Yes please on the strength training
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I’ve been lucky when we did lock gyms down , the physio was still allowed to open with restricted staff and lots cleaning , managed to do weights with physio . Definitely not as often but enough to help. Really hoping no more lock downs , I only have 5kg dumbbells
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How do you go about increasing the weight ? Ie when you have done same weight without any issues fir a few weeks etc??
Because of vertebrae fracture and nerve irritation, I have worked with Physio, can’t do the lifts with vertical weight compressing spine, but swap those out to seated leg presses etc
Manage to fine alternatives i can do 
@paulamunt I think it depends on the program. My (personal) program changes every 4 weeks, and for each 4-week cycle, I am supposed to keep increasing weight (every week) as long as I can do all the reps… I record my max in the app and keep track that way. But not all programs are designed to work like that.
Nevertheless, one of the principles of strength training is that of “progressive overload” to continue growth and adaptation.
Please listen to this 15 min discussion explaining why (and what types of) strength training / weight lifting is beneficial for endurance athletes. It specifically addresses what seems to be a common concern- building muscle mass.
It also explains how to accomplish what we are after (increase strength without building big muscles): by using low load + high velocity exercises (i.e., explosive/plyometrics ) and high load + low velocity (very heavy weights/lower reps).
@mapmeister and @msvdolan2002 we talked about this on our 1:1 call. See also links and discussions above on this thread.
Why Weightlifting Can Improve Your Muscular Endurance
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Ever since our gyms went back to mandatory-masking, I’ve been trying to do heavy work at home and facing the same lack of equipment challenge as many of you. My main issue is finding something that will simulate the weight of the leg press or smith machine / squat rack. The best I have found are these two things: (1) doing VERY slow and controlled single leg step-ups onto a chair, holding a 15 lb weight in each hand and really going SLOW on the eccentric (going down) part. You have to focus on NOT getting any momentum from the other leg (i.e., no pushing off the floor with the other foot). This way you’re lifting all of your body weight (minus the working leg) + 30# (or whatever you’re holding). The difficulty of course is balance, but using those supporting/balancing muscles actually makes it a much better functional exercise, imho. The other exercise (2) is holding onto a countertop and doing as deep of a single leg squat with as little help from the counter as possible. So basically, it’s an assisted pistol squat (since I can’t do a full pistol squat yet). Just like the single leg step-up you get a lot of loading because it’s only 1 leg working at a time. Another advantage of doing single leg work is you find out real fast if you have a strength imbalance between your legs, and can start to correct that. 
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Awesome! thanks so much!
For all the weight lifters here- take a look at these awesome workout tops!
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Those are awesome!
@Coach_Theia do you have recovery week and “deload” week at the same time? Not that I’ve been consistent with my cycling workouts but at least I haven’t skipped any of the strength days.
I’m still doing body weight exercises but will start adding some weights in the next program so want to see if I should match the deload and recovery weeks or if that doesn’t matter too much when we are not lifting heavy weights 
@Covi I gave up on trying to match recovery week from cycling with deload week from strength. So I just let things fall where they do and it’s been fine. In an ideal world you would match the two. Also, it’s 5 days of cycling vs. 2-3 of strength anyway.
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