I've just finished 3 weeks of preparation for lifting as per the Morris plan. I'm now about to start what he terms the hypertrophy period. What isn't clear to me is if he intends that you should do a rest week between each weight period. Is there a rest period between the hypertrophy phase and the strength phase, for example, or is the weight training done without any rest weeks?

My problem with lifting is onset soreness from too long a layoff. For example, in the past I typically did lifting on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but found after a four day layoff that my Tuesday session produced soreness, which limited the effectiveness on Thursday's workout and made any riding over the weekend a struggle. That's where Morris has been such a revelation to me - I found I can defy conventional wisdon and lift on successive days and actually be LESS sore. You were right by pointing out in your response to my thread, however, that the block of prescribed rest days is pretty important too.

I hadn't really considered the possibility that the Morris plan would prescribe a rest week between lifting phases, and that's actually a good question. I assumed it didn't, and if you seem to be more prone to onset soreness, I would recommend you go right to the next phase after taking the 2-3 day rest. If taking a week completely off before you start a harder phase produces quite a bit of soreness for a few days that you have to recover from, it would seem you'd almost be taking a step back. Remember, the Morris plan is accelerated - it condenses what typically takes several months into a little over two.

Morris occasionally lurks on this board, maybe he can anwer.

I've just finished 3 weeks of preparation for lifting as per the Morris plan. I'm now about to start what he terms the hypertrophy period. What isn't clear to me is if he intends that you should do a rest week between each weight period. Is there a rest period between the hypertrophy phase and the strength phase, for example, or is the weight training done without any rest weeks?

Hey Andrew, I'm right with ya, training buddy! I just did my maxes last night, and will be starting hypertrophy this week.

I had thought about the question of whether to rest between weight phases, too. After re-reading that chapter, to me it looks like Morris did not intend to put a rest week between each weight training phase. I will, however, do a rest week once I finish the final weight training phase (before moving on to Endurance). And I'll take the rest week between each of the phases after that, as well. At least that's the plan for now...

bock

I've just finished 3 weeks of preparation for lifting as per the Morris plan. I'm now about to start what he terms the hypertrophy period. What isn't clear to me is if he intends that you should do a rest week between each weight period. Is there a rest period between the hypertrophy phase and the strength phase, for example, or is the weight training done without any rest weeks?
This is my third week of the endurance phase, let me tell you it hurts my son is doing it too. But even when you are sore and little tired, you have power. We went to do a pseudo recovery ride, also prerun a course and the power is there. We found a bunch of racers prerunning so we went to do a few loops, about 8 miles each and even tho I was a little sore and tired I stayed in striking distance. We were moving, I ran that same loop 3 weeks back and yesterday I went 5 minutes faster per lap, my son went 4 minutes per lap faster.

Im not that slow to begin with, all this guys are sport to expert level and we were there, I was like a minute behind. So I think this crazy power thing works, how much I will know in march when the season starts. But right now Im on a freight train pace. Love it. :D

Not sure if Morris recommends it or not, but I did 3 weeks of general lifting and then 8 weeks of lifting under the Morris plan. I did not take any rest weeks between each different session (also road my bike on the weekends). Finished lifting and went right into the endurance phase and withing a week my legs were burned out. Took a week off from riding....sick the next week and started riding again this past weekend. Legs and body felt a lot better.
From my experience I would recommend a rest week at lest when you finish lifting before you start any serious riding.
Morris also recomends that you keep your riding to a minimum while lifting..I know you are doing some endurance riding already....Personally I would recommend if you are planning on lifting to forgo the majority of your riding until you are finished lifting or skip the lifting this year.
Also not sure when you plan on "starting your season", but I started the lifting phase back in October so I would be done lifting by the 1st week in January and ready to start some races in April.

KMan




I've just finished 3 weeks of preparation for lifting as per the Morris plan. I'm now about to start what he terms the hypertrophy period. What isn't clear to me is if he intends that you should do a rest week between each weight period. Is there a rest period between the hypertrophy phase and the strength phase, for example, or is the weight training done without any rest weeks?

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Looks like the general interpretation is that Morris does not build in rest weeks between lifting phases...............that's the way I read it. I've also taken note of the comments regarding how much riding to do while lifting. Last year I did some minimal winter/early season weight lifting and made some obvious strength gains. The problem was that I don't think I did a good job of transitioning the weight room strength gains into season long improvement. Early in the season my legs were toast after a couple of very difficult races. My recovery was very slow. The Morris block training appeals to me because the intensity coupled with recovery time intuitively makes sense. We'll see how it works out in the reality of training. I also identified that I was protein deficient last year. (Wife is vegetarian so I tend to be so by default.) The past month I've paid careful attention to increasing my protein intake. I looked at the training log for the same period last year when I was doing very similar effort, last year at this time I was already having problems with sore legs. This year I'm actually doing more work; riding longer at the weekends, doing spin classes, yoga and weight lifting and NOT getting the same sore legs. I'm doing more work with less destruction and I believe it's because I'm being much more careful with nutrition. None of this fad diet stuff but just being very conscious of what I consume and making sure I get plenty of protein for muscle building.

Thanks for all the input from you guys.

If so, I'm golden after this weekends riding!