Training & Nutrition - weight training during race season

wondering who continues weight training during the race season.I did a lot of strength work in the gym during the winter and ive not realy touched any weights for about a month, but i was thinking of maybe having 1/2 gym workouts or maybe doing a bit of upper body workout at home.

Ive found that I cant really work the legs too much in the gym during the race season, but was thinking about keeping up a little strength training, andwondering how to try to fit it with the rest of my training.If anybody is doing some strength training thru the season, how are you splitting it?cheers.

With weight training, when you taper off for the winter season with the cycling, you pick up the weight training and gradually increase the weights and intensity. By early spring, you should be at your heaviest weights and looking to start decreasing your weights, and by the end of spring/early summer, you should just be working on muscle maintenance with light weights and high reps with 3-5 sets, while at the same time, the intensity of your cycling increases. By the time you go into race season, hopefully, you've peaked with your cardiovascular training program, and your weights program is at its minimum- just light enough for maintenance, that's all.

Doing the weights and cardio thing is a delicate balance and requires a good periodization program. If you can find a personal trainer who understands a good periodization program with respects to your cycling, you can use them to design a solid training program that will give you optimal results for your race season.

Koffee

What Koffee said is very good advice. Concentrate on the bike during the season and lay low in the gym for leg work. Perhaps once a week with moderate weight at the most. You should be able to keep a prety agressive upper body program but do not do enough to cause your body to exert most of its energies on repairing /development of upper body while trying to race. Again I would do a maintenamnce program as Koffee said. I no longer race so I just blast my muscles all the time.

in the summer i do less weight training than the winter.

although i didn't last summer, i hope to lift 2 to 3 days a week this summer.

this will be almost all upper body.

MAYBE once a month leg workout during the spring and summer as i need a good 2-4 days off after leg training and with my ride training that is just too much time to take off usually. but if i get no leg workout from April through Sept that is OK.

i believe the traditional stuff here: for cycling, do your leg weight training in the winter and in the summer skip it and just ride. for the most part the strength benefits will not be more significant than what you could get from more riding time (b/c you need to rest after lifting). your body can only take so much stress and lifting take away from your other training!