Morris Strength training

As you know from this BLOG, I am a complete zealot of the Dave Morris training program as outlined in his book, Performance Cycling.



Right now I have just started the HYPETROPHY phase. Prior to this I had been doing 3 weeks of very light transitional lifting.

When reading the book, the strength training part is a little hard to follow and can get confusing. I put the whole plan down on a spreadsheet and by just entering your 1 rep Max's the whole program falls out into several worksheets, making it a breeze to follow. hard to do, but easy to follow.

email me if you are on the plan and want a copy at ashwin@vtti.vt.edu

The Hypertrophy phase is designed to increase the size of muscle fibers. After this we go to strength, followed by power.

The exercises are pretty basic:
-Squat, Leg press, ham curl, dumbell press, lat pulldown
-Plus stiff legged dead lift, and ab work and back extension

I should stretch, but I rarely do.

Hypetrophy consists of 6 sets, and you increase your weight by 5% every other set.

And the Morris way, you work out in 2 back to back segments, where the first is a normal day, and the next is a light day where the weights are decreased by 5%.

It's a really draining phase. I'm not even worried about not riding during this phase. I'll do some recovery rides on Wed, and weekends, but it is too much to even consider doing real riding during this phase.

The book suggests 4 weeks of hypetrophy but I am cutting it to 2 weeks so I can start fitting in some endurance rides during the Strength and Power phases of lifting.

the weather here is freaking incredible now. almost 80 degrees on Nov 1.

Oh how I wish I could be in my endurance phase now. I bet that it will go back to normal crappy Southwest VA weather right when I need to get on the bike for 3-4 hours.