I've been at 190 for a while, those last 10 lbs to 200 are so hard. But man it's a satisfying lift. Also the easiest one to almost pass out on.

It's the whole reason I bought 1.25 lb plates. When I was doing 5x5 I was stalling out trying to jump 5 pounds at a time.

I will take any progress I can get on OHP, no matter how slow.

I've been lifting for a few years, but only make marginal progress. I'm also a competitive cyclist, so I imagine that side of my fitness routine is negating lifting. Any advice, or just keep plugging slow and steady?

It's not negating your lifting but I would imagine it's making it very difficult to put on noticeable muscle, given the amount of calories I imagine you're burning. Strength training is only going to help with cycling too.

If your goal is to look more jacked, adjust your calories up and add some protein to see if you can put on more muscle.

It might be negating it some. There is only so much you can do even with a boatload of calories. If you're cycling every other day, I'm not so sure you'll be able to squat a ton of weight because of the required rest you need.

This is an outlier but there is a cyclist with the biggest quads I have ever seen a dude proportionate to the rest of his body. I realize that's an outlier and not sure how good of a cyclist he is but it's still possible.

I get what you're saying but it's still possible to put on muscle mass and I would bet it's mostly a numbers game. Squat 500lbs? Who knows… but I would guess that a more lean, athletic runner/endurance based frame would be much more beneficial in cycling.

A distance cyclist or more of a sprinter? Sprint cyclists have insane leg muscles.

Having awesome looking giant quads doesn't always equal huge weight under the bar. Just like body builder vs power lifter. Everyone has different goals.

I don't remember to be honest. I'd imagine a sprint cyclist but not really sure.

Sprint cyclists and speed skaters always look so crazy because, unlike track sprinters, they usually have minimal upper body muscle but their legs are just enormous. Impressive.

Farmer1906 said:

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Having awesome looking giant quads doesn't always equal huge weight under the bar. Just like body builder vs power lifter. Everyone has different goals.

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I'm not disagreeing with you but I'm having trouble with why you're jumping to this conclusion… the OP stated they're having "limited progress" but don't specify what it is exactly their goal is. Sure you can infer it's about weightlifting given the thread we're on but I don't really know.

I made the comment about the dudes quads and referenced a squat number just purely as a hypothetical to the OP.

And yes, you're right about goals. Size doesn't always translate to more weight on the bar but it does (aside from the synthol freaks) mean more muscle and you need more muscle to lift more weight.

I compete in XC and marathon, not sprinting . I'm on the bike about 8/9 hours a week. Working legs is difficult with interval work, so I've been limiting that to Sundays. Then push/pull alternating m/w/f mornings. Intervals on the bike tu/th. Easier rides in the afternoons. Longer rides on saturday. I'm not really skinny, especially compared to people I race against, but would like to gain some good mass. I may try to remove a day or two of the easy rides and see how that affects my lifting and my fitness.

What does your leg workout look like?

Are you doing any leg work on the push/pull days?

3x5 squats
3X12 rdl
3x12 leg press
5x12 calf raises
Curl/extension superset.

I do warmups, then one working set of deadlifts to start every other pull day.

You may already know/do all of this, if so disregard. I am by no means an expert, but if I was stuck this is what I would try to do. I would recommend a different strength training program, but I haven't had to balance strength training with a second thing like cycling, so I would defer to you on knowing what splits and exercises work best for you.

If you're doing what you posted and attempting to add additional weight/reps each week and still not growing, the only alternative is to increase the volume and/or try to eat more. If you aren't attempting to add weight to the lifts and/or reps each week, you won't see any growth.

Personally, I would probably add in a couple more sets of squats. I would also probably increase the weight you're doing on RDL and leg press and go down to 8 reps.

I would add up the total volume for the sets/reps you have been doing the past few weeks for both your quads and hamstrings and then try to increase it by X% and see if you get better results. That way you can measure the % you attempted to increase it by and if it negatively impacts your cycling, you can reduce the % and see if you can find a sweet spot for marginal gains without impacting your cycling performance.

