Weights and cycling/running in "1" workout

You've already answered your own question.  You want to get better at cycling, ride more as you mentioned.  The extra 20 - 30 minutes you would spend doing the weights are far better served out on the bike or in a run.

to add of what Rick said; cycling and any endurance sport in general are not about muscular strength, they are all about muscular power = work over time, IOW ride at a higher power output over a longer period of time. Even if you were to sprint all out (maximum muscular power) for as long as you could sustain the muscular strength demands are minimal when compared to your 1 repetition-maximum. It is all about specificity! Also muscular strength resistance training such as weight lifting produce a series of adaptations that are the opposite on what we produce and adapt through endurance training hence one training can/will negate the adaptations of the other.

It is true untrained athletes can experiment certain gains when adding weight lifting to their program but that's because: 1) they are so untrained specifically to endurance sports that any training will help them improve, even walking from the far end of the parking to the door at the mall and 2) They don’t do enough endurance training to begin with that adding any extra stimulus (such as resistance training) helps. There is certain resistance training that has shown positive effects on endurance sports such as plyomentrics for running economy but not so much fro swimming/biking. Still this kind of training will have minimal impact when compared to the rate of return you can get from focusing on s/b/r

The reality is that if you want to become a better cyclist, you need to ride and ride and ride and you need to increase your power. To do that you can focus on doing interval sessions at your VO2 max (Z5) or functional threshold (Z4). You can get a great bang for your buck doing 60 min, 2-3x weeks, over the base phase (6-8 weeks). You should work on one intensity type for 4-6 weeks and then focus on the other to maximize gains. If you have limited time Z4 is the most important aspect for endurance athletes.

Some samples:
·          for VO2 max sessions: 5x1 min @ Z5 with equal time as rest (Z1), build to 5x3 min over 4-6 weeks
·          for Threshold sessions: 3x5 min @ Z4 with 3 min rest (Z1), build until you can do 6-8x5 min reps and then shorten the rest until you are down to 1 min and then extend the reps duration i.e. 3x10 min or 2x15 min or 2x20 min.

For both intensity sessions add 10-15 min of warm up and 5-10 min as cool down.

ETA: Adventurebear beat me to the punch!

Jorge,

What happens if you skip the intervals, and just focus a lot of time riding - but with varying intensity as if you were outside.  I have a Tacx i-magic trainer, and plan to ride 3 times a week, and I'll mostly ride the Real Life Videos, or race against previous times in the Virtual tracks? 

Riding in the real life videos I know that I'll spend a lot of time riding "hard" since I'll be climbing a mountain somewhere in Europe.  A lot of my effort may fall into Z3-Z4, even Z5, for most of the ride.  I'll also plan to do one "easy" ride a week.  But if I skip out on doing the intervals, is that a fundamental mistake?

Thanks

I am not familiar with the videos you mentioned but as long as you spend time riding 'hard' or close to Z4, some times at Z5 and definitely longer periods of times at Z3 (which is more specific to the intensity you'll climb at) you should be ok. You can do that on the trainer, outside or using hills or bigger gear to increase the intensity.

For my athletes, the only time I add 'easy' or Z1 recovery rides are for those who are riding and training a lot or cyclists. If you only ride 3x a week you prob won't need a recovery ride as you might not generate such degree of fatigue that a recovery will benefit you considering time is a limter for most AGers. You can stick with 3x a week and if you want to add a 4th session start at steady pace (or Z2) which is not as intense but certainly not easy/recovery hence it will give you more return on investment. I am assuming you will also swim/run hence you'll have to find a balance to fit all 3 sports.

 You sound like Kristin Armstrong gold medalist in the women's time trial.  She was saying the exact same thing this weekend. 

Thanks for the feedback - FYI, the Tacx real life videos play on your PC and feed the resistance back to the trainer, as the grade increases/decreases the trainer applies the right amount of resistance.  Since I don't have any mountains around me, it really pushes you when you're forced to ride up a continual grade for extended periods.  But everyone says climbing makes you stronger, and getting to watch the video of a mountain pass as you ride through it keeps the boredom away. 

At the risk of disagreeing with everyone here, I think strength training can benefit just about everyone.  It will help build larger, stronger muscles, and can help with weight loss (if that's part of your goals), boost metabolism, ad infinitum.

 A couple of times a week I will run for 30 minutes or so (3-4 miles), and follow it up with a couple of quick circuits on the weight machines, mainly for upper body development.  This would be 2-3 sets each of bench press, butterfly, incline rows, bicep curls, lat pull down, and tricep pull down.  I usually throw in some core work in there too.  The weights take me a total of 20 minutes or so, and I think they make me a better cyclist and runner.  Nothing's gonna help my swim.

I find it difficult to argue with the experts above, they know much more than me and are far more successful triathletes. But, everyone is different, try it, see how it feels. I'm using my off season to try to add some muscle, not just for triathlons, but I hope to see some benefit.

I'm just not into hill repeats and don't have any really hilly courses. Besides the risk of boredom, doing the same thing year after year leads to a plateau. In weight lifting you mix up the reps and weights to break through, maybe the same can work for tris.

As for before or after, try each for a couple weeks and see which works better for you.

Thanks for all the input.

My goal would be cycling specific. I am just starting to ride again. (I rode a little about 6 years ago when I tried out 1 or 2 duathlons) so I want to get as much strength as possible for next year, because cycling will be a limiter. Swimming I just plain suck, so with limited time I would rather work on cycling and running.

I will play around a little and see what I can come up with.

Thanks for everyones time.

oh yeah DMark I am just down the road from you in Raleigh

I'm personally an experiment of one, but I think I'm a pretty good case example of how strength training beyond a basic minimal level doesn't improve your aerobic performance much.

I trained hard for 5k-10k-HMs for about 10 years. At this time, I did play some basketball and included some heavy upper & lower body training depending on the season. I was fairly strong for my size, and at peak, I could leg press over 1000lbs. While this helped a LOT for the fast-changing directional sprint sports (like basketball), my running got worse. Not by a lot, but I think all the time spent lifting and fatiguing from the soreness would have been much more effective from an aerobic standpoint by just running. For sure, the added strength did not help my 5ks, and even did not help my mtn biking after about 5 minutes of hard climbing.

 Fast forward to the past 18  months, where I really devoted myself to the run at the cost of weights. I lost about 10 lbs of muscle mass (a lot for me) but definitely became a much stronger runner and mtn biker. I'm definitely much worse at basketball, and can't sprint or change directions anywhere near the speeds I used to, but those actions seem to be irrelevant for racing over 15 minutes in duration.

Also, if you look at the world champion triathletes, cyclists, and runners, they all have surprisingly slender builds. Although cyclists do have large quads, their quad size pales in comparison to a football running back or a dedicated weightlifter.