Strength Training Where do I start?
This post was one of my original posts I made for my website. It contains a lot of information we have gone over in previous posts. There is some that hasn’t been covered. All the information here is key and is worth reading through, even if it repeats in some places.
**Remember exercise, especially strength training, can be dangerous. It’s never a bad idea to ask your doctor if you’re good to go. If you’re able it’s a good idea to try out some classes or a personal training session. The in person help with form is invaluable.
As a personal trainer I would say everyone should strength train. If you’re young and want to look sexy (but not bulk up) (haha), you need to strength train. If you want to maintain your metabolism as you get older, you should strength train. If you don’t want brittle bones, you should strength train. If you want to live longer, you should strength train. And the list goes on.
As a cycling coach I ask these questions:
Do you want to ride longer before you fatigue?
Do you want to prevent injury and pain?
Do you want to have more economical muscles?
Do you want to have a strong core for better power transfer to the pedals?
Do you want stronger bones so you’re less likely to break them when you crash?
If you answered yes to any of these questions then you, too, should strength train.
So everyone should strength train. Why aren’t you? Maybe you’re not sure where to start. Maybe you aren't sure how many repetitions or sets to do. Maybe you are afraid/intimidated/anxious about working out in front of people at the gym. I have encountered all of these and more through the years and I wanted to make a post for you. First of all I understand you feel feelings about the gym. But remember everyone who is there started new as well. People have their game faces and head phones on at the gym but the majority when approached would be happy to help and encouraging! I can assure you that there are some buttholes at the gym. I can also assure you that those buttholes are into themselves and are paying you no attention anyway! It is a scary place looking in but once you get there it’s full of people that have exercise endorphins flowing through their brains and they are good, friendly people.
One important thing that can give you some confidence is having a plan when going to the gym. It doesn't matter what your goal is when you first go to the gym you want to start with light weights. Going heavy right away can cause injury and muscle soreness for days and days! Light weights are also good for mastering proper form and technique which you will need to get the most out of the exercise and help prevent injury. Here is a table of the basic types of strength training and their sets, repetitions, and rest intervals. Hypertrophy means muscle building. Endurance means how many times your muscles can contract before they start to fatigue (sounds like a good one to do for cycling). Strength is how strong your muscles are for one repetition. This is when you see the lifters at the competitions doing a 1000 pound deadlift! Endurance strength training is the best place to start for anyone and one of the best types overall for cyclists. Generally we are looking for 3 sets of 15-20 repetitions of each exercise.
So now we know how many sets and repetitions we want to do but how do we choose our exercises? This is probably the simplest most overthinked thing for a beginner. There are five basic ways your body can move, therefore there are five basic types of strength exercise you want to perform. I have given an example of each one. They are:
Push - you can push something away from your body with your arms - Push up
Pull - you can pull something towards you - Bent over dumbbell row
Hip dominant - something that makes you hinge your hips - Deadlift or Squat
Knee dominant - something that makes you bend your knee - Lunge
Core - you know - Plank
So now we have a work out. We are going to the gym to do 3 sets of 15-20 repetitions of a push up, row, deadlift or squat, lunge, and plank (30-60 seconds instead of repetitions for this). (When you get there choose a weight that feels somewhat challenging. This will be trial and error.) We want to warm up doing some type of light movement for at least five minutes. I always suggest doing something that will move get your lower and upper body moving. We probably would gravitate towards a bike but that won't warm your shoulders up for your push ups. I like to do an elliptical or arm and leg bike. Maybe a quick foam roll and some dynamic (moving) stretches. During the warm up we visualize our exercise form and remember our basic rules. Here are some for beginners (before you argue with me in the comments about these remember these are for beginners):
Do not hold your breath. It is possible to make yourself pass out by doing this. That’ll make you feel real stupid.
Move about as fast as your breath. If you are squatting you can inhale on the way down and exhale on the way up.
If it hurts then stop.
