gyming to improve power

tarczan

Ric- Sure it is, it's the absence of weight.

the brother

The following is taken from PubMed
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J Appl Physiol. 1988 Nov;65(5):2285-90.


Potential for strength and endurance training to amplify endurance performance.

Hickson RC, Dvorak BA, Gorostiaga EM, Kurowski TT, Foster C.

Department of Physical Education, University of Illinois, Chicago 60680.

The impact of adding heavy-resistance training to increase leg-muscle strength was studied in eight cycling- and running-trained subjects who were already at a steady-state level of performance. Strength training was performed 3 days/wk for 10 wk, whereas endurance training remained constant during this phase. After 10 wk, leg strength was increased by an average of 30%, but thigh girth and biopsied vastus lateralis muscle fiber areas (fast and slow twitch) and citrate synthase activities were unchanged. Maximal O2 uptake (VO2max) was also unchanged by heavy-resistance training during cycling (55 ml.kg-1.min-1) and treadmill running (60 ml.kg-1.min-1); however, short-term endurance (4-8 min) was increased by 11 and 13% (P less than 0.05) during cycling and running, respectively. Long-term cycling to exhaustion at 80% VO2max increased from 71 to 85 min (P less than 0.05) after the addition of strength training, whereas long-term running (10 km times) results were inconclusive. These data do not demonstrate any negative performance effects of adding heavy-resistance training to ongoing endurance-training regimens. They indicate that certain types of endurance performance, particularly those requiring fast-twitch fiber recruitment, can be improved by strength-training supplementation.
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I haven't read the whole paper so don't know what the test procedure was and if the strength training was in addition to or instead of endurance training or infact the ability of the test subjects to begin with.
It is also a small population size and there is no indication of a control group so it it isn't clear what improvement there may or may not have been in the second test even if no strength training was carried out.(It is often easier to do this sort of thing the second time as the guinnea pig knows they WILL live through the pain)
However......
Taken at face value, an improvement of time to exhaustion of 14 mins seems a good result.

ric_stern/RST

that'd be the abscence of gravity.

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ric_stern/RST

i don't have the paper to hand, but, from memory there's a couple of issues, firstly not trained cyclists, and secondly, it's widely (completely?) acknowledged that there's a huge coefficient of variation when asking people to ride at a fixed intensity for as long as possible, such that no one uses such study protocols anymore. additionallly, most races are over a fixed distance

ric

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the brother

I didn't think it was a great protocol but it was the best I could find to support the idea that weight training improves cycling performance, and I felt that those who were 'battling on' with that side of the discussion needed a bit of help with actual evidence!

If weight training helps with performance then why has no one been able to prove it?

If it has been proven then why can no one find the papers that support this hypothesis? I was realy struggling to find anything to support this viewpoint.


I would love to believe that doing a few squatts would improve cycling performance, it would make training on those dark autumn(fall) evenings a lot less miserable ...but I don't!

ric_stern/RST

that's the point, there isn't any good evidence with trained cyclists. there is however some evidence that it works with untrained/low fitness individuals as i've previously mentioned. however, even in these groups, it would still make more sense to just cycle as you'd likely improve at a faster rate. additionally, in these groups (low fitness) any exercise would likely increase performance.



an important point, if the choice is miserable weather/dark nights whatever and no cycling or doing weights (or any other non cycling exercise) then that'd be a winner. obviously, the first choice is to cycle, but where it's not possible then any exercise is good exercise.

ric

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Carrera

I'll be online tomorrow to respond to all of these points. I just got back from a 3 hour training run and now I'm off on a nightshift. I feel knackered today and the ride seemed harder than usual - a really tough one.
My point on philosophy wasn't intended to be taken too literally. I was suggesting that sometimes there are simpler ways to approach a specific question and the actual practice involved is sometimes more helpful than theory. Having said that it's nice to see people throwing in a bit of science and academia on this theme as it makes an intersting discussion.
Back tomorrow with my questions.

BiochemGuy

Sorry Ric, a bad choice of words on my part. I wrote that after having a really bad day; had my wallet stolen out of my car, and then the delivery truck delivering my neighbors new sofa decided to back into my driveway to try to turn around. They ended up running over my bike. So I was in a rather pissy mood that day.


As far as what I wrote about muscle imbalance and injury. Sports med docs, physiologists, and trainers have known for years that muscle imbalance can lead to injury. Many have taken on the idea of the best way to prevent injury in an athlete is to correct the muscle imbalances caused by that athletes sport.

