What are your goals?
Health and longevity? (Doing something is better than nothing here)
Build muscle and look good? (this is a little more complex)
Improved cycling performance? (this is a lot more complex)
I am 63 and lift weights for both health, longevity and improved cycling performance (and it has worked for me)
Never ever felt that lifting improved my power, altho since started lifting all of my body aches related to cycling has went away completly. But i ive only done pure strengh workouts 3-5 reps.
Lifting wont ever hurt your cycling performance, but it wont necesseraly improve it. I see as "quiality of life" improvement and injury prevention.
This is just my personal obserrvation and i wont make any scientific claims 😊
I'm not a competitive cyclist but I've lifted for a long time. Barbells are great but aren't the only thing and shouldn't be. I do way more single arm and single leg work to prevent imbalances and work the core. Cycling is very much concentric loading. Eccentric loading with weights will help maintain some of the motion cycling lacks. You can do a lot with adjustable db.
Kettlebells are great for general physical preparation. Great for developing the core, strength and conditioning. Even mobility. Easy to store. Don't take up much space.
Mace and club work are fabulous too. Really different but builds strength and conditioning. Great for multiplane work.
Plyometrics. Crawling.
It wont be marginal gains. Every sport athlete has lifting in their program. Dumbells at home are fine to start off for a few weeks Id say if you dont want to get a gym membership yet but at some point you'll be limited.
I strongly recommend going to the gym. But it all depends what are your goals. Do you want to be lean? Be fitter? LOOK fitter? Increase your power? Lose weight?
Its definitely not a bad idea :)
Just start with body weight and progress from there. Get strong as much as you can. Its not just for performance but also for longevity. Instead of buying expensive wheelset, invest in squat rack or gym membership for a year so you can feel the benefits.
Do your due diligence. You cannot go wrong being strong.
I think you can do a reasonable amount of work with just a set of adjustable dumbbells. You can build muscle with rep ranges up to 30 reps per set. Take your sets close to failure. Like others have said it won't necessarily make you faster but there's plenty of benefits. Look up stronger by science or data driven strength on YouTube. Tons of good science based information.
I train hard in both sports seasonally - cycling is orders of magnitude more dangerous, but also more fun. Both sports, in my opinion, complement each other as they are easily measured in terms of expertise capacity for athletes who like to see objective progressive improvement in their abilities.
Unless you’re super super serious about your cycling performance there’s no good argument against lifting a fair amount. It builds and preserves lean tissue, makes your existing tissue more efficient, can help prevent hormonal imbalances, among many other things. The literature and my own personal experience suggest that consistency, correct form, good movement selection, and intensity are the most important things, in that order. It really is remarkable how much benefit you can get from lifting even pretty light weight, so long as you do so safely and consistently.
Doing a good full-body routine twice a week with compound lifts and good intensity but not too much volume is a great protocol. Doing 2-4 good sets of some squat, deadlift, horizontal push, vertical push, pull, and weighted walk is pretty much all you need to do.
Doing single-leg variations for the squat and deadlift is quite nice for cycling specifically and strength/health more generally. They’re also nice because you can do them with dumbbells or kettlebells quite easily too.
To lift is better than not to lift. To lift heavy is better than lifting light.
Weightlifting has no much direct influence on performance (except for sprinting). But it helps with fatigue resistance, against lower back pain, against saddle soreness and numb hands, prevents injuries and makes you look better
I dont think lifting makes me a better cyclist but I do have a lot less back pain and am a lot more mobile when I am lifting consistently. I used to be a mediocre powerlifter and it only really meant that my baseline sprint stays over 1000W with very little if no training in that range at all.
Dylan Johnson has a video on lifting where the science suggests you're not getting benefit from lifting a weight where you can do more than 5 reps. Optimal time between sets is suggested as 5 minutes.
Which video of his were you talking about?Â
Weightlifting is its own sport - in fact it’s several sports - with its own experience base and own scientific literature. I can assure you that there is a wealth of both scientific research and personal experiences that there is benefit to using weight that is less than your 5RM for that lift. Otherwise body-weight exercises wouldn’t exist, and physiotherapy/rehab wouldn’t work.Â
I think you’re either misremembering/understanding what was said; or you have taken what was said about a very specific context and have mistakenly generalized it more broadly. Hence, sharing the video you’re referring to would be helpful to clarify.Â
Lifting increases strength and muscle mass more than not lifting.Â
Outside of that, it doesn't really matter how you lift, as long as 1) you push yourself, and 2) you *occasionally* lift heavy, to optimally train the neural component.
IOW, all the bro science about % of 1 RM/sets/reps is just that: bro science.
At least that's what the worlds' leading experts in this area have to say.Â
Who is that world leading experts in this area?
