Using Free Weights to Compliment Your Cycling Efforts – includes exercise plan!

Cross training is about using other disciplines in your sport other than your key sport to enhance your key sport.  Obviously using something like the Tunturi exercise bike is an alternative to cycling, but cross training is about using a sport that is still cardio based, and still will build muscle, but uses those muscles ina different way.  An exercise bike won’t cut it.  Rather a road bike cyclist might take up running.

But it is also fast becoming an acceptable trade off to do some exercise with free weights as well.  Free weight exercises can really help your cycling by stimulating all over muscle and bone density that whilst it might not help you much in the stamina area, or even make your cadence higher, it will help you to beef up some nasty inclines.  If you use it as part of your regular training regime, then you will be increasing your stamina in any case.

There is another advantage to free weight training when you are losing weight.  It is quite normal that along with all that fat you are losing, there will be some loss of muscle too.  That might not be a bad thing, but it will be if you end up looking really skinny where at one time you might have had a bit of mass.  Not only that, but if you are going to want to climb some serious hills then you are going to NEED that muscle!

There are plenty of good books on the market, so lets talk generalities and my own point of view when it comes to cycling and using a free weight workout.

The first is that unlike those guys and girls who have elected to buy a year’s subscription to Golds Gym, you don’t have to.  Exercises can easily be completed at home.  My own ‘gym’ consists of a folding weights bench that hides behind the computer cupboard, the free weights sets that I use snug under a blanket box in the corner of the room, and the rest go in the meter cupboard.  Behind the sofa go my barbells.

The second point is that you won’t need to change your diet.  Sure, if you are looking to beef up, as I have done over a number of years, then you will need to go with very high protein ratios, and a surprisingly high fat content.  As a cyclist, you won’t have to though.  What you are looking for is strength, but not heavy legs.  Remember that for every pound you add, whether it is muscle or fat, you are going to have to drag it up a hill some place.

And energy used dragging weight up a hill means less in the tank for racing or distance.

So continue eating your normal cycling diet, or following the British Heart Foundation plan like me.  There is plenty enough protein.  Keep your goals at heart all the way!

How much and what type of equipment do you need?  You need adjustable free weights, and ideally they should come on a screw thread barbell.  You can get some dumbbells as well, but you aren’t really going to need them for the exercise I am suggesting.  And you will need 2x5kg, and 2×2.5 kg weights to start!  That’s not a lot, and when you come to buy free weights you will find that it is quite cheap – check the local newspapers too because second hand is fine.

I recommend using screw thread type equipment from experience.  Following the free weight workouts lower down in this post means flinging the barbell around a bit, and you need to be sure the plates aren’t going to come off the ends.  Screw thread means that even if it loosens you won’t risk doing yourself an injury!

Interference effect

If you do any resistance training on the same day that you do aerobic training you will encounter the interference effect where you will benefit little, and perhaps negatively, on your development in both or all your disciplines.  The simplest answer is to actually only do one sport on one day.

Avoiding heavy legs

When you are working on free weights exercises being a cyclist you could logically be wanting to do as much on your legs as possible.  Evidence shows however that you get more from using multi-movement exercise (for example a clean and jerk lift) than you do from a specific single move (like a squat).  This is especially true if you are not wanting to build a particular body part.  You will want your exercise to be challenging, but not going through to full exhaustion every time, which is what you would do if you were body building.

Your legs will get very heavy quickly if you train on just squats or dead lifts using heavy weights.  That’s bad news for climbing, but its also bad news for lactic acid.

Lactic acid is what you get in your muscles as a by-product of doing work.  Thing is, that acts as a drug to slow you down.  And the bigger the muscles, the faster it is produced.

The answer to both of these quandary is to use a weight that is a little above one which you can handle with ease, and certainly be able to handle it safely.

Body adaptation

We normally talk about your body adapting to different sports.  Perhaps to the weight lifting, or cycling.  But cross training will do a bit more for you than that.  Your body will never truly adapt.  That’s good news and a bit tricky.  It means that to get to an acceptable point you will take that bit longer.  But your overall performance will be greater than if you chose just one discipline.

