Lockdown and Weight Lifting

Happy Monday Everyone and particularly to our community members who have recently gone on lockdown. That sucks and I/we all hope you are able to stay safe and weather this time frame.

First and foremost remember: in a year or two from now what you did or didn’t do for training will be jsut a blip in time.

That said, myself and the coaches at FasCat know this has messed up your best intentions to #FtFP! Dagnabbit :wink:

So here are a few scenarios that I hope will help:

Scenario #1 if you were on the ‘in person’ 10 week plan and now can not goto the gym as planned - move onto our 18 weeks of sweet spot or the equivalent sweet spot parts 1, 2, & 3 and maybe even 4 plans.

While you are sweet spottin’ and building your base, double down on your Nino’s, your Yoga and your Foundations

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You could do this scenario and then get back into the gym when the lockdown lifts (hopefully soon) and keep moving thru your off season. Fortunately you have the forum here to ask about the timing as it relates to your goals in the Spring. But typing this as of Nov. 2nd there is roughly 4 month or more to do some sweet spottin now and pick back up your weight lifting plan and have time to complete it when the lockdown lifts.

Then when you are done weight lifting switch back to sweet spottin’ until its go time for intervals (3-6 weeks prior to your racing)

Scenario # 2

You want to hit it hard at home and have the resources to do so: resources being the squat, ViPR and kettlebells.

Get into the at Home Weight Lifting plan here: https://fascatcoaching.com/training-plans/weight-lifting-at-home-cycling/

You can pick up in whichever phase you are in. For example if in the Hypertrophy phase - use the Hypertrophy and subsequent Strength and Power Phases from the at home plan. Move onto sweet spottin’ when you finish the weight lifting phase from this plan.

Scenario # 3 - you want to hit it hard at home but its too late to acquire a squat rack or you don’t want to invest in one, don’t have the room, etc:

Apply the at Home Plan and delete the Squat portion. Do the ViPR ( you will still need to buy) and KettleBells.

Then because that won’t be that much of a training stimulus do your sweet spottin’! Yes, both simultaneously - you will need to edit and move some of your sweet spot workouts around but it is possible.

For example - apply both plans - Mondays and Fridays will be ViPR movements and kettleBell swing, yoga and Foundations. Tues-Wed-Thur - your sweet spot plan workouts.

Friday back to your ViPR and kettelbells. Weekends - back to your sweet spot plan’s workouts.

Will you be tired? Yes. Will you need to ad in rest days when your simply are too tired or need a day to ‘life’? Yes.

Will you be FtFP’ing on a daily basis? No but remember we are in a pandemic and a little bit of flexibility will help you get thru this and come out on the other side hella strong.

Hope that helps you and puts FtFP’ing into context during this time.

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you trying to kill me? :rofl:

edit: secret Ninja training to go along with Nino’s :joy:

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thanks Frank
I am about to go into the strength phase fo the resistance training and won’t be able to get a squat rack for home. I think that would mean jumping into the SS sessions?
I’m doing the 32 off season plan
Are you suggesting that I go straight to SS and miss all the sprint intervals? When the gyms open (hopefully 4 weeks from now) would I pick up from where I left off.

you could do the at home plan’s strength phase:

add in some sweet spot workouts from your plan that would normally occur later. Keep the sprint intervals.

Like I was saying, would require editing on your part. And one thing I did not mention in my previous post is that this is where have a one on one coach really pays off bc this is exactly what we do (creative training solutions)

Not trying to upsell you (or anyone else) because we already covered that in our podcast here:

Of course this was record before the pandemic!

To my eyes this looks great and is what I do, but decided to hire FasCat this summer. Becoming a coached athlete is now officially the best cycling decision I ever made (thanks @Isaiah !!) after buying a road bike 5 years ago.

Thanks @FRANK for sharing!

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@FRANK
Frank I have a quick question:

I like the sound of your scenario 3 and it fits well as when when gyms shut On Thursday I only have the power phase left ie 3 weeks of the plan.

However it is not clear from your example how I should structure my week.

