Timing of Weight Sessions
I think Boomers pretty much agree that weight sessions are essential as we age. Right now I fit them when ever I have time. My question is what is the OPTIMUM time relative to key workouts that you should do your weight sessions. I.e., is OK to do the night before if you have a morning FTP bike workout or hard run. Or should the weight session follow hard work-outs later that same day? What is the best time to go to the gym to build strength and still get the most bang for the buck on the other hard workouts?
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Depends on how the weight sessions are structured? Here's mine (in order): leg press (sled), bench press, lats pull down, leg curl (hamstrings), quads (seated machine), delts (lateral arm raise), triceps, biceps (curls). Takes 25-30 minutes (plus another 10 of forearm work I do for my spinal cord injury). I try to get in twice a week, except in the two months before ski season, when I do 3x. I fit it in whenever I can, with this caveat: I avoid doing it just before a swim session, and if I do it on a day I'm doing run or bike intervals I ratchet down the leg press. Otherwise, it's short enough that it doesn't seem to affect or be affected by S/B/R workouts.
Old skool gym rats would always say … do "cardio" before the weights, but personally, I've never followed that - e.g., I don't mind doing a long run in the afternoon after a half hour of weights in the morning.
Paul, ideally you would want to do your lifting ( especially legs) on days you don't run or pair it up with your harder runs sessions. There is research that says running efficiency is slighty impaired up to 8 hours after strength training. So if you do it the night before, depending on what time this would be and when you run in the AM, you should be fine.