Which cycling app tracks strength training?

None of them meaningfully. TrainerRoad lets you annotate a strength session in the calendar, Intervals.icu accepts it as an activity with a manual load figure, Garmin records it as an activity. In every case the lifting enters no model that affects what the app tells you to do on the bike.

Why can't cycling apps model lifting?

Because TSS is defined as intensity relative to functional threshold power. A set of squats has no normalised power and no intensity factor, so there is nothing to put in the equation. It is a definitional limit, not a missing feature.

Should cyclists lift?

Yes. The evidence supports strength training for cycling economy, sprint power and durability, and it becomes more important with age. What has to be managed is total load, because the two draw on the same recovery budget and the interference is dose-dependent.

How much lifting can I do during a build block?

Less than in the off-season, and the specific number depends on your cycling volume. The practical approach is to keep intensity and cut volume — two sessions a week of heavy, low-set work maintains strength at a small recovery cost, where high-volume hypertrophy work during a build block usually costs a session on the bike.

Do I need two apps as a cyclist who lifts?

Most cyclists do, and it works. The seam is that no system computes a ramp rate on total load, a deload trigger reading both fatigue sources, or a calorie target that knows what the week contained on both sides.

Best Cycling App That Also Tracks Lifting

Why the gap is structural

Training Stress Score is defined as intensity relative to functional threshold power, integrated over duration. Every term presupposes a sustained aerobic effort with a measurable power output.

A set of eight squats at RIR 2 has no normalised power, no intensity factor and no threshold to be relative to. There is nothing to put into the equation.

So every TSS-based system has three options and they all take the third: model lifting properly (nobody does), exclude it (TrainerRoad, Zwift), or let you invent a number (TrainingPeaks, Intervals.icu) — which then flows into your CTL and makes every subsequent decision partly fictional. The full argument.

The options, and what each one costs

TrainerRoad plus a lifting log — best plan, no connection

TrainerRoad has the best feedback loop in endurance software. Adaptive Training reads how you actually performed against each workout target and rewrites upcoming sessions.

It reads your cycling performance and your survey answers. It does not read your lifting. So Tuesday's five heavy sets of squats show up as Wednesday's poor interval performance, and Adaptive Training interprets that as insufficient cycling fitness and adjusts the cycling plan — for a problem that is not in the cycling. Where that lands in detail.

Intervals.icu plus a lifting log — free, and honest about the gap

Free, deeper load modelling than anything paid, custom fields, and it shows its arithmetic. You can define a custom load metric for strength, which is more than anyone else offers — and you are then inventing the load number yourself, which means the chart is only as good as your guess. Where it stops.

Garmin Connect — one app, shallow on both halves

Holds cycling properly with real load modelling, and records lifting as an activity with a set count and no load per set. Lifting contributes almost nothing to Training Load, so a heavy strength week reads as recovery — which is the error in the dangerous direction. What Connect models.

Zwift plus a lifting log — adherence, no modelling

Zwift is the best answer to boredom and has essentially no plan intelligence and no load model worth using for this. Zwift against TrainerRoad.

One ledger — the cross-discipline numbers, at the cost of the bike plan

A hybrid system computes set volume against your cycling load, a ramp rate on total training minutes, a deload trigger reading both, and an adaptive calorie target. What it does not do is build a periodised road season with ERG-controlled indoor sessions — which is genuinely TrainerRoad's advantage and not a small one.

The comparison

	TrainerRoad	Intervals.icu	Garmin	Zwift	Base
Cycling plan quality	Best	None	Adaptive, generic	Basic	Not a race plan
Adapts from performance	Yes	No	Partly	No	Yes
ERG indoor execution	Excellent	No	Via device	Excellent	No
Load per set	No	No	No	No	Yes, with RIR
Weekly hard sets per muscle	No	No	No	No	Yes, fractional
Strength in the load model	No	Manual guess	Barely	No	Yes, in its own units
Ramp rate on total load	No	Partly, manual	No	No	Yes
Deload trigger, both signals	No	No	No	No	Yes
Nutrition	Guidance	No	Basic	No	Measured, adaptive
Cost	Sub	Free	With device	Sub	Beta

What actually goes wrong, and when

Three failure patterns, all of them arriving on the weeks you are training hardest:

The ramp rate is computed on half the load. Your cycling hours hold steady while you add a hypertrophy block. Every load chart says you are stable. Your actual weekly training stress rose 30 percent. Compute it on everything.

Volume that worked in the off-season stops working in build. Your recoverable set volume is not a constant — it falls when cycling load rises. Nothing in either app knows this, and the first signal is usually a stalled block rather than a warning. Why the interference is dose-dependent. Count what you are carrying.

Energy. Twelve hours on the bike plus four lifting sessions is a large demand, and being 400 kcal a day short converts a good programme into fatigue with nothing to show for it. How much a hybrid week costs.

The recommendation

If cycling is the goal and lifting is durability work: TrainerRoad plus a free lifting log, and cut lifting volume by feel during build and specialty phases. The plan quality is worth more than the integration.

If you want free: Intervals.icu plus a free lifting log. Better analysis than most paid options.

If you want one app and no subscription: Garmin Connect, accepting your lifting will be a diary.

If lifting is a co-equal goal: the two-app stack starts costing you the decisions rather than just the convenience. What both halves on one ledger looks like.

One thing worth doing today whichever you pick: derive your FTP-based zones properly. A threshold estimate eight weeks stale makes every zone below it wrong, and no amount of load modelling recovers from a bad denominator.