Currently my plan has me doing:
Mon - gym (I will swap to vipr/kbs)
Tue - standing start intervals
Wed - rest
Thurs - gym (I will swap to vipr/kbs)
Fri - standing start intervals
Sat - Group /TSS ride
Sun - Z2 ride

So I will swap Mon and Thurs from gym to vipr and kettlebell as advised in scenario 3, but where do I fit in the 3 SST rides you refer to in order to get the added stimulus?

Thanks so much for creating this forum post, it will help many of us in the UK and other EU countries currently in lockdown.

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Thanks Frank, appreciate you addressing this very annoying but real problem. You are quite right, it is just a tiny blip in the grand scheme. I am on week 2 (adaptation) of weights + SS. I think I’m going to do your Scenario #1 - get stuck in to plenty of sweet spot and then nail the weights plan from December. Later than I would like but it’s not the end of the world.

I have sweet spot 2 as part of the plan I bought. Should I just start the first few weeks of that now (i’m fairly well trained already) or would I be better off doing sweet spot 1 for a few weeks? What’s the difference between sweet spot 1 and sweet spot 2?

Thanks again.

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Anyone able to shed some light here on the scenarios 3? The thing I am not clear on is where to the standing start intervals fit in when you are in power phase? Are they replaced by SST?

Thanks in advance

Hi @frazrider - apologies I am not able to give you one one advice without being able to look at the big picture (your goals) and your training plan.

Both are considered under our coaching services and our coaching subscription will enable us to view your trainingpeaks and see what is happening and be able to make revisions to help answer your training. Hope that helps, here are the links to those services we offer

we will waive the $99 start up fee since you are already on a plan

Hi Frank
on this subject again. After a fortnight of the gyms being closed I have decided to move to SS training today. The weights at home wasn’t working for me.
My question is this: Here in London the gyms are expected to be back open on Dec 3rd (this may change)On Nov 3rd I was about to start the strength phase.
So when the gyms open, what do I do?
Finish the SS1? Do I take the gym gains I have got from the gym and just do it next year? If I was to go back to the gym when would I go and would I start the process again?
Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

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Aw sorry about that @andrew1 -

Here is one idea without having consulted with you on goals and timing:

  1. resume where you left off of the weights on Dec 3rd.
  2. inbetween now a Dec3rd do the sweet spot part 1 portion of your plan.

Then when you finish the weights start back in the week of sweet spot where you left off.

Copying and pasting in multiple weeks in TrainingPeaks will be really useful in this case!

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I’m in the same place. Although I managed to get to the end of week 7 of weights plan. It felt too far into the plan to come back to in 4 weeks when gyms reopen so I’ve opted for some light weight home exercises but am adding 2 hrs a week of additional Z2 to make up for the lighter ‘gym’ work.

This also keeps me on plan for starting SST base start of Dec

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Well, the just said gyms will close starting the 30th I believe. I will be able o finish hypertrophy which is good. I can do squats at home and have a kettlebell. I have been RDLs in place of the leg curl since that machine is broke at the gym (sweet I know) but will have to add in something for the leg press. No worries, moving on and sticking to the plan as much as I can!

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Well not only is my gym closing for COVID it is closing for good on December 3rd. What a wild year. Anyway, I am planning to finish off hypertrophy Friday. I have a power rack and plenty of weight for the squats and I will continue to do the romaine dead lifts as well. My question is what do to in place of the leg press? Weighted lunges, step ups? Any help/ideas would be greatly appreciated!

That super stinks @jdr365 !! Sorry about that… tough year for gyms and their members…

But that’s why we created our at Home weight lifting plan that replaces with the leg press and leg curls with the ViPR and kettlebell exercises that are affordable and home friendly. Here are the movements:

You can hop into that plan right at the strength phase and continue to progress nicely.

Thanks @FRANK! I think it is going to be tough for me to get a vipr at this point and in time for me to continue on schedule. I have a kettlebell although on the lighter side at 12KG it works. I may have something I can use in place as a vipr though. :thinking:

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I had the same issue as I finished week 7 of plan. I managed to get a vipr from Amazon delivered in time to start the final 3 weeks of the plan from home.

I use vipr and a 12kg kettlebell and follow coach franks video above as the replacement for my gym workouts. It’s not as intense as the gym but still good to do it and feel like I’ve followed a plan all the way through.

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That’s fantastic. I will check Amazon. Thanks!

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