How Much Strength Training Do Cyclists Actually Need?

Summary: How much strength training do cyclists actually need, and could doing too much in the gym be interfering with your riding? For recreational and amateur cyclists balancing training with work, family and limited time, strength training can easily become overcomplicated. Long gym sessions with multiple exercises, sets and repetitions may create unnecessary fatigue, making it harder to complete the cycling sessions that actually matter. In this episode of the Road Cycling Academy Podcast, Cam Nicholls is joined by RCA head coach Ryan Thomas to discuss a simpler approach to strength training for cyclists and how a minimum effective dose can make gym work easier to maintain alongside riding. Drawing on recommendations from RCA strength coach Dr Aaron Turner and the research discussed in his previous RCA content, Cam explains an approach based around accumulating approximately 16 to 30 lower-body repetitions at a sufficiently heavy load. In practical terms, that could be as simple as two sets of five repetitions across two lower-body exercises, giving a cyclist 20 quality repetitions without turning the gym session into an hour-long workout. Cam also shares his own experience of doing considerably more gym work, including squats, single-leg press and alternating lunges, only to find that the additional volume was creating fatigue that interfered with his cycling training. As he moved from an off-season phase into preparation for Masters Nationals, he reduced his strength training to one maintenance session per week and simplified the workload. The result, he says, has been less soreness and fatigue while maintaining his strength. Cam and Ryan also discuss where gym sessions can sit within a cycling week, including the option of placing strength work later on the same day as a hard ride so that easy days can remain genuinely easy. The conversation isn't only about cycling performance. They also discuss resistance training and bone mineral density, and why cyclists may have reasons beyond power and durability to include some form of strength work in their routine. In this episode: Why cyclists often overcomplicate strength training How much lower-body strength work cyclists may actually need The 16 to 30 repetition range discussed by Cam Why the working weight still needs to be sufficiently heavy Two sets of five repetitions across two exercises Why more gym volume can create unnecessary cycling fatigue Delayed onset muscle soreness after strength training Building strength in the off-season versus maintaining it during the season Why Cam reduced his gym training to once per week Maintaining strength with a lower training volume How long a simple strength session can take Why technical exercises should come earlier in a gym session Rest periods between heavy strength sets Combining gym work and hard cycling on the same day Why Cam reduces the weight when lifting after a hard ride How simplifying gym sessions can improve consistency Balancing cycling, strength training, work and family Why cyclists don't necessarily need a gym membership to do resistance training Strength training and bone mineral density for cyclists Why doing something can be better than abandoning strength work because the ideal session isn't practical The practical takeaway is that strength training doesn't necessarily need to involve long, complicated gym sessions. For cyclists whose main priority is riding, Cam and Ryan's discussion points towards keeping the strength work focused, managing the fatigue it creates and finding an approach simple enough to perform consistently. Road Cycling Academy helps recreational and amateur cyclists train smarter, improve their performance and get more from the limited training time they have available. Weight Training for Cyclists RCA's Strength Training for Cyclists program provides structured off-bike strength training specifically for road cyclists. #CyclingTraining #StrengthTraining #StrengthTrainingForCyclists #WeightTraining #RoadCycling #CyclingPerformance #CyclingStrength #CyclingFitness #AmateurCycling #RoadCyclingAcademy Transcript: Cam Nicholls (00:02) Welcome to the RCA podcast, designed for recreational and amateur road cyclists with a focus on performance. We dive into cycling training, nutrition, strength training for cyclists and even bike fitting tips, all designed to help you train smarter, ride faster and hopefully tear your mates' legs off. