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Kettlebell Maintenance lifting.

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Dayz

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Hey all. Apologies if my query isn't clear, I'm not sure how to phrase this.

My primary sport / goal is road cycling, so riding is my focus.

Two times a week I lift kettlebells for maintenance. I can two hand swing the 40kg powerfully for sets of ten, and TGU with the 32kg confidently. My only strength goal is to maintain this level with the minimum investment. I've found i can do this with 4x10 or less for swings. For TGU, 3 reps per side, one with the 16, one with the 24, one with the 32 has maintained the ability to use the 32 fine.

Question:

If i don't want to increase the weight for swings and get ups, but only maintain, what if anything am I losing by keeping my reps so low? Given I can maintain my strength to complete solid reps with this minimum dose, it feels like I'm only 'losing' the conditioning aspect from traditional S&S, but my sport more than handles that area.

Maybe I'm losing hypertrophy? Some CNS improvement? Power endurance? Something else? Improved body mechanics?

Apologies if my question is confusing! I didn't know how to word it properly

Thanks in advance!
 
Hey all. Apologies if my query isn't clear, I'm not sure how to phrase this.

My primary sport / goal is road cycling, so riding is my focus.

Two times a week I lift kettlebells for maintenance. I can two hand swing the 40kg powerfully for sets of ten, and TGU with the 32kg confidently. My only strength goal is to maintain this level with the minimum investment. I've found i can do this with 4x10 or less for swings. For TGU, 3 reps per side, one with the 16, one with the 24, one with the 32 has maintained the ability to use the 32 fine.

Question:

If i don't want to increase the weight for swings and get ups, but only maintain, what if anything am I losing by keeping my reps so low? Given I can maintain my strength to complete solid reps with this minimum dose, it feels like I'm only 'losing' the conditioning aspect from traditional S&S, but my sport more than handles that area.

Maybe I'm losing hypertrophy? Some CNS improvement? Power endurance? Something else? Improved body mechanics?

Apologies if my question is confusing! I didn't know how to word it properly

Thanks in advance!

I'm a cyclist too so I can relate. I would say you're not losing anything if your goal is to maintain and you have found the dose to maintain. Just be aware that it's still a moving target -- one month's maintenance dose can become the next month's inadequate stimulus. By the same token one day's minimum dose may be too much stress in the context of an already stressful training week riding. Once you are where you want to be and trying to maintain a physiological state, or a skill, I think of it like spinning plates... depending on what else is going on, other external factors, and how much of a "re-spin" push you give each thing, the amount of "re-spin" stimulus can vary so it helps to have a baseline and a way to check in with it to see if adjustments are necessary. A standard S&S session with a given weight and timing can be a great baseline... once you know how it should feel and how you should perform.

All that said, if maintenance isn't what you're after, and you WANT additional hypertrophy, or additional power endurance, or body mechanics, then that's a different question. But if you're good enough for your health and performance in the things that are important to you, then you're back to maintenance as described in the first paragraph.
 
Hey all. Apologies if my query isn't clear, I'm not sure how to phrase this.

My primary sport / goal is road cycling, so riding is my focus.

Two times a week I lift kettlebells for maintenance. I can two hand swing the 40kg powerfully for sets of ten, and TGU with the 32kg confidently. My only strength goal is to maintain this level with the minimum investment. I've found i can do this with 4x10 or less for swings. For TGU, 3 reps per side, one with the 16, one with the 24, one with the 32 has maintained the ability to use the 32 fine.

Question:

If i don't want to increase the weight for swings and get ups, but only maintain, what if anything am I losing by keeping my reps so low? Given I can maintain my strength to complete solid reps with this minimum dose, it feels like I'm only 'losing' the conditioning aspect from traditional S&S, but my sport more than handles that area.

Maybe I'm losing hypertrophy? Some CNS improvement? Power endurance? Something else? Improved body mechanics?

Apologies if my question is confusing! I didn't know how to word it properly

Thanks in advance!
This sounds like the perfect occasion for using Q&D, which is optimized for exactly your purposes. Have you read it? You could do two sessions per week in the 044 format, once 1H once 2H + minimalist get ups. Or do it with pushups in 033 format.

There are some tables according to Russian research, indicating that power training has great carryover to strength, hypertrophy, and endurance.
 
Maybe I'm losing hypertrophy? Some CNS improvement? Power endurance? Something else? Improved body mechanics?

A lot depends on what your other programming is.

As a weightlifter, I do so many pulls and hinges when I'm in competition prep, absolute power and hypertrophy go up when I do swings less but BB lifts more.

The only thing that declines is power endurance / power conditioning, but I can maintain that with 100 swings a week.
 
Also depends on what your cycling aspirations are...
Are you racing or doing century ‘rides’ ? (I know that is on hold in a lot of places due to Covid)
Easy club rides? Aggressive club rides?
How many hours / week are you in the saddle? Do you do a significant amount of climbing? What percentage of time do you ride at or below AeT and at or above AnT?
What is your work capacity / tolerance? What is your recovery capability?

Because as you know if cycling is really your passion and focus then the vast majority of your effort should be directed towards that.

Lots to consider...

I would say however that what you are doing with S&S is fine however. I find doing TGU’s really helps me keep maintaining my form on the bike.
 
Because as you know if cycling is really your passion and focus then the vast majority of your effort should be directed towards that.

I thought cyclists tended to favor quad-dominant strength and power work, as opposed to posterior chain work.

All the cyclists I've ever trained alongside were doing front squats and leg presses.
 
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I thought cyclists tended to favor quad-dominant strength and power work, as opposed to posterior chain work.