Don’t worry about how much others are lifting and how little you are. Keep your eyes on your own paper. Form is most important. Take as long as you need to get it right before adding weight or I promise you it will not end well in the long run.
There are two parts of your body that are most likely to get injured. They are your shoulders and your low back. Rotator cuff muscles get strained when you are exercising and your shoulders either shrug like this:
or roll forward like this:
Try to keep them more like this when doing upper body horizontal push and pulls:
Your low back and vertebral discs get put under more pressure as your spine comes out of alignment. This is a video showing a hip hinge or deadlift moving from the hips and keeping the spine in alignment. Notice how there are three points of the body that stay attached to the stick. The back of the head, spine between the shoulders, and the very very low back.
One way to come out of alignment is to look up like this. Notice the stick off of the upper back.
Another way is to tuck the tailbone. In this video you see the stick coming off the low back. This is putting the lower spine in flexion. The experts say this is a great way to herniate your disc. Do not do this. During almost any exercise you want to prevent your tailbone from tucking like you see here. (unless it’s a core exercise where you are bending your spine)
Here is an example of flexion of the spine during a squat.
This is better alignment with the squat.
So now we have our workout routine, we have warmed up, visualized our exercises, and remembered our most important form tips. We are ready for our first workout! Not quite. Next you want to check your mobility. These mobility tests can be your crystal ball and tell you if you are more or less likely to be injured over time. If you do these and notice your shoulder mobility is not good then your shoulders will probably shrug and roll forward if you go really low in your push ups. If they do after a million push ups your rotator cuff muscle will not be happy. So if this is true for you you would limit your range of motion on your push ups so your shoulders don't lift and roll. In the mean time you would work on your flexibility and mobility of your shoulders. Over time it will improve and you will be able to go lower on your push ups. Same thing with your hips. If you find they are tight then you might not go down as low with your deadlift (or do the deadlift at all if they are really bad) and you will want to work on your flexibility and mobility of your hips. So let’s check out the mobility screens!
Here are two shoulder mobility screens. If your fists get within a hand length of each other and are even with both right and left arms up you’re probably good to go. If you are uneven or really far apart use caution (start really light, limit your range of motion) with your shoulder exercises.
Here is another good shoulder screen. The further away your arms are from the wall on this one the worse overhead presses will be for you. Also the more likely your shoulders will roll forward on your push up!
This next one checks your hip mobility. Both legs stay pretty straight. If they aren't able to get pretty close to 90 degrees you may find it hard to deadlift without rounding or flexing your back (like the video before)! Also remember to compare your right and left sides for everything but especially here.
This next one is a silly looking one. Think of it as stepping over a hurdle. Again check symmetry. Can your toes and knees stay pointing forward? How is your balance? This is the pedal motion so if something is off it is worth investigating and improving. Also, exercises like lunges and step ups (knee exercises) may be difficult.
The last one tests your core stability. It is basically doing a push up. If you can maintain a plank for one push up you are in good shape. If your body bends like the second repetition of the video you’ll want more core strength. Core is everything so we work on it no matter what but this should be a goal if you aren’t there today.
So now we have our workout routine, we have warmed up, visualized our exercises, remembered our most important form tips, and did some mobility screens. We know what we are doing and what exercises might be challenging for our body to perform. We can always limit our range of motion today, work on our mobility over time, and eventually go through the full range of motion in the future. Let’s check out the exercises. The main event! To save time I would go back and forth between the deadlift or squat and push up, the lunge and the row, and the plank and posting my selfie exercise videos on instagram.
Hip dominant - Deadlift
Hip Dominant - Squat
Push - Push up
Knee dominant - Lunge
Pull - Bent over row
Core - Plank
So you did the work out with good form. Make sure to write it down and the next time you do these exercises see if you can increase the difficulty or weight a little bit. Thanks for making it this far. This took a lot longer than I thought it would so I hope I spelled everything right.
