Quinn8it

I do 5x5 squats and Deads on the same day- and it works OK for me, but I can certainly see the potential to go into your deads fatigued.
Now that I read that you may have done it during deads- things make a little more sense to me. I have a re-occurring strain from my butt to lower back that happens when deads get heavy, form slips and muscles that aren't usually engaged take heavy strain.

I would for sure move deads to a different day than heavy squats. But I would probably not do them on the same day as Cleans- as they are pretty similar.
If you did Texas- but moved deads to your easy squat day, that might work:

mon- 5X5 squat at 90% of Fridays 1x5
Press or bench on a/b rotation

wed- 2x5 squat at 80% of Mondays 5X5
Press or bench on a/b rotation
1X5 deads

fri- 1x5 squat at new high weight
Bench or Press a/b
5X3 power cleans

noglider 

I did some errands on the track bike yesterday in the city, 16 miles in total. Now my butt is sore in a good muscle-sore way. That's a good sign, right? I think it's from slowing the bike instead of using my brake.

Baby Puke

Thanks to all for the advice. Quinn, your plan makes great sense, but I need to be honest with myself about how much gym I can do. Three days is ideal at this time of year, but in reality I have only made three days a couple of times over the last couple of months. It's more common to do two days, and then occasionally I can only make one, and rarely, none. I think this is part of my problem, it's difficult to maintain progression with little training consistency. I think it makes more sense to plan for two, and have a third day there as an "extra" for when the stars align. I'm gonna have to think on this, and again thanks to all who offered advice.

carleton

I would imagine that's more of how far back your saddle is.

A common fixed gear soreness is in the inner-thigh. Using the legs to decelerate a fixed gear causes an eccentric contraction (muscle is being actively stretched by the cranks rotation while you are actively contracting it to slow down the cranks). I usually feel this the first week that I get back on the track after being on the road bike for several months.

Masters training is like a Graduate Degree program and Elite training is like Undergrad. In Elite/Undergrad, it is assumed that this is your only responsibility. Everything revolves around training/classes.

But, many graduate programs don't require so much time from the student because they assume that you have a career, family, other responsibilities. Same for Masters training. Most of us can't train like elites because we have careers, family obligations, and other responsibilities (or hobbies). The cool thing is that most of your competition is in the same boat.

Only a select small percentage masters train like elites.

So, I said all of that to say this: Do what you can, when you can. Don't feel guilty for not training as much as people say you should.

It's also amazing to see how Jr Racing is a lot like Masters racing in terms of time commitments, training, and age-grouping.

Baby Puke

Friday is the day that I miss most, what if I changed this around some to make Friday the Volume squat day? Like this:

mon- 2x5 squat at 80% of Friday's 5X5
3x5 Press
1X5 deads

weds- 1x5 squat at new high weight
5X3 power cleans

fri- 5X5 squat at 90% of Wednesday's 1x5
Press 3x5

Does that make sense?

VanceMac

Despite feeling a little fried from hard rides Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday, I had really good squat/dead workouts Monday and Wednesday. I would love to continue exactly what I've been doing for another 6 months to see where that takes me. But I can't put it off any longer... if I'm going to start getting some serious interval work in, this skinny enduro needs to cut the weights back to twice/week.

jmikami

I am curious how much interval work everyone is doing this time of year as compared to weights and how much you can do both at the same time. It would seem counter productive to me to do both intervals and heavy lifting at the same time and expect gains from both, but I have near zero weight experience and tend to focus on bike related efforts as that works better for me. I just feel so dead the day after an interval day I can barely get my easy ride in the following day, I can't imagine throwing a weight workout in the middle of that as well. So are you guys doing both intervals and weights on the same days or just no recovery days?

Quinn8it

I do 2 hard interval workouts and 3 weight workouts all year.... And a road ride Saturday

In my opinion there is an adaption period with the weights- after a while they effect the quality of your bike training less and less..

