Many people overlook that there is a technical aspect of cycling. A better pedalstroke means better power transfer to your bike from your body.. so working a little bit on smoothing out your power application on the bike can make a lot of difference.
I think that strength training is very useful for all athletes but given limited time, I would choose sport specific training versus the gym. The only gym work that is non-negotiable is core. If you want to make the best use of your time, doing a bit of technical work on the bike during your core workout time would be ideal.
I will give you some ideas in two parts that will allow you to continue to work on your muscle imbalances that you might be targeting, while at the same time building some volume on the bike. The good thing about these workouts is that they also will improve your technique. I think a lot of people overlook how beneficial a nice, smooth pedal stroke and quiet upper body can be for your cycling.
There are some bare minimum training tools that I think some people still might not have. The first is either a trainer or some rollers. I advocate the use of rollers. At first they might look really scary but they really can do wonders for your pedaling. When I was a mountain bike racer I used to do 20 minutes every morning before breakfast, incorporating some single leg work and some higher cadence work. Now I do these workouts in the evening after I have had a tougher run workout, because I find this helps me to build back my leg speed which seems to suffer when I run more. Either way, a rollers workout with some cadence can be a nice little addition to your program which will definitely improve your technique. You must be smooth to ride comfortably on rollers and you must have a quiet upper body to stay upright, both of which are desirable pedaling assets. If you have a trainer, you can still do this workout, but the advantage or rollers is the stability muscles which are incorporated. If you are going to get a trainer, I believe the minimum you should have is a Powerbeam (the next level of price range, but a completely new level for training specificity). We will talk about training with power in another article but for today we are on rollers or a trainer working on cadence. Here is the 20 minute workout to add-on some cycling on your run days:
5 minute warm-up
10 minutes of cadence work:
Starting at 100 rpm, increase your cadence by 5 rpm every minute up to 120 rpm. Stay at 120 rpm for 2 minutes, then decrease by 5 rpm every minute down to 100 rpm. This is 10 minutes of work.
5 minutes of single-leg:
Alternate single legs every 30 seconds for 5 minutes holding cadence near 90-95 if you can (getting in and out of your pedals on rollers for your first rides will be challenging, stay near a wall and don’t worry if you only do about 20 seconds per leg because of the fumbling)
5 minute spin warm-down
You can add repetitions of the 100-120 rpm intervals, add time to the warm up and warm down, and also go from 100-130 rpm as you progress with this session to add more time to your program.
This is not a very muscular workout so you will not have to sacrifice any quality work you have in your program when you do this workout. You will likely find your legs feel BETTER for having done this little workout, and it adds some cycling time to your week. Keeping in mind I think XTERRA athletes need to do 60-70% of their volume on the bike, adding 20-30 minutes three times a week could be another 1.5 hours on your program that will benefit you will better technique, better leg speed and a bit more time on the bike.
Next coach tip will work on strength versus technique. Happy training!
ahhh and that would definately not help, so I guess 8-10 at 250-300 will have to do