I'm doing progressive overload with the 12 rep sets. Start with 8, when I get to 12 for all sets I move it up.

In that case, I'd add some additional sets of squats. If you're worried about the fatigue, maybe try adding in some hack squats, or some smith machine squats.

You can always add it in on your push day if you're feeling gassed by the end of your current leg day.

Edit to add: Also, don't underestimate the power of eating. You'd be surprised where the weight goes if you're really pushing the weights.

I think eating is an issue. I burn lots of calories on the bike, so may need to up some clean eating to make progress.

These have been awesome. I have had the nacho cheese and loaded taco and I was expecting them to be pretty mediocre. But I would eat these even if they weren't "healthy" chips.

Thanks for the suggestion.

SteveA said:

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I compete in XC and marathon, not sprinting . I'm on the bike about 8/9 hours a week. Working legs is difficult with interval work, so I've been limiting that to Sundays. Then push/pull alternating m/w/f mornings. Intervals on the bike tu/th. Easier rides in the afternoons. Longer rides on saturday. I'm not really skinny, especially compared to people I race against, but would like to gain some good mass. I may try to remove a day or two of the easy rides and see how that affects my lifting and my fitness.

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I don't think you are hitting your hammys near hard enough if you are a biker/runner.

Have you considered some heavy deadlifts?

And yeah bro...its VERY hard to truly "make gainz" doing that much cardio.

Be careful saying "heavy deadlifts," it bat signals me.

CC09LawAg said:

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These have been awesome. I have had the nacho cheese and loaded taco and I was expecting them to be pretty mediocre. But I would eat these even if they weren't "healthy" chips.

Thanks for the suggestion.

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Awesome, great to hear it's working for you!

Beau Holder said:

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Be careful saying "heavy deadlifts," it bat signals me.

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Heavy is a relative term.

Its called sarcasm... Beau deadlifts more that most people (if not everyone) on this thread.

Heavy is absolutely relative but it's called a joke

I got it. I'm playing along.

Good to hear. I was starting to wonder

I'm doing deadlifts every other pull day. That's just how this ppl routine is programmed. I'll finish this iteration up in another two weeks and give some other split a try.

Just hit a quick "heavy" DL workout on lunch.

Have my deadlift workout today too.

Doing my 5/3/1 work with conventional, but then doing the 5x5 with suitcase deadlifts while I'm cutting to try to lower the intensity a bit but keep the volume up.

Then adding in some lunges and sled work for my accessories.

So far, trying to lose weight sucks as much as I remember.

CC09LawAg said:

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Have my deadlift workout today too.

Doing my 5/3/1 work with conventional, but then doing the 5x5 with suitcase deadlifts while I'm cutting to try to lower the intensity a bit but keep the volume up.

Then adding in some lunges and sled work for my accessories.

So far, trying to lose weight sucks as much as I remember.

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I'm just beginning to cut some weight, so while I've been happy to have some progression on RDLs and leg presses, I'm ready to supplement with more leg curls/leg extensions to preserve hypertrophy on a caloric deficit

I really like suitcase deadlifts with a kettle bell. I normally do them using tempo (3-4 second eccentric) and then superset them with suitcase carry using the same weight for about 15-20 steps. I've also gone with a lighter kettle bell and turned it upside down but that can be really tough, especially right after suitcase deads

I have some Titan farmer walk handles that I am going to use, that way I can adjust the load to be more precise. I will stand on a bumper plate to make up for the handle being a little higher than the bar usually would be.

I am working in some farmer walks on my squat day and doing Zercher squats for my 5x5 at about 75% of what I'd be doing for low bar squat.

I may need to move the farmer walks to deadlift day and move things around, because the Zercher and farmer walk on the same day were pretty rough. But I was going to give myself a few weeks to adjust to it before deciding.

The suitcase deadlifts were no joke. I thought it'd be easy and just divide what I would normally do with my 5x5 by half. Definitely a totally different stimulus and I really think it's going to make me have to pay more attention to my form.