Quinn8it

I think you can play with it a bit- but the magic in Texas Method is that 5X5x90% makes your 1X5 go up. So getting in the volume day is the most important part.. The 2X5x75% is the day to drop- or miss..

Baby Puke

Cool, thanks Quinn. I'll try that then with the 5x5 and DL on the Weds. Like this:



mon- 1x5 squat at new high weight
5X3 power cleans

weds- 5X5 squat at 90% of Monday's 1x5
Press 3x5
1x5 deads

fri- 2x5 squat at 80% of Friday's 5X5
3x5 Press
3x8 RDL

VanceMac

That certainly was my experience. Though "less and less" is asymptotic... it never reaches zero. From a "never lifted state", my first two months were rough. I wasn't doing any interval training, or even much intensity, but even base type rides felt terrible. Flat, no life. After much coddling and reassuring (Quinn is a caring nurturer), I stuck it out and during months 3-4 I could really feel the adaptation take hold. By month 5 (I'm looking at my notes), I was lifting and riding with intensity on consecutive days with no problems.

So, this is the big question for me. The last couple months have typically been: lift M/W/F, ride T/TH/Sa. Rides ~1.5hrs during week (one track, one road), 3 hours on Saturday. By Sunday I really need a day off. Those rides are all good quality... 2 fast training rides, 1 track which is interval-ISH. Now that omnium season is approaching, I'm wanting to add a hard track interval day. Obviously only so many days in the week. I don't really like labels, and think they mean even less at the track, but since I'm more of an enduro, I'm going to cut the weights to 2x and try to get 4x ride days. I waffle, though. I could easily envision sticking to 3x weights... but I think that would require getting very, very specific with my 3x rides (rather than doing some of the training rides I enjoy).

carleton

You can schedule your training blocks as 10 days instead of 7. This is hard if you work a 9-5 type job, though. Easier if you control your work schedule (own your own business) or work from home (like a software engineer).

jmikami

Thanks for the feeback, helps to know you two are not just lifting every day and riding everyday too. My body might eventually adapt, but my work/personal life would like fall apart.

So I take it you have replaced riding time with lifting time then? Have you started to see on the bike results from this? I am also limited in how much time I can spend on the bike, or really doing any exercise. 10 hours a week seem the perfect balance for me. If I were to add in lifting at any point it would have to be instead of riding a couple of days. But I have always thought I would need to remove intervals and replace those days with lifting, I never thought I could keep intervals and also lift. So the advantages seemed like they would cancel out as I really love what intervals do for me. One or two days a week of recovery seems light ... but maybe I am just not working hard enough?

Quinn8it

For me- a dedicated sprinter- one of the best things about lifting heavy all the time, all year, in addition to interval training, is that it gives me a really clear measurable chunk of work that i can drop when its time to peak..

VanceMac

Yes, when I was a roadie, I'd do 10-12 hours/week. Once I evolved into a trackie, that was down to 6-8, but with winter base mode still in the 8-10 range. This winter (Dec through mid-March) I averaged only 5.8 hours saddle time. This was very foreign to me! And required a bit of blind faith. We'll see how the season goes, but the early data points are encouraging. I have not been surprised by the specific strength gains, but I have been very surprised that the weight work has translated well to the bike both in terms of power and (the more surprising part) endurance. I wouldn't go do a 10k climbing ride right now, but that one 3-hour ride per week has seemed to keep my endurance where it needs to be (and honestly, my endurance is the only thing that keeps me hanging on to fields with far more firepower than I will ever have).

That's about where I have been, including gym time. Although, that doesn't include all the down time between track intervals, or travel to the track... those can add up to a real time suck!


I would agree with most of what I think your general direction is there. I don't think intervals and weights are exactly interchangeable, but I would rank them both at the very top of the productivity/efficiency list. Given that I did neither as a roadie, I'm just tickled to have found a groove where I can... not only do them, but enjoy them. (For some reason, I was never able to figure out intervals on the road. But on the track, they are just so natural.)

