Stronglifts 5 x 5

I’ve tried gym then bike, usually gym at lunch or mid-morning and bike in the evening. It’s never gone well for me. Legs are always too fatigued to do threshold or sweet spot work.

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Thanks for sharing your experience, guess I just have to do it and see for myself :slight_smile:

Think I’ll first get used to a new ftp before starting doing two a day

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I have and seems to be ok with sweet spot work but for harder efforts the fatigue from morning gym work has me failing to complete more than a couple intervals. I feel I do better when I prioritize, then do that workout first.

BTW - I used to feel the same way about better workouts later in the day but after a while I got accustomed to morning cycling and all works much better with bike in the morning, weights in the evening

I used to run in the morning and then go to the gym in the evening and I enjoyed running in the morning as the streets were empty.

I am not sure how I am going to feel about doing indoor rides in the morning, I did Bald Knob today in the morning which went fine but that isn’t a real test like Palisade for instance

As I’m concentrating on strength training for the next few months, I’m moving away from the usual sweetspot / threshold training and doing a more polarized training. This should fit better together with strength training. The majority of bike work will be easy endurance and a few hard Vo2 max interval sessions, ratio 80/20 or 90/10. On most easy bike days, weights are less of an issue and on hard Vo2 days, I make sure I’m allowing 24 hours or more between bike and lifting.

More topics here:

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I’ve been doing a minor variation of stronglifts for ~2 months. I’m going to go against what most people are saying here and say you need to do it 3 days a week. I was only doing it 2 days a week and when I did the math it was going to take a long time to progress. I’ll also caveat it and say that I am a pretty weak person (Which is why I think strength training will be valuable). If you’re already squatting 1.5 to 2x BW than I don’t know if you need to do a strength training program (Unless you just want variety). For bike training, I’m just trying to maintain and focus on basic aerobic endurance until I start training.
MWF: Stronglifts (minor modifications)
TThu: Aerobic Endurance Rides
SatSun: Social group rides (Not race pace)

I personally would say you either need to chose between bike training and sweet spot based on what you think your personal limiter is.

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@mastratton3. Interesting… Did you start off Stronglifts with just the bar for weight on most of the lifts? (I did just to get the movements dialed first as I’ve frequently gotten hurt lifting.) I shared the same concern initially with 2 days a week taking quite a long time to get greater weight on the bar.

Do you mind me asking… When do you have recovery days? How old are you?

So I found stronglifts once I had been in the gym a bit already doing some prep work so I had an idea of what weights made sense for me. So I started squatting at 95lbs (total) + some warmup with the bar. One issue I find with just the bar is that it isn’t always enough weight to force you into good form as it allows you to be somewhat lazy… A note on form, film yourself a few times and then also what is recommended would be to watch some youtube videos on the form and start picking up the cues. This will help you internalize better the next time you’re in the gym. As for full rest days I don’t plan them currently and I usually have a day every 2-3 weeks that I’m forced to not do anything. As my bike TSS is way lower this seems to be fine and I’m feeling great (Also have been tracking HRV and it is a lot higher than typically in the season). Age: 29

A note on the 3x a week recommendation, if you do the math:
2x a week over 2 months(8 weeks) : 80lb gain (Would have taken the 95lb squat to 175lb)
3x a week over 2 months(8 weeks): 120lb gain (Would take the 95lb squat to 215)

As most of the value from weight lifting comes from lifting heavy, this is a huge difference. Once the season comes around and I want to focus more on the bike I’ll definitely cut to a maintenance of 1 day a week though and give myself the full recovery day back. But for now I just want to build up the strength. (Also important to mention that my main A race next year isn’t until the end of August, although I’ll pick a lesser target around early May).

Places where I had issues that led to minor injuries and what I did the fix them:

  1. Bar placement - Was doing more of a low bar squat, watched some videos and filmed myself on how to properly rack the bar. Before this I was weighted a bit too much over the balls of my feet.
  2. Bracing & Breathing - Spent some time practicing Bracing and Breathing, this helped a TON and quickly fixed a lot of form issues. I still haven’t perfected breathing and feel light headed during some lifts… but this is much less of an issue than back pain due to poor bracing.