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to the RCA podcast, which is also on YouTube. Today I'm joined by the RCA's head coach, Ryan Thomas, and today we're going to talk about a simple approach to strength training, the gym, because I feel like, I mean, I don't coach anyone anymore, Ryan, you coach a lot of people, but just from speaking to people before they jump on board, that people overcomplicate the gym and, you know, it becomes all too difficult and then they don't do it and then they're missing out on the gains. Would that be fair to say? What's your experiences? Ryan Thomas (00:58) Yeah, I would agree. It's a conversation every time you talk to a new athlete. What are you doing in the gym? And usually it's, I'm doing these 10 workouts, I'm trying to do this amount of time in there and this, and I just say, okay, just break it down, make it simple for me. What are you doing? How many times a week are you going and what's your sets and reps and what's your main exercises? Try to simplify it. Cam Nicholls (01:21) Yeah, and I think people do overcomplicate it quite a lot. I've been guilty of this myself and once you start doing a bit too much, which I think is instinct for a lot of recreational and amateurs. I've only recently finally listened to Aaron Turner, the RCA strength coach, and gone, watch that video again, which we'll link up there. We're going to reference today, and gone, actually, this is a game changer. So essentially what we're talking about here, and this is based off the research, right? Rather than thinking about all these technical exercises you need to do and lots of sets and reps, the bare minimum dose, according to the research that you need to achieve, assuming you're already, you've done some gym before, right? You're conditioned. You're not going to go in and just do this out of nowhere, right? You need some conditioning in the gym first. Let me just preface this. All you need to achieve to obtain the 5% improvement in cycling, threshold, neuromuscular power, durability is the big one. You need to accumulate somewhere between 16 to 30 repetitions on your lower body, which is your legs, right? 16 to 30 reps. With the slight caveat, it needs to be at a minimum of 80% of your one-repetition max, which in layman's terms means you need to work out how many reps you can do up to eight and you're failing at eight. That's your 80% of one-rep max. Bit of a mouthful, that one. You need to work that out, but you don't go to eight. You normally just go four to five. Let's just say for the purpose of this video, five. So if you only need to achieve 16 to 30 repetitions on your lower body to achieve the strength gains or strength maintenance, to achieve bigger threshold, bigger neuromuscular power, more durability, in simple terms, that's two sets of five reps on one exercise and then two sets of five reps on another exercise. Ryan Thomas (03:42) It's not much, is it? Cam Nicholls (03:44) It's not. And you've achieved 20. Now, you could do a little bit more. You could do a little bit less, but you're still getting in that minimum dose range to achieve outcomes. Now, from when you speak to recreationals, are they doing their gym sessions like this? Ryan Thomas (03:44) No, it's way more than that. Cam Nicholls (03:44) Way more. Ryan Thomas (03:44) Way more. Cam Nicholls (03:44) Yeah. And the problem with doing way more is, yes, and this is according to research, you may get bigger gains, right? But more means more fatigue, means more delayed onset muscle soreness, and typically means that there can be somewhere between one to three days post-gym exercise where you're carrying fatigue or you're affected by the gym session if you're doing too much. Three days in a week, if you're doing intense training, two to three intense sessions a week. Ryan Thomas (03:44) Yeah, two to three. Cam Nicholls (03:44) It's going to impact your cycling. If cycling is your goal, it's going to impact your cycling. I was doing this. I was guilty of this, right? I was going to the gym twice a week up until recently because I was having a bit of an off-season, and that's typically the protocol, right? During an off-season phase, you want to go to the gym twice a week to build strength, and then when you go into an on-season phase, so I'm now training for Masters Nationals, we go for one session per week, one gym session, which is a maintenance session. And according to the research, we'll link to it below, you can maintain the same level of strength that you've developed in that off-season phase for up to 13 weeks by just going once per week. But what was I stupidly doing? I was doing three sets of, I was doing squats, I was doing single-leg press, and I was doing alternating lunges, three sets of five on each. So that's a lot of repetitions there, well and truly more than the 16 to 30. And I've kept that going now. Well, I did, and what happened? I