Hermes

VanceMac: Roadie>>>Turned Trackie>>>>>Turned Power Lifter>>>>>>Mentored by Quinn8it>>>>>be afraid>>>>>be very afraid.

Hermes

Upper body gym work last night...Went to Hellyer this AM for some motor work, standing starts and did a couple of intervals. Tonight, I will go to my coaches' cycling gym and ride the rollers for some endurance and more interval work. This is my double workout out Thursdays.

DanAVL

Almost got clocked by a truck on my "long" ride today. Real nice guy, even threw up a hand.

gtrob

Got back from my 40hr drive home from AZ at 4am wednesday, and back to the track tonight Track bike felt odd as I haven't been on it since January and been riding my road bike so much, but it came back quick. Was a little dumb on the rollers though haha. Managed a few hard efforts but nothing spectacular, my body really wasn't into it, was a few tenths slower than my 'usual' flying lap pace. Week off the bike starts tomorrow...

carleton

This season I've been focusing on resting and recovering better. Working out based on feel. If I'm depleted, don't lift/ride no mater what the schedule says. If I feel good, lift/ride even if it's a scheduled rest day. This takes an honest assessment on my part.

It seems to be working. The added rest seems to have helped me in the gym and personal and work life. I used to average 5.5hrs of sleep per night. Now I'm up to 7hrs on average (which coincidentally is one more 1.5hr sleep cycle). Maybe I was over-training?

The Keto diet was difficult to maintain. I still eat low-carb. Maybe 100g/day. But, not sure if I'm in ketosis or not.

I've been slowly adding more volume to my program. I seem to be handling it in stride.

I'm recovering between sets faster in the gym. I'm adding more weight/sets than planned based on feel. (I'm also free to drop weight/sets based on feel, but that hasn't happened often.) For example, Saturday I was going to do 3 sets of 5 reps of X-lbs of single-leg presses. I did 2 sets and felt like a champ so I added 50 more lbs and did 3 more sets till I felt fatigue set in. I'm doing some supplemental exercises on some machines [gasp], and I'm maxing out the available weight plates.

My old herniated disc has been quiet (knock wood). This thing was debilitating last season. So much so that I'd miss work or workouts. Working out around it seems to be working. My on-bike strength doesn't seem to have suffered.

Even though I've wanted to get on the track for about 8 weeks, weather and my schedule have only allowed 2 visits to the track. My legspeed is non-existent. But, this has probably more to do with my experiments with bike fitting and my too-tall saddle (as Velocirapture has mentioned). I can feel that my pedal timing is just off. Muscles just aren't firing at the right times.

It's going to be a long season and I'm not looking to come out "on fire" in May. Still working on the slow build.

EDIT:
Oh, and I've been experimenting with longer crank length, too. Which also plays into my lack of legspeed right now.

queerpunk

I had the season's first real road ride yesterday - it's a big deal for me. I love racing, I have a stormy relationship with training, but I really love riding my damn bike. Know what I mean? And it's been a tough, tough, tough winter.

So, 4 hours with weather in the 50s felt great - even if there's still a ton of snow on the ground, and there was a lot of wet, gritty snowmelt on the roads.

A big deal for me these past few months has been strength and power work to improve my spring, both on the road and on the track. Knocking out a couple efforts felt really, really good - no computer, no data, but I was in a pretty big gear and really felt my legs and bike responding well. So - it's possible that I'm entering this spring stronger and more fit than any other season. That feels great!

VanceMac

In my opinion, the importance of this cannot be overstated.

VanceMac

[QUOTE=queerpunk;16628312...it's been a tough, tough, tough winter. [/QUOTE]

You have friends in socal. Winter training camp!

carleton

Yeah, it has definitely helped. In previous seasons, I would always be in some state of fatigue in my daily life. Legs always tired. Now, my legs feel A LOT fresher every morning. I have spring in my step as opposed to trudging around.

Quinn8it

And Frenemies!

those are the best training partners