The normal balance in strength ratios between two antagonistic muscle groups can be altered by repeated use of a muscle group for a certain sport. Many cyclists have overdeveloped Quads compared to hamstrings do to using the quads more during cycling.

This is further increased by the fact that trained athletes experience great disinhabition. Meaning their nervous system only stimulates the muscles/muscle fibers needed to perform their certain sport. This is seen more so in repetitive sports such as cycling. This can contribute further to the quad to hamstring strength ratio problem as disinhabition of the hamstrings do to them not being needed as much as quads will further decrease hamstring strength.

The overdeveloped quad strength can put stress on the knee when there isn't a sufficient antagonistic contraction of the hamstrings. This can lead to knee injury.

I attended a sports med/nutrition/training symposium a few years back and got to see part of a presentation on this subject given by a Sports med doc, forget his name right now. I only got to see part of his presentation because I had to be somewhere else but he descibed it like this.

"Lets say you had a broomstick that you put halfway in the ground with the other half sticking up. You then attached two ropes to the top of the broomstick. and then had one guy pull on each part of the rope like a Tug-o-war. With each guy representing the quad or hamstring and the broomstick representing the knee. If both men pull on the rope with close to equal force, the broomstick will remain upright. but it one guy pulls much harder than the other, the broomstick will bend or break"

Weighttraining is usually reccomended to fix this imbalance problem. By strengthing the hamstrings you can bring the Quad/hamstring strength ratio closer to the natural 1 to 2/3 Quad/hamstring ratio found in most people.

ric_stern/RST

ARGH! that's bad :-(. hope you get a nice new bike out of it





it's my experience that these imbalances don't readily occur in cycling

ric

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Roadie_scum

Having experienced some of them and worked on them with an AIS physio, I'd say they can occur (probably rarely), but when they do they are more likely to occur between lateral and medial structures than hammies and quads, and to get a functional imbalance, you need to have so little strength that weight training is almost out of the question.

My problems have been resolved by stretching, position changes and resistance work where the load is body weight only and I concentrate on technique.

If you do happen to have a problem, it will manifest itself - you will get a sore hip/knee/ankle/etc. These problems are best resolved with a physio and are not solved by weight training (which would likely increase the imbalance).

Carrera

Ric, you wrote:

"most likely. for e.g., those guys need to climb ~ 400 - 450 W. most males of say 70ish kg (the mass- ish of Ullrich) will be able to generate > 800 W if only for brief periods of time, thus at ~ 400 W it's axiomatic that they can generate a lower power for longer. as they can generate a higher power, which requires more force than a lower power, then a lower power can be completed at a greater range of cadences as you'd have to pedal very slow to generate that force from the higher power at the lower power at a low cadence."

I'm far from being an expert on the physics of all of this and will have to take your word for the facts and figures above. Exercise physiology is far from being my strong point. However, I'd like to ask whether we agree over the idea that the higher a gear you use the more strength will be required? Surely the effect of gearing is almost the same as adding or removing weights on a bar? This is why I was puzzled by Miguel Indurain's method of climbing with a 10 lb weight tied to his body. Maybe he could have simply geared up a notch instead.

"i've already shown what forces are required to ride e.g., Alpe d'Huez and win and it's a miserably low 250 N (~ 25 kg between both legs). Untrained sedentary people can often/usually/most likely generate such a force."

I don't question the ability of an untrained individual to be able to power a bike uphill. Even so, I do feel a bit baffled with regard to the question of gearing. I presently own 2 bikes, one that has triple rings and the other that has a double ring. I can climb virtually anything on my triple ring but if I'm forced to use far higher gears on my other bike I feel leg strength has more bearing. I've experimented doing medium steep climbs, for example, on my big cog. There's a different feel to it, although I grant that you can sprint in lower gears and accomplish much the same. Still I really feel leg strength helps me at that point where I've just got to the top of a climb and sit down again (feel the pull) or at the very steep points of hills where I can try and push in a slightly higher gear.

"if you mean i'd be able to squat more than the guy on the street then yes, maybe i don't disagree. that's called *training* what do you expect to happen? to get worse?"

I'd expect faster adaptation to take place with cyclists. A cyclist who's never squatted would probably have a hard time with 60 k.g. But my guess is he'd be up to 80 k.g. more quickly than an untrained person who started squatting. I've noticed, though, that many riders on this forum have shared their leg strength definitely outstrips their upper body. That is, cycling has improved their leg strength.

"no i'm a low cadence rider. i live in a hillier area than you."

