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
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.🤞
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
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
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.
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.
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 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.
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 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 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 RU-vid, in the comments section … like right now 😂
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.
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.
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.
