Weight Training

Is it a benefit for cycling? Or a waste of time?

Depends who you talk to, what you read or what you choose to believe. For me, it was more of the latter. I quite like working out down the gym... There is just something about it that is uplifting and motivational. I was therefore quite keen on slipping a few sessions in each week... Not only that, it would have been something different to have done instead of vomiting over my bike in the 'Pain Cave' whilst staring at the same old screen of numbers and targets! So I'm a little bit gutted to say the least, that I am no longer going to be incorporating it into my training. 

The decision came after being advised by a (very successful) club member after releasing my 2015/16 training plan. It was something I knew deep down but was looking for every bit of information on the Internet to help in my favour. 

So to put it simply (because I don't understand it much further than this), you have different muscle fibres that make up your muscles. Fast twitch & slow twitch. Slow twitch is what you use in cycling 98% of the time. Fast twitch is what you use for short duration sprinting. This is also what gets developed in the gym during strength training. Therefore, going down the gym is going to develop muscle fibres (and increase mass) in areas that will not be used during cycling... Why would I want to carry around muscles I will not use?

That's not to say it is completely useless... The pro's do it so it must be advantageous...right?

It has some benefits:

Develops more muscle mass and can target certain/specific areas to prevent injury

Marginal gains. It will still have a very small amount of advantage in certain disciplines (racing requiring some form of sprinting). Also, if you have already maximised your training on the bike or have no real weakness, the gym could be more beneficial as a form of cross training

If you are injured, it could allow you to work out without compromising the recovery of the injury.

Develop core strength.

Now I know I have big weaknesses in sustained power and VO2 Max that I need to address as a priority. I also struggle to hold a time trial position for an entire time trial. Therefore, I am going to gain more by utilising the core of my time doing intervals and remaining time working on core strength and flexibility. For this reason I will be cutting the gym from the training program. I will update the training and daily time plan to reflect this soon :)