Alex's blog - weight lifting

Check out Alex's blog - it has a lot of useful info regarding power lifting for cycling.

http://draftingnyc.blogspot.com/

I started lifting weights for the off season on 9/27/2008 - Legs, Chest, Back, Shoulders, Biceps, Triceps, Situps and then a Spin Class - total of 2 hours training. Legs are absolutely sore from the Squats, even though I only used 145lbs.

This is my two week transition phase to weight training, after which would be two weeks of the high volume training phase and then the remaining of the winter would be the strenght phase with heavy weights. Interspersed with this would be rides on the spinner bike, LSD Sunday road rides and plyometrics. I am following Chris Carmichael's training program using his book "The Ultimate Ride" and training DVDs. I did not lift weights for one whole year which helped in reducing my bulk, I only concentrated on the p90x program for the off season, which did include some dumbbell work but nothing which included barbells. It was mostly manipulating your own body weight.

-Transition Phase - Light weights, (12 to 15 reps) 1 to 3 sets - 2 weeks
-High Volume Phase - Moderate weights, (8 to 12 reps) 4 to 6 sets - 2 weeks
-Strenght Phase - Heavy weights (6 to 8 reps) 3 to 5 sets. - rest of the off season

To maximize the weight work out and adapt the muscles for cycling - I do Power Starts, Stomps and Muscle tension workouts on a Cyclops Spin Bicycle with a power meter.