Is this over training??
 

So I am setting up my winter program and I am worried it might be too much.
First off I want to say improving my cycling is my priority, however I would really like to keep (as much as possible) my over all strength and power at the same time.

I will be picking up a Kurt kinetic road machine in a couple of weeks and I have a bunch of spinervals dvds, CTS dvd's and am planning on getting the sufferfest collection.

What I am thinking of is 3 days a week weight training. say Mon, Wed and Fri. Mon and Wed will be circuit upper body + core. Friday will be leg day. will consist something along the lines of squats, lunges, hamstring curls and straight leg deadlift.

For cycling I will like to do 4 days, 3 days real all out, and the 4th light recovery probably after leg day( is this a good idea???)

My questions are
- should i not do a leg day and rather concentrate on the bike?
-what would be the best days to place my cycling?
-Can I weight train and cycle 7 days a week or do I need 1 or 2 rest days?

anything else I might be missing?

Thank you for any help.

first, scrap the leg weight training as a main workout, then plan recovery throughout your week, like mon. spinnerval, then tuesday recovery ride, then wednesday 90 min tempo ride, then interval then recovery day etc. you really only need like one true rest day a week, just remember to have recovery rides.

Ordinarily it is not good for bikiing to do arms strength. There are days off but if you ride so hard you canl't feel your arms anymore it would be to your benefit.

Depends on your goals. If your goal is to to be a better biker, drop all the weight training and just ride. If your goal is general fitness, I'd drop the leg strength workouts and ride that day, then still do the upper body workouts.

1st, get Friel's book. Overtraining is defined differently from your definition: it's a physical state, normally a state of exhaustion from too much work load. Most people never get there as it requires mental fortitude to ignore the troubling signs (reduced performance, high HR resting, low HR exercising, fatigue, susceptibility to infections) and keep on at it. Most probably have experienced symptoms of overreaching
2nd, for most, riding more is the way to become a better cyclist. Cut the weights to 1-2 times/week unless you are a track sprinter. Circuits are fine. I normally do 3 sets of 25 reps in the winter.
3rd, you need a good base (4-5 weeks of easy riding at high volume at low intensity) before you do intensity. If you don't have time, you should at least do something like one long ride and 2-3 sweetspot (high right below lactic threshold effort) efforts before doing VO2 max and the such. Check the workout recipe thread in the racing subforum. Do note that for people who do sweetspot training rather than a load of base, many already have a very good foundation and have adapted to the physiological needs of cycling over many years. Alas, they can get away with not as much zone 2/base miles. This is less the case for beginners
4th. You do extra hard efforts in order to peak. After doing a month or so of really hard (say VO2 max level efforts), you'll plateau, and eventually see your performance drop. Trying to hold the form during the plateau is one of the ways to ensure overreaching. In case i didn't make this clear enough: you can't hold your top form year around. Now, your best form next year can definitely be better than your best form from this year if you train correctly, but that top form can't be held because your form as a function of time is periodic.

Is a leg routine really gonna be that detrimental to cycling?

Thanks, thats a lot of good info there. I will need to study this and do some more research

No, it won't. It won't be particularly helpful either though. Like I said, if you are going for general fitness, you are on the right track. If you are going for only cycling ability, skip the weights.

My last day off the bicycle was August 23rd.

That's overtraining.

If I bike on the same day as a weight training, what would be the best, right after or a few hours later?

Also a question on base miles, I have done about 500 miles over the last 2 months a little sporadically...would that count in my base miles?

defined as anything in zone 2 (and some in zone 3), zones based upon your lactate threshold heart rate

I suddenly feel like having a vanilla milkshake.

i'd replace the weight training with core and yoga. But that's just me.

yoga is hard. no joke. download p90x and do the yoga, ab ripper x, stretching, plyometrics (good for explosive movements), and core. **** is ruff.

It all depends on your background, age and fitness level, but if you're a relativively young (<45yrs) healthy male, that workout schedule is eminently doable with some adaptation time.

Consider that you'll be cycling probably only 4-5 hors per week - most cyclists and triathletes around here (NorCal) do that in a single Saturday training ride every week in addition to their weekly workouts.

The only caveat is that if you do them properly, Spinervals workouts are HARD. I haven't had a problem physically with doing them every day, but it is mentally challenging to truly go 95-100% for 45-60 minutes of intervals 3x/week. I love spinervals and have been hitting them 2-3x /wk myself in addition to runing/cycling the other days of the week, and I admit that I get a sense of dread before I pop in some of those DVDs - particularly the one that starts out with 5 x 1 minute reps of 100% effort, and then you have to survive for 45 more minutes after that. Insanely hard if you actually go 100% - I was hitting 32mph on the trainer, and then nearly dying for the rest of the workout!

Also - I agree with the over-training assessment given above. Probably 95% of noncompetitive roadies don't ride enough to overtrain - not even close. I did it when I was running - I ran 70-100 miles per week for over 6 months, which is more than most folks on this forum bike per week. I've never even come close to that type of fatigue and loss of performance on the bike, even after doing several weeks of 14 hours per week on the bike.

I wish I was a retired pensioner.