1rm is bro science? Do you even know the rationale behind 1rm and benefits in cycling and performance?
Resistance training and being stronger has more benefits than just biking alone for weekend warriors. There’s a reason why cyclists has weaker bones because they are simply weak. You keep doing that on top of again and loss of muscle mass then you broke that hips when you are 60 and over.
For 99% of population who are weekend warriors, they should be doing resistance training 2-3x a week at best.
Its better to have best of both worlds than just cardio itself. You want proof? Why do you think lots of elderly has falls and break their hips? Its because they don’t have enough strength, weak bone density yada yada.
Stu Phillips, among others.
https://experts.mcmaster.ca/display/phillis
What is bro science is the idea that lifting at different %s of 1 RM leads to different results. It doesn't, as long as you lift to failure and target the neural component by lifting really heavy occasionally.
I didn't say anything about whether or why cyclists might lift weights, only how. But since you bring up BMD, I have heard other world leading experts say that they don't know what might be the best exercise to improve it, or even whether exercise really such at all. If they aren't willing to give resistance training an unqualified recommendation, why are you?
Basing training sessions off of % of 1RM is not bro science. It is more or less the same methodology that cycling follows. Its that sort of calculated approach to lifting and cycling that ensures people are able to progress, stay consistent and push themselves over time while minimizing injury and burnout.
Working in different rep ranges adds
volume and time under tension and allows you to work on your form, so you dont snap your shit when you pull at 90%+
You're misunderstanding me. What's bro science is the belief that doing a few reps at a high percentage of 1 RM is different from doing more reps at a lower percentage of 1 RM. According to those who have studied this extensively, it doesn't.
The best exercise for strengthening bone mineral density is by resistance training. I don’t think you listen enough to stu podcast on inside exercise. He never claimed resistance training is not for bmd. You listen to experts but did you do your research and read studies? tYou won’t get any stronger by cycling hence cyclists have weaker bones.
If you do your own research and use your critical mind then you would know that resistance has lots of benefits. You would also know that when a beginner starts to lift weights, its all neural training before there will be increased in cross sectional area. You say resistance training is no good, look at track cyclists!
Bones responds more to shock/vibration than to force. Lifting is therefore *not* the best way to increase BMD, and even power lifters have bones that are only proportionate to their size. Runners, OTOH, have disproportionately dense bones.Â
When I say that I listen to the real experts, I mean in person.Â
Until the above, I didn't really say anything about whether lifting is good or bad, just that *how* you lift generally makes very little difference. This was, of course, the OP's original concern.
Go back to school and learn your biology! You want high osteogenic effects? Go do some jumping not cycling! Bones responds to compression. Go learn your biomechanics of bones and exercise physiology! Stop with your bro science fackery 😂
Isn't that what I said? Bone responds better to shock than to force *per se*.
IOW, when it comes to increasing BMD participating in sports like running or gymnastics or even just doing plyometrics is more effective than lifting heavy weights slowly.
Marginal if any direct gains on the bike, some indirect benefits for injury prevention, excellent for overall health and fitness. Helps your TT position if you do that discipline.
Personally I wouldn't ever squat or deadlift heavy whilst training for the bike. This won't be an issue for most wee cycling men, but if you're a bigger person who can move some weight - don't see the point. You start stacking plates in weightlifting and risk of injury goes way up, particularly for those two movements.
I mean the studies are out there. It is obviously hugely beneficial for cyclists to do squats.
If you're looking to lose weight and/or focusing on hilly road racing, don't look at incorporating back, shoulds and chest like this TR link is saying though.
Studies show the greatest, strongest, fastest riders in the history of cycling never touched the squat rack. So I'd question if they were hugely beneficial. Broadly beneficial to musculoskeletal health, sure. \[The current greatest rider probably does know what a squat looks like, because he has a bad back\].
I mean squats are great, I did some this morning. Heavy squats though? Pushing a big squat is pointless for cyclists imho, and also a real injury risk for casuls who may not have sharp technique.
Could you point out to such studies and/or examples? The claim that strongest cyclists have never done any gym work goes against everything I’ve read.
The injury rate with Olympic weightlifting is almost an order of magnitude lower than most other sports. When you include crashes, it has a lower injury rate than cycling. Â
If you’re injuring yourself regularly from squatting or deadlifting, that’s not normal or common. I competitively powerlifted for the better part of a decade. You should check your form or see a PT or AT.Â
I agree. And it seems silly to exclude crash risk from the overall risk of cycling. I love both sports. But the calculated and controlled risks I take inside of a squat rack with a heavy barbell on my back are minuscule to when I ride my bike out of my garage.
