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What’s the Best Day for Leg Weights?

Question: I’m 37 and have been riding for 18 years. I race on Sundays and do intervals or other hard on-bike training on Wednesdays. I intend to do leg weights this winter and want to continue doing them once a week next season. Given my schedule, what’s the best weekday for the leg work?

Coach Fred Matheny Replies: This is a hard question because there’s no consensus from coaches and trainers.

One approach is to do leg weights on Wednesday after your interval session. The rationale is that because your legs are already tired from the intervals, you can further exhaust them with weights to get more benefit. Also, you’ll have more days to recover before the next brutal Wednesday.

Another school of thought says that Tuesday or Thursday is a better choice for weights, following an easy ride to warm up the legs. You’re likely to have more energy on these days, and the total workout takes less time than the Wednesday scenario.

But it also means your legs will be working hard on two weekdays — Tuesday or Thursday in the weight room and Wednesday on the bike. Couple that with a race on the weekend and you might not have sufficient time to recover.

I’ve found that the weights-after-intervals option works for me, but everyone is different. You’ll have to experiment to find what works for you.

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