All the cyclists I've every trained alongside were doing front squats and leg presses.
They do. If you are going to be competitive in cycling then one is going to have to supplement their training with some dedicated leg work for sure. Sprinters and track folks even more so.

Back in the dark ages when I was racing... I spent an inordinate amount of time in the saddle and did indeed do squats, calf raises and because we didn’t know any better leg extensions and crunches...

These days even though I ride hard at times there is no ROI for doing any significant supplemental leg work. Sometimes I will do SLDL and calf raises but that’s it. As long as my ‘cardio’ stays strong I’m doing good.

The nice thing about S&S is that it sort of fills in the blank spots on the map. (For me at least...) If I was road racing again, I would not do it. MTB racing I might....
 
It's perfectly fine to just find the dosage needed to maintain..

Although I would say this, it will also be a good option to see what carryover you will get from hitting certain numbers in your swings and getups to see if it helps your cycling improve..

Worst case is it it doesn't, you can always dial back to maintenance level and have some fulfillment knowing you reached a higher peak lifting wise :)
 
This sounds like the perfect occasion for using Q&D, which is optimized for exactly your purposes. Have you read it? You could do two sessions per week in the 044 format, once 1H once 2H + minimalist get ups. Or do it with pushups in 033 format.

There are some tables according to Russian research, indicating that power training has great carryover to strength, hypertrophy, and endurance.
I have read it and have a kindle copy. I've run 033 once and had good results. I might throw in some more 6 week blocks.

Also depends on what your cycling aspirations are...
Are you racing or doing century ‘rides’ ? (I know that is on hold in a lot of places due to Covid)
Easy club rides? Aggressive club rides?
How many hours / week are you in the saddle? Do you do a significant amount of climbing? What percentage of time do you ride at or below AeT and at or above AnT?
What is your work capacity / tolerance? What is your recovery capability?

Because as you know if cycling is really your passion and focus then the vast majority of your effort should be directed towards that.

Lots to consider...

I would say however that what you are doing with S&S is fine however. I find doing TGU’s really helps me keep maintaining my form on the bike.
I am doing all of the above (though everything is on hold right now due to COVID). I spend 10-15 hours total riding per week, across 5 to 6 days, and I am very much acclimated to this. Throughout the year I do base phase (lots of Z2 and some long intervals), build (either structured intervals or aggressive group rides with recovery days in between), and race season (hard weekend rides, either crits, aggressive group, or long races 3-5 times per year, anywhere from 130k to 245k with a LOT of climbing).

I've found TGUs really help for the same reason :)

I thought cyclists tended to favor quad-dominant strength and power work, as opposed to posterior chain work.

All the cyclists I've ever trained alongside were doing front squats and leg presses.

They do. If you are going to be competitive in cycling then one is going to have to supplement their training with some dedicated leg work for sure. Sprinters and track folks even more so.

Back in the dark ages when I was racing... I spent an inordinate amount of time in the saddle and did indeed do squats, calf raises and because we didn’t know any better leg extensions and crunches...

These days even though I ride hard at times there is no ROI for doing any significant supplemental leg work. Sometimes I will do SLDL and calf raises but that’s it. As long as my ‘cardio’ stays strong I’m doing good.

The nice thing about S&S is that it sort of fills in the blank spots on the map. (For me at least...) If I was road racing again, I would not do it. MTB racing I might....
I definitely see what you guys are getting at, but I am in two minds and genuinely not sure. It's true that a lot of programs for cyclists are quad dominant, given the nature of the sport. And this is especially beneficial for track cyclists and sprinters (which I am not, I am more of a climber, which uses the glutes more than on flats. Aside from climbing, my one hour, 20 minute, 5 minute power is so much better than my sprint by comparison).

Another school of thought, however, is that for cycling, the greatest benefits from strength training are going to be neurological, as well as for injury prevention and balancing out the body (very similar to what offwidth said about filling in the "blank spots"). So this school of thought actually prioritises the posterior chain in training (which does contribute significantly to the pedal stroke, just less so than the quads).

As an example of this (that I could quickly copy-paste), a world leading strength trainer for professional cyclists/triathletes, Menachem Brodie, suggested this as a home workout for triathletes and cyclists:

Sounds kind of familiar, no?!

I am really not sure what to make of the differences between these two schools of thought. Personally, I've found prioritising swings/posterior chain and TGUs allows me to be more well rounded strength-wise, and fresher on the bike compared to when I do lunges, etc. But in the long run, I can't tell if doing the heavier quad dominant stuff would improve my cycling more than what I'm doing.... if anyone has thoughts on that I would appreciate it for sure :)
 
I am really not sure what to make of the differences between these two schools of thought.

As a weightlifter, my sport deals with this all the time.

Basically, our competition lifts (snatch, clean & jerk), massively utilize guads, glutes, traps & erectors, a little bit in the delts & shoulders, and much less in the hamstrings, and hardly anything in the pecs and biceps.

So we usually do accessory work for the antagonist muscles (e.g. I do pushups and dips to give me some horizontal pressing, chinups to give an opposite direction vertical pull to the clean, etc.) to "fill in the gaps" at about a 4:1 or 5:1 ratio, from a volume / tonnage POV.
 
My experience is that training the squat pattern interferes with cycling in the near term, but improves power in the long term. So I find a periodized approach works best where I work on squats during a winter off season. I’ve found working the posterior chain, especially with swings has been absolutely brilliant for MTB. It’s very close to the type of movement done on the bike to negotiate technical terrain, and it was a real weak area for me. This summer I’ve been doing Fabio Zonin’s Simple Strength for Difficult Times, and squat work has drowned out my cycling. No access to easy terrain here, so I’ve switched to rucking for the time being.
 
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