IS STRENGTH TRAINING ESSENTIAL FOR CYCLING? | RDMN PODCAST CLIPS

1.Upper body lifting for aging cyclists

So the big question Joe you've talked about the limitations of Aging we've talked about having to redefine goals but how do we adapt our training to maintain Peak Performance how do we adapt our training to offset that decline in VO2 maxed muscle atrophy and the increased body fat what strategies and systems do we use to make that possible yeah yeah there's different answers to that question it kind of depends if we if we just take for example or one little moment here we take the idea of just muscle mass being lost if that's the issue um when you start lifting weights that's all there is to it um muscle mass is not going to come back by itself you got to do something about it the first thing to start doing is getting is lifting weights and muscle mass as I mentioned for a cyclists is probably not going to be so much the legs your legs are probably going to do really well it's going to be the upper body so if you've never done upper body weight lifting your in your whole sport career because you're a cyclist and you need your upper body infecting the one in the upper body Now's the Time to start doing upper body strength training anything you want to do it's fine you know bench presses curls pull-ups abdominals planks all this stuff all the stuff it does from the waist up you need to be doing that that's number one you gotta restart to drill into that and make it actionable for people how often does somebody need to be getting into the gym like what's the minimum effect of dose I would say twice a week is the minimum um listen I wouldn't say there's a time it's not like riding your bike or you have a time you sell like an hour and a half or two hours that time doesn't mean anything in the gym or the main thing that means anything here is how many reps are you doing what are the loads it doesn't matter how long it takes to do the workout if you can get it done what I did many years ago I started doing this long time ago so I just I got just really tired of waiting in the gym for the machine to open up so I could do the next the next exercise in my set so I decided to make my garage into my into my gym and so I did so now we've we actually went out and bought a new house because of that I wanted a three-car garage even though we only have two cars I have a bay in my garage to set up my what my weight room and every year I add something more to my weight room so it's now becoming rather nice and uh so I get out there twice a week and it's like a you know it's like a 10 second commute nobody no waiting in line to use the next machine I just do whatever I want to and I'm done and typically about 20 to 30 minutes I've got the whole thing done I did it twice a week so it doesn't take really hardly any time of my day at all and it's kind of like brushing my teeth I just go do it I don't think about it don't say it all I got to remember it to to uh do a lift weights tomorrow morning I don't do that at all because I know I'm gonna do it I don't tell myself to brush my teeth tomorrow morning I just do it it's the same thing let's go out lift weights so you would see this as a non-negotiable because I know you've worked with World Tour Reuters and I've have World Tour writers on the podcast all the time and the jewelry for them it's a little bit out on the gym yes it's beneficial and they try to get to the gym as much as possible but logistically it's mainly only possible in the off season because of their travel schedules and going to altitude comps they don't get into the gym 12 months of the year but for the Aging athletes you would see this as essential rather than optional oh you bet yeah the the young athletes especially the the elite athletes you know they're in a different world they're not really humans they're martians or something I'm sure they are but they're different and they don't need the same things that that the older athlete needs the older athletes to really focus on building muscle otherwise you're going to wind up and and all not only does it build muscle by the way lifting weights also makes the bones stronger so that when you fall and that's you're going to fall down you're gonna crash on that bike um if you fall when you're 25 years old it's probably not going to be a problem you can lose some skin you could be about bounce right back up and probably get right back and saddle again but you take a fall even a fairly minor fall when you're 65 years old big difference now you've got a huge chance of having broken a bone and that can set you back tremendously so lifting away it's also helps to build stronger bones so it's kind of like a double whammy you get two two benefits out of this for you know for maybe an hour a week you know two 30 minute sessions you're getting really a lot of benefits out of this because it's got to be consistent you can't do it tomorrow and then not do it for the next three weeks it's got to be every week you're doing this and would you look to periodize that into your training or is this just something that happens you know like a maintenance All Season rounds athletes who are who are still racing need to periodize it um I won't go into a lot of details there's there's quite a bit to it but I did that in my cyclist training Bible I talked about how to periodize your strengths Journey because the problem most athletes have is they think when they come to the Race season for example they have to stop lifting but that's really not the case we just have to modify how you're lifting how often you're looking that's and what what the loads are it happens but the reps and sets are but to modify all those things and it's that's a whole long list of topics which probably is not going to cover here but so they can see that in my book it explains how to do all that but you need to keep on lifting you're around if you're an aging athlete this was an extract from my conversation with Mr Joe frail if you enjoyed this extract you should please check out the 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