was experiencing too much fatigue relative to what I needed to reserve for my cycling training, because now I've upped my training to two to three times per week. So in the last couple of weeks, I went back and watched Aaron's video, and I'm now aiming for that rep range, normally around 20 reps. And all it takes, unless you're accessorising with abs and some upper-body stuff, literally takes 20 to 25 minutes in the gym. Ryan Thomas (06:30) Yeah, probably less. Cam Nicholls (06:30) Probably less. Yeah. I mean, one thing that you want to do is obviously a warm-up. Ryan Thomas (06:30) Yeah. Cam Nicholls (06:30) Yep. So five minutes on the spin bike. The first, and there's something called the priority model in strength and conditioning, which means start with the most technical exercises first, because the longer you go, the more neurological fatigue that you get. And if you finish off with deadlifts and, you know, your form's a little bit out... Ryan Thomas (06:54) Bad news. Cam Nicholls (06:54) Bad news. So I don't do deadlifts anymore because of that. So I'll start with squats. You want to leave, for at least your priority exercises, three minutes between each set, which is a fair bit of time as well. Aaron says you can bring it down to two minutes if you want to be practical, but for strength gains, you want to do about three minutes. So jumping in, warm up on the bike, warm-up set. And then I do my two sets of five, and two sets of five. Bit of ab work, out the door. Ryan Thomas (07:42) Yeah. Easy. Cam Nicholls (07:42) And guess what? I've been able to maintain that strength. I've been doing this for the last three weeks now. So I'm not feeling like I'm losing any strength. And the biggest thing here is I'm not getting sore. Ryan Thomas (07:43) You're still able to go as hard on the group rides? Cam Nicholls (07:46) Yep. I'm not getting the delayed onset muscle fatigue. I'm not feeling fatigued. And the last time I did this, it was on a Saturday afternoon. I'd done the group ride. And quite often they say, when you're in a high-intensity phase, actually stacking your gym on a day where you're doing an intense cycling session is good because you get all your intensity in one day. And you can reserve the easy days for being easy. Provided you give it a good five, six hours to enable the body to recuperate a little bit. So I was just driving past the gym on a Saturday afternoon. I'd done three hours pretty hard. And I was like, oh, the gym. Oh, it's only going to take me 20, 25 minutes. So I just went in and did a session. And it was quick. It was easy. I didn't experience the fatigue. And the benefit of this is I will consistently do it every week now. Whereas in the past I pushed it beyond that 30 reps. I probably got a little bit too heavy as well. I'm not probably doing 80% of one-rep max. I'll probably do a little bit heavy. So now I'm like, by the law, that's the weight. That's the repetition range. And consistency is key, as you know, with anything in life. Ryan Thomas (09:02) I'm interested to, if you were to let that fall for, let's say, you don't do it once a week, or you skip it for two or three weeks. Is that a negative impact on the strength in the gym, or is it minimum once a week and then start losing it at a specific rate? Cam Nicholls (09:21) Today's podcast is brought to you by the Road Cycling Academy's Weight Training for Cyclists program. And if you're listening from the Northern Hemisphere, now is a very good time to start thinking about strength training as you head towards the winter months and begin building towards next season. Because if you do strength training right, you're looking at about a 5% to 10% gain. But the problem many recreational cyclists face is they know they should be lifting weights, but they're not sure what exercises to do, how heavy to lift, nor how to fit strength work around their cycling. And that's exactly why we have created this program with Dr Aaron Turner, a strength and conditioning specialist with 20 years of experience working with athletes, including elite-level cyclists. In our program, you'll get a beginner, intermediate and advanced strength program, all downloadable, backed by six detailed video tutorials, and then 60 individual exercise video demonstrations showing you exactly what to do and how to integrate it with your riding. The goal is simple, more power, better durability and improved efficiency on the bike. And you'll get lifetime access to this program for only $147 USD, backed by our money-back guarantee. If you're keen, head to the Road Cycling Academy website and check out our Weight Training for Cyclists program. Now let's get back to the podcast. Anecdotally, if