Strength Training Where do I start?
As a personal trainer I would say everyone should strength train. If you’re young and want to look good in the mirror (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 a more economical pedal stroke?
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 should strength train too. The first time you strength train make sure to start out very easy. 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 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 movements you want to be looking to do. 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 at 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 a plank). (When you get there choose a weight that feels somewhat challenging to do 15-20 repetitions. 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 that well for your push ups. I like to do an elliptical, rowing machine, or an arm and leg bike. After that it’s time for a foam roll and stretching of any tight muscles that you have identified from previous mobility assessments.
After that it’ll be time for some weights. Here are some rules for beginners (before you argue with me about these remember these are for beginners):
Do not hold your breath. It is possible to make yourself pass out by doing this.
Perform your repetitions in sync with your breath. If you are squatting you can inhale on the way down and exhale on the way up. *Breath normal speed*
If it hurts then stop.
Don’t worry about how much others are lifting and how little you are. You’ll be grateful in the next few days to start light.
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 not allow your tailbone to tuck like you see here. (unless it’s a core exercise where you are bending your spine - like a crunch)
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 shrug then after a million push ups your rotator cuff muscles will not be happy. So if this is true for you then 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 while keeping your shoulders in a good place. 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 tight) and you will want to work on your flexibility and mobility of your hips. So let’s check out the mobility assessment!
Here are two shoulder mobility assessments. If your fists get within a hand length of each other and are equal with both right and left arms up then you’re probably good to go. If they 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 (leg straight up) 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 to work on 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, repetitions, or weight a little bit. Thanks for making it this far. Good luck.