I assume you live in South Wales U.K. I'm really looking forward to cycling to North Wales but get very tied down with my job. However, I do most of my training in the highest geographical zone of England. Flash is the highest terrain in England itself but the hardest ride I can do is in Farley (far lower down but more hilly). The latter is just a network of completely remote roads, fields of sheep and huge ascents and descents. However, they featured a pic of Switzerland in this week's cycling mag and it looks like the toughest terrain I've ever seen - just mountains with roads winding up.

Back to the topic of squats:

I don't think most pro-squatters have predicted any magic formula that will instantly make a person better at cycling but my own view is:

(1) Squats allow you to control your weight if you feel a touch more body weight could add a little overall power (be this fractional).

(2) Squats should help prevent the common cycling phenomenon of "legs going" or flunking. My own legs never fail on me but my aerobic capacity is the main weak point.

(3) Squats work the hamstrings and butt and strengthen the knee area. They load bones and build up the lower back.

The disadvantages of squats are they're hard to recuperate from and they may add useless bodyweight around the proverbial ass. Put simply, squats may give a person a fat ass which is possibly why Armstrong prefers leg-presses. Front squats have been rarely discussed so far. Some people might suffer negative effects from squats if they're naturally prone to getting bulky.

Myself I don't squat hard any more and do them once a week with a few leg-curls thrown in.

ric_stern/RST

higher gear does not require more strength, but assuming all other conditions are equal and you ride at the same power, it requires more force. strength is the *MAXIMAL* force or tension a muscle or group of muscles can generate. It can practically only be achieved at zero or very low velocity.

i've no idea about Indurain's 10 lb mass. never heard of such a thing. but the *OBVIOUS* answer is that neither is correct. the best thing to do is ride up the hills at a greater power output, and thus faster velocity.




see above, the forces are lower with lower gearing, but you're still unlikely to be strength limited. of course, if you try to ride up a 25% grade in 53 x 11 you would likely be strength limited. likewise the only time you may get to be strength limited on a bike, is if you have to restart up a very steep climb.




unless the climb is very steep, e.g., ~ approaching 20% or you're very weak (and judging from what you'rer saying, you're not) you won't be strength limited. of course, if you ride in an unsuitable gear it will be difficult, but you're likely generating higher forces at higher cadences at higher power outputs.



comparing absolute figures, i don't know, but untrained people adapt at a faster rate than trained people. the laws of dimishing returns.

leg strength is on average not significantly different between elite male cyclists and age, gender, and mass matched sedentary healthy controls. in fact it's theoretically possible that the elite cyclists are *WEAKER* than the controls, due to aerobic machinery replacing contractile proteins.



i've no idea if flash is higher than elsewhere, but it's certainly not the hardest area in england. there's far harder hills nottoo far away, and severely harder about 100 miles away (don't quote me on distances! i could be way off!)




in trained cyclists they only increase peak (sprint) power



i have no idea what you mean. you obviously don't cycle hard enough!

ric

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Carrera

I'm beginning to think one of the problems here is over definitions of the terms "strength" and "power". What I refer to as "strength", you seem to prefer to describe as "power".
Before I continue, please go to the link below and take a peek at the pics I shot, especially the second and third ones where the first half of the ascent is featured. Here is almost the highest peak in England but the hills featured aren't as steep as in Farley.
http://www.geocities.com/resromae/climbing.html
The first section of this hill I'm attempting to do rhythmically on my big ring. In order to do this I have to adopt some kind of progressive resistance training (on the bike). Sure, you can equally practise sprinting up and down in lower gears but I like to work in higher gears too, mainly because the higher gear work makes me work harder. Now, whether you may prefer to say that climbing in bigger cogs requires power rather than strength is fine by me. All I'm saying is I'd like to see an untrained Bill Bloggs from the street hop up these hills in larger gears, although I feel sure Ullrich would do it with ease.
When I started cycling there is no way I could have made much headway on this hill in bigger gears. Plus, I'm finding it's a touch faster according to my bike computer. So, in a nutshell I'm experimenting with my gearing.
As for the phenomenon of "legs failing" I've seen this before. On a recent tour in Asia, several peleton riders' legs turned to jelly during one of the major climbs. Commentators will refer to this by saying "such and such a person't legs have gone."

the brother

But why do you have a fixation on climbing this hill in a big gear?

Is the general idea not just to get up it quicker at the same effort level?

If the second is the case, then it is your fitness(power output) that is important and not your strength!