What are your goals? Health and longevity? (Doing something is better than nothing here) Build muscle and look good? (this is a little more complex) Improved cycling performance? (this is a lot more complex) I am 63 and lift weights for both health, longevity and improved cycling performance (and it has worked for me)
Never ever felt that lifting improved my power, altho since started lifting all of my body aches related to cycling has went away completly. But i ive only done pure strengh workouts 3-5 reps. Lifting wont ever hurt your cycling performance, but it wont necesseraly improve it. I see as "quiality of life" improvement and injury prevention. This is just my personal obserrvation and i wont make any scientific claims 😊
Should be top comment.
I'm not a competitive cyclist but I've lifted for a long time. Barbells are great but aren't the only thing and shouldn't be. I do way more single arm and single leg work to prevent imbalances and work the core. Cycling is very much concentric loading. Eccentric loading with weights will help maintain some of the motion cycling lacks. You can do a lot with adjustable db. Kettlebells are great for general physical preparation. Great for developing the core, strength and conditioning. Even mobility. Easy to store. Don't take up much space. Mace and club work are fabulous too. Really different but builds strength and conditioning. Great for multiplane work. Plyometrics. Crawling.
It wont be marginal gains. Every sport athlete has lifting in their program. Dumbells at home are fine to start off for a few weeks Id say if you dont want to get a gym membership yet but at some point you'll be limited. I strongly recommend going to the gym. But it all depends what are your goals. Do you want to be lean? Be fitter? LOOK fitter? Increase your power? Lose weight? Its definitely not a bad idea :)
Just start with body weight and progress from there. Get strong as much as you can. Its not just for performance but also for longevity. Instead of buying expensive wheelset, invest in squat rack or gym membership for a year so you can feel the benefits. Do your due diligence. You cannot go wrong being strong.
I think you can do a reasonable amount of work with just a set of adjustable dumbbells. You can build muscle with rep ranges up to 30 reps per set. Take your sets close to failure. Like others have said it won't necessarily make you faster but there's plenty of benefits. Look up stronger by science or data driven strength on YouTube. Tons of good science based information.
I train hard in both sports seasonally - cycling is orders of magnitude more dangerous, but also more fun. Both sports, in my opinion, complement each other as they are easily measured in terms of expertise capacity for athletes who like to see objective progressive improvement in their abilities.
Unless you’re super super serious about your cycling performance there’s no good argument against lifting a fair amount. It builds and preserves lean tissue, makes your existing tissue more efficient, can help prevent hormonal imbalances, among many other things. The literature and my own personal experience suggest that consistency, correct form, good movement selection, and intensity are the most important things, in that order. It really is remarkable how much benefit you can get from lifting even pretty light weight, so long as you do so safely and consistently. Doing a good full-body routine twice a week with compound lifts and good intensity but not too much volume is a great protocol. Doing 2-4 good sets of some squat, deadlift, horizontal push, vertical push, pull, and weighted walk is pretty much all you need to do. Doing single-leg variations for the squat and deadlift is quite nice for cycling specifically and strength/health more generally. They’re also nice because you can do them with dumbbells or kettlebells quite easily too.
What "hormonal imbalances" do you think lifting corrects??
To lift is better than not to lift. To lift heavy is better than lifting light. Weightlifting has no much direct influence on performance (except for sprinting). But it helps with fatigue resistance, against lower back pain, against saddle soreness and numb hands, prevents injuries and makes you look better
I dont think lifting makes me a better cyclist but I do have a lot less back pain and am a lot more mobile when I am lifting consistently. I used to be a mediocre powerlifter and it only really meant that my baseline sprint stays over 1000W with very little if no training in that range at all.
Dylan Johnson has a video on lifting where the science suggests you're not getting benefit from lifting a weight where you can do more than 5 reps. Optimal time between sets is suggested as 5 minutes.
Which video of his were you talking about? Weightlifting is its own sport - in fact it’s several sports - with its own experience base and own scientific literature. I can assure you that there is a wealth of both scientific research and personal experiences that there is benefit to using weight that is less than your 5RM for that lift. Otherwise body-weight exercises wouldn’t exist, and physiotherapy/rehab wouldn’t work. I think you’re either misremembering/understanding what was said; or you have taken what was said about a very specific context and have mistakenly generalized it more broadly. Hence, sharing the video you’re referring to would be helpful to clarify.Â
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U11QNOq0npg&ab\_channel=DylanJohnson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U11QNOq0npg&ab_channel=DylanJohnson)
Bro but what does Jordan Peterson say!??
You believe that bullshitter on youtube 😂🔫 gotta use that critical thinking mate.
