Still Racing Pro At 49: Check Out the Gym Routine that Keeps Ed Veal Going Strong

He’ll turn 50 this August, but that hasn’t slowed Canadian Ed Veal one bit. Next month the season starts up, and Veal will be representing the Automatic Racing team at events across the United States. Competing in the American criterium circuit, Veal routinely finds himself racing shoulder to shoulder with riders half his age (and sometimes even younger than that). At some events, he’ll even enter the 40+ race and use it as a warm up before the pro event gets started.

As far as Veal is concerned, the key to his longevity in the sport has always been his strength. He didn’t get into the sport until he was in his 30s, but his previous work experience helped him become the athlete he is today.

“When I started, it was like a blue collar thing,” he remembers. “We had a family business installing oil tanks and cast boilers and, as my dad’s helper, into my 30s I was doing this heavy lifting. It was like farm strength.”

Over the years, though, as he pursued a cycling career that included time on the Canadian Track Endurance Program where he competed at the UCI Track World Championships in 2016 and was part of the bronze-medal winning team pursuit squad at the Pan Am Games, the Canadian one-hour record (48.587 km, since broken by Lionel Sanders, who went 51.304 km) and Paralympic appearances as a tandem pilot, that strength started to slip away. Realizing how important maintaining strength was to his career, he turned to the gym.

“It started off as a little bit of gym work, then became a little more serious,” he remembers. “Now I’m pretty much in the gym seven days a week.”

“Well, I’m including mobility and I do a lot of core stuff,” he continues. “Some of it is therapy, some of it is just feeling good. That’s the same on the bike – I’m on the bike seven days a week, too. Every day, when I’m doing this, it confirms that I’m an athlete.”

In fact, the first thing he does when he wakes up is head to the mat.

“I wake up and the very first thing I do, I go to the yoga mat,” he says, conceding that he’ll often grab a coffee on the way. “I do the whole mobility thing while I’m groggy. I think of injury prevention, or just being an old man that’s getting creaky and old. I don’t even feel like an athlete, but I get on the mat, start moving, and then I’m like ‘okay I can attack the day.’”

Some yoga movements flow into planks and side planks – his “nemesis.” Planks are followed by push-ups. Then there are lunges for hip flexors that are “usually smashed daily.” A windshield motion with his legs to crack his back. There’s nothing fancy to that initial mat work – just consistency.

Veal is a staunch advocate of single-leg work for cyclists. Cycling involves using one leg at a time, so that should be an emphasis for your strength training.

“If you’re gonna do a press, try and do a single leg,” he suggests. “A Bulgarian split – anything that would be more cycling specific because what we’re doing is one leg at a time.”

Veal is quick to acknowledge the differences in strength required for a track or road-racing sprinter versus a triathlete. He’s been in races with sprinters putting out 2,000 watts or more. And then, at the other extreme, last November Veal competed at IRONMAN Arizona.

“When I’m hanging out with triathletes, they’ll say they didn’t event know that 2,000 watts was a thing,” he laughs. Track sprinters, he says, are “like gorillas” with insanely strong upper bodies and core muscles, and lots of raw force. Years of back pain taught him the importance of having a strong core for cycling.

“My back would get sore, but it was actually a weak core, so my back was doing more work,” he says. “Once I started putting more core work into my program, my back pain went away.”

While he didn’t train very much for his IRONMAN Arizona appearance last fall, he was pleasantly surprised at how much his upper-body strength work helped his swimming.

“I got in the pool and everyone’s like ‘wow you’re a great swimmer,'” he says. “I could actually pull some water and I felt like a monster.”

The Gym Complements, It Doesn’t Replace

Veal’s gym time involves constant movement. Chest presses followed immediately by core exercises or other exercises.

“I’m the weirdo in the gym doing squats in between my chest reps,” he laughs. “It’s not like one crazy workout today because I’m working at it again tomorrow, stacking these little incremental gains.”

As important as the strength work in the gym might be, Veal emphasizes that the goal should be to spend as much time on the bike as you can. That’s where, for most people, the true bike-specific strength work will be achieved. What should those who do need to develop more power be doing?

“That single leg stuff in the gym,” he says. “Single leg leg press, those Bulgarian split squats – even without weight those are nasty.”

The “farm” strength from all those days of lifting boilers and oil tanks might be gone, but it’s been replaced with a seven-day-a-week gym routine.

While that’s not realistic for most of us, there is a lot we all can learn from Veal’s approach. Adding mobility and core exercises to our daily routine probably isn’t a bad idea. Ensuring our gym-time is focused on complementing our bike training is another. It probably won’t propel you to a 2,000-watt sprint at a pro criterium race, but it certainly can help net a faster bike split this summer.

Key Exercises

Following Veal around the gym involves lots of motion. He moves from one exercise to the next based as much as on availability as anything else. Here’s a few of the exercises he did during the session we were at:

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