5x5 strength training with turbo?

Caveman_Chris

Hello everyone, I'm after some advice on training.

I'm wanting to improve my 'trail centre fitness' and more specifically my seated climbing endurance and speed. My local trail centre has a long and monotonous gravity canon which I get destroyed on by blokes almost twice my age. I have eventually set up my turbo with a computer and I'm planning on doing the bike radar seated strength effort turbo session YT video Tuesdays and Thursdays leaving enough recovery so that I'm rested for a weekend of falling off. Does this sound too little?

However, I was also wanting to get back into lifting. I had good results (getting stronger and off my face on endorphins) from SL5x5 but heavy squatting aggravates an old back injury and I feel they would be detrimental to the turbo work. Would these routines (with dropped squats) cause any king of muscle imbalance? Deadlifts do not affect my back at all, in fact they make it better, but obviously don't engage the quads as much. My thinking is that the turbo work will build quads enough to even it out.

Thanks for your time CC

diy

Need more info. The best way to be a mountain goat of a climber is to reduce your body weight. Have you got much to spare? (what is your body fat %age) Second, climbing ability and all cycling "power" is mostly down to cardio vascular ability - not the strength of your legs. What actually happens when you fail - do your legs hurt and cramp or do you run out of puff? Interval training - short stabs of flat out high load/sprinting with short recovery, repeated leading to recovery deficit, built in to a longer training session is a good way to up your power.

Big weights low reps won't help you they will probably make it worse. You want lower weight high rep to make it more of a cardio workout. That and stretching everything properly 3-5 mins after every ride and a proper 15-30 minute full stretch 1-2 times a week.

Have a good look at your bike set up too - any room to increase your seat height or move it forward slightly - can make a big difference. I tend to find I'm in the category of passing other riders on climbs and its mainly because I do a fair bit of road riding and keep my weight down. But I also do a lot of gym stuff too (though I tend to do a conventional pyramid) - I just don't think it helps much.

The other thing is - if you train hard the once or twice a weekers are always going to have advantage as they will have better recovery.

Caveman_Chris

Thanks for that diy. Could defiantly do with losing some fat and I dare say that one will supplement the other.

When climbing I seem to lose cadence and drop gears until I end up on the granny which I can spin all day but just don't have the power to maintain cadence and increase speed in a higher gear.

I'll take on board your advice on HIIT training, it's the exact advice I was looking for.

Thanks for taking the time.

CC

diy

A little tip I find works, is once you've blown up one set of leg muscles slide forward so the nose of the seat is rogering you so to speak and you'll find some untapped muscle that can engage the job.