I don't go within 10 days, I'll need to back the weight off a bit next time I go. So that's typically what I do. And to be fair, even on a day where I'm doing it on, and this is Aaron's recommendation, if you're doing gym on a day where you've done intensity in the morning, just back off the weights by 5%, 10%. If I've missed gym by 10 days, I probably won't do it on an intense day. I'll probably just do it independently. But once again, I'll back off the weight 5%, 10%. And you can just, over the course of two or three weeks, ease yourself back into it because people will miss it. But I think they're less inclined to miss it if they keep it this simple. Ryan Thomas (11:29) Yes, agreed. Yeah. Cam Nicholls (11:30) So I guess that's the rule or the idea of this video, is don't overcomplicate things. If you want to understand and hear all the research aligned to this, which Aaron references, we'll link the video up here. And yeah, it's been a game changer for me, Ryan. So that's why I wanted to bring it into this video today, because I know a lot of people struggle with keeping gym into their routine. One, because of time. A full hour, don't have it. And two, because I'm already cooked from everything else I'm doing. This, I believe, solves those two problems. Ryan Thomas (12:06) Yeah. Yeah, I agree. It's like working with people who are trying to balance work, cycling, families and trying to squeeze gym in. It's like, they say, oh, not this time here and this time there. And I'm trying to, like as a coach, I'm trying to think about, oh, what's the load outside of the riding and how's that all balanced? And this makes it super easy. It's super easy to balance that load because it's not actually adding that much load. Cam Nicholls (12:33) It's not. Ryan Thomas (12:34) It's very little load for your muscles. And you're not, like most people you talk to who are gym-goers who have experience in the gym. Well, most people have experience in the gym because they go in and they spend an hour or two there and they go in and they do four or five big workouts and they go on to failure. And then they're like, well, I need to do that to keep it off and to keep my cycling. I need to do more and more and more. Cam Nicholls (12:34) Yep. Ryan Thomas (12:34) It's just not the case. Less is more. Cam Nicholls (12:34) Less is more. Ryan Thomas (12:34) Less is more. Yeah. We spoke about it in another podcast just before. Sometimes it can be the same with on the bike as well. It's the quality. Consistency is a big piece of the puzzle. Cam Nicholls (13:11) I think less is more leads to more consistency, which overall is where the gains are made. And I think with this one as well, you're like, you don't need to, I have a gym membership, but you don't need a gym membership. You can literally just buy a kettlebell, find two exercises to do and just implement this pretty... Ryan Thomas (13:29) That's my routine. Cam Nicholls (13:31) That's your routine. And look, you know, Aaron makes a good point because as road cyclists, you know, there's a benefit gain from a performance perspective, but also if you're not doing any resistance training, there's a disadvantage from a bone mineral density perspective. Like cycling is not good for bone density. Weird. You'd be better off being a sedentary individual sitting on the couch watching Netflix. So, you know, even not for the performance gains, you should be doing this. And if it's not following the protocol that I've discussed here, just, which I think is what you do, you just move stuff around. Ryan Thomas (14:04) I just do something. Cam Nicholls (14:05) Yeah. Ryan Thomas (14:06) General health. Like if you're just doing one sport, then you're not as healthy as you can be. It comes down to that pretty much. Cam Nicholls (14:15) Yeah. Ryan Thomas (14:15) If you, yeah, you don't need to be scientifically, like that's the best way to do it, is to lift heavy things, but I don't have a gym membership. I lift reasonably heavy things and I work my muscles hard, but I put the little fella on shoulders, that's 15 kilos. But yeah, just move stuff around. If it's that complicated and you can't make it to the gym, go downstairs, do some squats, push-ups, sit-ups, and that just activates that muscular system. If you can't do what you've just said. Cam Nicholls (14:46) Yeah, exactly. You look a little bit better on the beach as well if you're doing some push-ups and sit-ups. Ryan Thomas (14:51) I don't look good on a beach. Cam Nicholls (14:52) Neither do I. We've both got moon tans. Anyway. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for your time, Ryan. Much appreciated. And we'll catch everyone in the next podcast.