Bone density matters

As we get older our bone density decreases and the result is we risk breaks. I guess that also happens when you fall off your bike.

However, if you throw around a barbell free weights set once or twice a week you will increase your bone density, research has discovered.

So what are the multi joint and muscle group exercises?

I can only tell you what I do with my cast iron barbell, it is up to you.  I am not an originator of the following free weight training program, I got it from men’s health, but in searching online for it it doesn’t seem to be around anymore.  I have adapted it slightly.  Quick disclaimer: if you choose to try out any of these exercises then you do so at your own risk.

1. First rule: warm up thoroughly.  Jog on the spot for five minutes, skip…and then stretch.
2. Secondly, use a really light weight, perhaps even just the bar at first.  Find your limit slowly.
3. Thirdly, you aren’t going to count, you are going to use a clock and time your exercise.  So get a big one to see!

The weight routine follows one after another.  The difference in this exercise is that once you start you don’t put the weights down at all until you have completed the last exercise.  Between sets you breath deeply for 15 seconds. Use these 15 seconds to move the barbell around to the next position.  Don’t put it down.

Each exercise lasts for 30 seconds.  During that time you exert against the force as quickly as you can without jarring the weight, but then lower it for a count of 3.  You then pause for 1 second before repeating.

These are the exercises – you can find details of all these exercises just by searching online.  I just give you the name of them!

• Behind the head tricep extension, two handed.  Stand comfortably, hands 6 inches apart, and lower the bar behind your head.  You need to count how many you do in 30 seconds.
• Shift the weight around, and put it across your shoulders.  You will do alternating split squats – that is you take a long step out infront of you, lowering yourself until the trailing leg knee almost brushes the floor, then stand up.  Repeat with the other leg.
• Stand comfortably, change your grip to underhand.  Hands 6 inches apart, perform arm curls.
• Wide overhand grip.  Lower the bar to the floor into a deadlift position, but don’t quite put it down.  Look up, keep your back straight.  Lift straight up and keep pushing the bar above your head, lower it back down to your shoulders and go into a squat.  Your knees should not bend more than 45 degrees.  Go back up again and push the bar upwards, then lower it down past your chest back to the floor to the starting position.
• Lie on your back on a weight lifting bench.  You can change the angle of the bench if you wish.  Perform double the number of bench presses as you did over head tricep extensions at the beginning.  Ignore the time limit on this one.
• Stand up and with hands 4 inches apart, perform upright rowing with high elbows.
• Bend over, watching to keep your back straight.  With arms at should width apart perform bent over rowing, overhand grip, bulling the barbell to your stomach.
• Finally, do a set of Russian deadlifts.

You will want to add some stomach and core exercises to these moves too.

Take a two minute breather and then repeat once or twice.  Keep the weights controlled even though you are moving them around alot.

Final thoughts

I personally prefer to use free weights than multi-gym equipment.  I know in my about me page I have said that I have had to back off from weight training, but this being so much lighter is ok.  You might read this and scoff a bit about the light weight used.  It’s no laughing matter.  Even at my strongest the most I could shift was 25kg total on the bar, though remember that the bar itself is about 10 KG!

And if nothing else, doing these sort of exercises will help you next time you need to lift your bike through a kissing-gate next to the railway track or on the tow path!

Link: http://icyclelite.com/free-weights/

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Related Posts:

• 3 Reasons Why You Would Choose Multi Gym Equipment Over Free Weights
• Cycling distance monitor 1st June 2010
• Yo Yo Weight changes? What the…..!!!! (plus distance and weight monitor)
• Is The Tunturi Exercise Bike The Best Road Bike Cyclist’s Indoor Option?
• Cycling Distance Monitor 28th May 2010

Tags: buy free weights, cross training, free weight exercises, free weight training, free weight training program, free weight workout, free weights, home multi gym equipment, multi gym equipment, weight loss

This entry was posted on Monday, May 17th, 2010 at 11:36 pm and is filed under Body Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.