Deadlifts:
Had similar issues to the squat, the bracing really helped. If your shins don’t hurt after deadlifts your shoulders are too far forward (But you can wear sweatpants to reduce the pain).

Variations:
The only major variation to stronglifts I made was adding in some single leg work (Bulgarian Split squats + single leg press)

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Wow man! Thank you for the detailed and thought out response! It’s greatly appreciated and I’ll be following your suggestions.

No worries, the big thing is just to think about your own personal strengths and weaknesses (ie: Is your squat <1xBW?) and then also your goals. A lot of times the arguments against strength training is that the time would be more productively spent on the bike, but this breaks down if your first race of the year is pretty far out and you live in a cold weather climate. Additionally, if you already squat 2x your BW than more strength training probably isn’t as valuable as time on the bike.

Additional note: I haven’t had much luck with doing weights in the AM and cycling in the evening, even recovery rides. I find w/ deadlifts my back (Posterior chain) doesn’t feel great and needs to rest.

This is great advice.

Great thread.

How do you guys handle it when you get to the point you cannot do a weight 5x5? Do you alternate the weight within a given day’s 5 sets and still aim for 5 reps. Or do you just go to failure until you can hit 5x5?

I’m currently in the recovery week of SSB Mid Vol 1. This includes solid rides on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday with an endurance ride Wednesday. My rides are completed early morning.
During this time I have also lifted using the same 5x5 set g rep range as SL, however, I have adapted this by decreasing the load and creating a split program with different body parts on different days. This has allowed me to adapt to the workload over the last four weeks. The plan is to increase load during SSB Mid Vol 2. Have the Ramp test scheduled in early next week so time will tell…
Current weekly structure includes:
Monday - am mobility/pm Shoulders & core
Tuesday - am TR session/pm Squats & triceps
Wednesday - am ready TR session/pm back
Thursday - am TR session/pm Deadlifts
Friday - am mobility/pm Chest & biceps
Saturday - am ride
Sunday - am ride & mobility
Feeling stronger with consistent riding and lifting after an extended break. I also strongly believe in recovery being as important as the workout. Good sleep, nutrition and mobility are essential.
Note: have tried SL with TR and found it too fatiguing

This approach reminds me of Herr Korte’s 3x3 system from way back in the day. It was momentarily all the rage sometime in the late 90s, I think? But then, so was DNP.

One thing that is very appealing about these types of programs is their simplicity. Limited number of exercises, limited number of workouts, two mesos repeated…no muss no fuss.

Drop the weight by 10% or maybe a little less on the excercise that is stalled and keep going with everything else. The reset seems to do something that improves strength and will help you get the weight. Once the resets stop working, it means you have advanced to a higher level of strength and more complicated programs with assistance lifts and other add ons will be needed. FWIW I never have enough time to advance passed the beginner level because as the race season progresses, there are times when I dont have time for strength work. Each time I restart I go back to beginning level weights and workup again. Stick with it.

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I would love to see some examples of exercises that accomplish this. At the moment I’m using pilates to counter the effects of cycling posture but would love to have resistance-based exercises as well.

I agree with this. I would opt for more deadlifts and less squatting for cyclists.

It depends what you’re looking for, I’m in Base season not looking for specificity but variety and strength.

I haven’t plateau’d yet, squatting 65-70% body weight (85% of ideal body weight!) and although I feel it, it’s not affecting my performance running 3 times a week or in SSB I LV. I have the FTP test on Monday to move into SSB II, I suppose we might see the impact (positive or negative) then.

heavy deadlifts are absolutely fatiguing on the legs. i find them far worse than squats simply because of the sheer weight involved, reps/sets identical.

Don’t disagree I just feel the deadlifts are more effective :+1:t4:

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