by Melanie McQuaid, Triathlete

The off season is a great time to focus on building leg strength because you can focus less on your speed. Doing some cadence work and this on-the-bike strength work together is a great idea, since they will complement each other and cadence does allow you to keep some of your speed intact. This article will focus on the strength component.

If you are doing long rides outside, I would suggest adding some hills. When you ride the hills, instead of trying to go up it fast, put your bike in a big gear and grind it out at about 60 rpm. This will keep your heart rate down and turn the climb into a leg-press workout to build strength in your climbing-specific muscles. You can do this workout off road with a lot of success. If you need to do your long rides indoors still, I would suggest riding at a higher wattage (keep to below 85% perceived effort) with low cadence for 3-8 minutes with 5 minutes in between to mimic a grinding hill interval workout. You can do these intervals both seated and standing but make sure you are comfortable seated because you will mostly stay seated in Ironman and XTERRA racing.

On days where you don’t have time to ride for a long period of time, but have been doing gym workouts lifting weights, this time of year might be a good time to turn these workouts into a circuit. I do this workout at home with a ball, wobble board, weights and a Powerbeam. You could also do this in the gym with a CycleOps Indoor Cycle or on your trainer doing some single leg intervals instead of just pedaling.

I reference "big gear" as your choice of effort for this workout. I choose a wattage that is approximately 85% of my maximum aerobic power and push it at a low wattage. You should find that this will more heavily tax your legs than your lungs. Your heart rate should be around zone three for most of the efforts on the bike.

10 minutes warm-up on Powercranks or on the bike

Circuit:

• 2 minutes 60rpm pedaling big gear
• One Leg Squats with Swissball (start with 1 set 15/leg, build to 2)
• 2 minutes 60rpm pedaling big gear
• Crunches on Swissball (start with 1 set 20, build to 2 sets of 30)
• 2 minutes 60rpm pedaling big gear
• Shoulder Press (1 set of 15, increase weight slowly and do 2 sets of 10)
• 2 minutes 60rpm pedaling big gear
• Bicycle Crunches Alternating Legs (start with 1 set 20 each leg, build to 2)
• 2 minutes 60rpm pedaling big gear
• Back Hyper-extensions on the Ball (start with 1 set 20, build to 2)
• 2 minutes 60rpm pedaling big gear
• Lunges on Wobble Board (or Standing One-Leg Squats – this is for balance) (start with 1 set 10/leg, build to 2 sets)
• 2 minutes 60rpm pedaling big gear
• Push-ups with legs on Swissball (start with 1 set of 10 and build to 2 sets of 20)

10 minutes warm-down easy spin to finish

This is a very challenging workout that addresses both your strength and your aerobic fitness needs. You will have very tired legs and will be able to do a full body workout in between intervals on the bike. You can change any or all of the exercises I have suggested to better reflect the gym workouts you have been doing, my example is just what I like to do in the winter. I do a bit of legs, upper body, core and balance work while I work on my pedal efficiency on the Powerbeam. You can also increase the amount of riding or do more than one round.

So good luck with this, adjust this workout to fit your schedule and especially your fitness level. Remember to keep an eye on both your process and outcome goals to keep you motivated, and if you haven’t written those down in your training log yet, GET ON IT!

Melanie McQuaid is the first person to have won the XTERRA Triathlon World Championships three times. Along with three World Championships titles, Melanie has three second place performances at the World Championships, two overall series titles, seven national titles from the US and Canada and four five runner up titles for the overall series. In addition to her own training, Melanie is a personal coach and an experienced public speaker. Read more and check out photos from Melanie at her website, racergirl.com