New to lifting-What to do between weight sessions

[Gemz]

I've always lifted weights for my sport (track cycling) but never really improved what I lifted over the last 4 years.

It is now my off-season so I've set a personal challenge to improve on my lifts which will also be of benefit to my sport. My goal over winter is also to lose some body fat.

I've been running on my non-weight training day's but if I've pushed it hard the day before in the gym with my legs, on my run days I feel like I am smashing my legs even more and they won't recover. Could that be true or just in my mind?

Is it okay to run, between hard gym sessions, if not, what could I do for fat burning/cardio and recovery on my non gym days?

Thanks for answers in advance.

[Grover]

if your legs are that sore then don't run . just walk

they have to recover,

your thread is a bit srewed?

You are a competitive cyclist ie should therefore be lean anyway and not trying to lose weight.yet to see an overweight competitive cyclist!

You want to increase your lifts in the off season.

Most likely way this will happen is to eat more and grow more muscle.

Which then means that next cycling season you will be carrying extra weight!

Don't think you can competively combine the two.

What sort of track cycling do you do? sprints or longer races?

You will need to work on different areas for these

[teamfatboy]

Sure, it's ok to run... to an extent. We just call it cardio but it might seem like you have to ease off somewhat.

If your primary goal's strength, and secondary goal's fat-burning, getting the diet right will be key. You might want to consider carb-cycling, with high(-er) carbs on weights days, lower on non-weights days, while maintaining the same calories. This is done by shifting the protein-carb-fat ratio, principally adjusting protein-carbs.

Your goals might benefit from moving from long-slow-distance (if that's what your running is at the moment) to High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), which you'll be familiar with from track work. HIIT is not only time-efficient but has a proven basis of being more effective than low-intensity steady-state cardio for fat burning.

If your current weights plan has the numbers of reps per set in the 12-15 range, moving to a lower number/ higher weight will effect strength gains.

Tell us a little more about you:

a. current weights plan

b. current cardio - time/ distance/ perceived effort; and

c. diet.

[ThePman]

just in my mind

Yes

but if you're after fat loss there are better ways to do it than lots of running, so that's worth considering too.

[Gemz]

Thanks so much for your responses and thoughts.

I guess if you are fully focused on Powerlifting it's different focus from me. My goals are to:

• - Build muscle/strength
  - Not put on fat which is hard because it is my off-season
  - Lose about 3kg of fat
  - Recover between weights sessions

I'm a female speed/power cyclist. I have 3 gym sessions a week. I keep things real simple and I are extremely happy with the small gains that I'm making so far.

The issue is what to do on the other 4 days so I recover, but also use those days to burn fat/maintain my weight and not get bored, as I'm used to training 6 days a week.

[ThePman]

The issue is what to do on the other 4 days so I recover, but also use those days to burn fat/maintain my weight and not get bored, as I'm used to training 6 days a week.

The fat loss is more a food intake issue than a training issue

Recovery, that's a whole different set of issues. If you're hell bent on doing something to satisfy your craving for activity, then go walk or jog for a half hour.