what do you do in between sets when at the gym? I find that 3-4min soooooooo boring. I’m just standing or sitting there trying not to make eye contact with anyone else (for fear of having to talk to them). In fact what I tend to find myself doing is creeping around UA-cam, in the comments section … like right now 😂
Learn to relax 😂
Talking to other people can be relaxing sometimes. It helps take your mind off stressful thoughts.
pro tip: wear ur earphones even without music, solve 99% unwanted conversations lol
Opposing body movements, push pull etc . Bench press into bent over row?
Do a circuit. Cyclist tend to avoid the upper body but you could do squats superset with push ups/pull-ups.
This is a great vlog strength so important to build for the climbs and as we age for health & longevity, thanks for posting Ed! and hope you get a result this weekend!!
🚀
Just doing weighted squats a few times a week consistently gives me massive cycling gains (massive being of tens of watts which is massive in cycling terms). I believe that it’s the biggest, easy gain that most people probably are not taking advantage of.
Very few squat at max weight ?
Not necessarily max weight. I’ve always found that any weighted squats help, as long as I hold good posture. I guess it differs for everyone. It genuinely makes a big difference to my cycling.
Us cyclists are silly. We won't get buff and huge with 1 or 2 hours of lifting a week. If you went and found the biggest monsters in your gym and said, I want to be huge but I am only going to lift an hour a week and meanwhile do endless cardio, they'd laugh at you.
Unless you're going full Jay Cutler and eating every 2 hours and spending all of your time in the gym, and then riding 1 hour a week, we'll be okay.
More plates more dates.
nowhere near you level but the results were surprisingly similar and i was so surprised of my results - same formula - i did 2 session session dead lift + squats + one leg lunges with weight over 3 - 4 months + around 10 to 15h riding a week (80% in Z2 and around). Riding for 15 years raced some TT and recently some gravel. I did increased volume on the bike at same time so my results are not like for like
78kg
2min - from 420w to 515
5min 370 to 409
10min 330 to 390
20min 310 to 356
@zetka102 impressive gains! Especially considering that you are not a new cyclist 👌🏻
Has anybody seen the photos recently of Giulio Ciccone's legs? Super strong! I think for non full time pro cyclists strength training is important for general health and fitness.
3:16 maybe you’re going to explain this after this point in the video, but i would love to know what you do for anaerobic training. I can hold a good power for hill climbing up to 1 minute, but after that i crash hard. I would love to get better at climbing. Any advice is greatly appreciated!!!
So funny how weight lifters are bored during cardio and cyclist are bored in the gym
Of course
Interestingly enough, I've been doing a 30-minute leg workout since the start of September 3 x a week.
How are you measuring your body fat % ?
Pogacar works the gym a few days a week and you can bet his explosivity comes from weight training reps. You can reach some muscle groups better using weights than on the bike.
Do you supplement with creatine for short hill climbs like the upcoming National?
Creatine is questionable specifically in that context. It's a great supplement for strength training and breaking through plateaus in the gym, however it causes increased water retention within the muscle and thus adds overall weight. Thus it is detrimental in optimizing W/kg which is essential for hill climbing. So, as with all things in life you would need to find balance between gaining more anaerobic power from the gym with the added weight gained.
What might be a better strategy is to use creatine for the gym block, but then phase it out to drop the water weight in time for the races. You will lose some mass, but not all the gains will be lost. Maybe that would result in the best results.
Personally, I'd just skip creatine or just use it during gym time over the winter and stop in spring when the hours on the bike increase.
@@mrm95 water retention isn’t really an issue when using low doses, 3-5g daily, rather than the traditional loading method and has been shown to improve power in well trained cyclists for efforts in in the 1-5 minute range which is why I’m specifically interested in whether a rider like Ed utilises it in his preparations.
How many reps did you normally do per set?
I mainly do it for bone density
main benefit from strength work is injury prevention
It doesn't benefit me because I came from a swimming and gym background so the shorter efforts were always my best but longer i was terrible.
Are you on something?😮