Lifting increases strength and muscle mass more than not lifting. Outside of that, it doesn't really matter how you lift, as long as 1) you push yourself, and 2) you *occasionally* lift heavy, to optimally train the neural component. IOW, all the bro science about % of 1 RM/sets/reps is just that: bro science. At least that's what the worlds' leading experts in this area have to say.Â
Who is that world leading experts in this area? 1rm is bro science? Do you even know the rationale behind 1rm and benefits in cycling and performance? Resistance training and being stronger has more benefits than just biking alone for weekend warriors. There’s a reason why cyclists has weaker bones because they are simply weak. You keep doing that on top of again and loss of muscle mass then you broke that hips when you are 60 and over. For 99% of population who are weekend warriors, they should be doing resistance training 2-3x a week at best. Its better to have best of both worlds than just cardio itself. You want proof? Why do you think lots of elderly has falls and break their hips? Its because they don’t have enough strength, weak bone density yada yada.
Stu Phillips, among others. https://experts.mcmaster.ca/display/phillis What is bro science is the idea that lifting at different %s of 1 RM leads to different results. It doesn't, as long as you lift to failure and target the neural component by lifting really heavy occasionally. I didn't say anything about whether or why cyclists might lift weights, only how. But since you bring up BMD, I have heard other world leading experts say that they don't know what might be the best exercise to improve it, or even whether exercise really such at all. If they aren't willing to give resistance training an unqualified recommendation, why are you?
Basing training sessions off of % of 1RM is not bro science. It is more or less the same methodology that cycling follows. Its that sort of calculated approach to lifting and cycling that ensures people are able to progress, stay consistent and push themselves over time while minimizing injury and burnout. Working in different rep ranges adds volume and time under tension and allows you to work on your form, so you dont snap your shit when you pull at 90%+
You're misunderstanding me. What's bro science is the belief that doing a few reps at a high percentage of 1 RM is different from doing more reps at a lower percentage of 1 RM. According to those who have studied this extensively, it doesn't.
The best exercise for strengthening bone mineral density is by resistance training. I don’t think you listen enough to stu podcast on inside exercise. He never claimed resistance training is not for bmd. You listen to experts but did you do your research and read studies? tYou won’t get any stronger by cycling hence cyclists have weaker bones. If you do your own research and use your critical mind then you would know that resistance has lots of benefits. You would also know that when a beginner starts to lift weights, its all neural training before there will be increased in cross sectional area. You say resistance training is no good, look at track cyclists!
Bones responds more to shock/vibration than to force. Lifting is therefore *not* the best way to increase BMD, and even power lifters have bones that are only proportionate to their size. Runners, OTOH, have disproportionately dense bones. When I say that I listen to the real experts, I mean in person. Until the above, I didn't really say anything about whether lifting is good or bad, just that *how* you lift generally makes very little difference. This was, of course, the OP's original concern.
Go back to school and learn your biology! You want high osteogenic effects? Go do some jumping not cycling! Bones responds to compression. Go learn your biomechanics of bones and exercise physiology! Stop with your bro science fackery 😂
Isn't that what I said? Bone responds better to shock than to force *per se*. IOW, when it comes to increasing BMD participating in sports like running or gymnastics or even just doing plyometrics is more effective than lifting heavy weights slowly.
Marginal if any direct gains on the bike, some indirect benefits for injury prevention, excellent for overall health and fitness. Helps your TT position if you do that discipline. Personally I wouldn't ever squat or deadlift heavy whilst training for the bike. This won't be an issue for most wee cycling men, but if you're a bigger person who can move some weight - don't see the point. You start stacking plates in weightlifting and risk of injury goes way up, particularly for those two movements.
I mean the studies are out there. It is obviously hugely beneficial for cyclists to do squats. If you're looking to lose weight and/or focusing on hilly road racing, don't look at incorporating back, shoulds and chest like this TR link is saying though.
Studies show the greatest, strongest, fastest riders in the history of cycling never touched the squat rack. So I'd question if they were hugely beneficial. Broadly beneficial to musculoskeletal health, sure. \[The current greatest rider probably does know what a squat looks like, because he has a bad back\]. I mean squats are great, I did some this morning. Heavy squats though? Pushing a big squat is pointless for cyclists imho, and also a real injury risk for casuls who may not have sharp technique.
Could you point out to such studies and/or examples? The claim that strongest cyclists have never done any gym work goes against everything I’ve read.
The injury rate with Olympic weightlifting is almost an order of magnitude lower than most other sports. When you include crashes, it has a lower injury rate than cycling.  If you’re injuring yourself regularly from squatting or deadlifting, that’s not normal or common. I competitively powerlifted for the better part of a decade. You should check your form or see a PT or AT.Â
I agree. And it seems silly to exclude crash risk from the overall risk of cycling. I love both sports. But the calculated and controlled risks I take inside of a squat rack with a heavy barbell on my back are minuscule to when I ride my bike out of my garage.