gyming to improve power

ric_stern/RST

endurance cycling won't build strength (except for people who have very low levels of strength, e.g., frail old ladies). just doing standing starts training may increase strength.

i imagine that Roadie Scum will have meant on average, because obviously, there's always differences between individuals.




but you've used weights to increase your strength (there's no discussion about this, as it's obviously a fact that weights increase strength). previously, i have stated that weights will increase peak power (sprint), but at the detriment of aerobic abilities.

i have a friend who is untrained and who could put out 1700 W on an SRM Science. on the other hand i've been training and racing for 20 years now ( ) and can only put out < 900 W.

case closed

ric

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acoggan

Yeah, but in tri circles you also hear a lot about that paleo diet bullshit, so that should tell you how much you should trust the information found in that arena.

velomanct

"but you've used weights to increase your strength (there's no discussion about this, as it's obviously a fact that weights increase strength). previously, i have stated that weights will increase peak power (sprint), but at the detriment of aerobic abilities."

i did use weights for about 3 months, but that was over 2 years ago. the interesting thing about that is that my peak power didn't increase a whole lot in the months during and after the weight training. im sure that has something to do with the fact i was still growing, (im 19 now). can we assume that those 3 months of weight training do not affect my strength now, 2 years later?

i assumed that most cyclists do some form of sprinting or high force efforts, such as accelerating from stop signs.
i should have mentioned that my riding style is not just pure endurance cycling. i often do sprints and high force efforts.

i see what you mean though. if someone where to ONLY cycle at an endurance pace, they would not increase their strength.

ric_stern/RST

for most people, it's highly unlikely that any form of cycling will increase strength, as the force demands of cycling are very low. During sprinting, the force is *only* ~ 50 to 60% of the maximum force that can be generated, which can only occur when velocity is at zero. thus, it may only be possible to increase strength through cycling for the majority of people (e.g., frail old ladies increase strength with cycling because there functional limits are very low to start with) with standing start all-out efforts. this type of training is only really important to 200-m/500-m/1km track riders.

the normal changes in pace and force and power that are encountered with a wide ranging training programme will not increase strength for most.

ric

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Pauly Wauly

I've read most of this post with interest, but I am a little confused. This week I joined a gym. Basically, prior to this I was doing spinning classes twice a week and moutainbiking an additional 2 or 3 times a week. I decided to join the gym as it was costing me the same each month as I was paying for the spinning studio with the added bonus of building upper body muscle and strength that I don't currently have.

After reading the post, I feel that maybe I have wasted my time, but I'm not sure. I would prefer to road ride instead of spinning but where I live it is too dangerous. I do not race, but MTB for fun, however I like to be fit as I enjoy riding much more this way. I am concerned also that the increase weight in muscle mass (not yet I have only been once) will slow me down on hills.

Can someone point me in the right direction - should I cancel my gym membership or continue?

I have one other question. Yesterday I suffered from overtraining (lethargic and tired) - how long should I stay off the bike to recover - I have been training hard for 2 1/2 months, 5 times per week (2 hrs spinning, 8 hrs MTB)?

Thanks for any assistance, this is my first post.

Pauly Wauly

ric_stern/RST

Pauly,

don't worry the gym is fine for you. my advice about not doing e.g., weights, is only directed at those that race, or who have the potential to race (in endurance events, > 90-secs). For anyone else, if they want to gym that's cool.

Overtraining is a complex issue, with no real immunological markers. it's characterised by a continual decrease in performance, and wouldn't be characterised by a single session where you felt not great. it's highly unlikely that you're overtrained, and if you are can take many months or longer to recover from.

what's most likely to have happened is that you're just a bit tired from previous training sessions or you've not enough carbohydrates to match your energy expenditure. most likely, day or two's rest and thinking about your nutrition will help. make sure you have a varied diet, with plenty of fresh fruit and veg, small amount of meat and fish (if you eat those) and/or meat alternatives, such as TVP, legumes, etc and plenty of carbohydrates such as rice and pasta, and fluids.

ric

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Pauly Wauly

Thanks Ric

I actually feel better already after 2 days off the bike. I will probably do an easy ride tommorrow. Regarding the diet, I am Type 2 diabetic but I control it by food alone (no drugs), so the food I eat is pretty much what you described. I think you are right that I need extra carbs. I will remember this when I am out to dinner tonight.

Thanks for the advice.

Paul

Carrera

The reason I do gym work myself is hard to explain. At the moment the main motivation is I feel better just being at a certain weight and dislike the idea of being too lean. So, you could say my goal isn't to win the tour de France.
I think it's more a case of how you train determining the kind of rider you are. For example, pure climbers have a reputation for being below-standard time trialers so they devote more attention to winning mountain stages. Neither can I imagine Mayo, Pantani and co ever having seen a gym in their lives.
Sprinters are usually below par in the mountain stages.
But to my mind, Jan Ullrich seems to reflect a weight-trained cyclist more than most (he does do weight-training). He rides like a locomotive and uses big gears. For his size he's a good climber but also a talented time-trialist.
My guess is weights may detract from certain aspects of cycling but give advantages in other areas. It may alter the type of cyclist you are.
The major problem I see with weight-training, though, is that a large amount of cycling cancels the impact of gym work. If you lift weights but don't take it easy and rest, you won't gain muscle.

ric_stern/RST

"Pure" climbers (whatever that might mean) tend to TT poorly because there absolute power output can be quite low in comparison to others. Even though they may have a high power to mass ratio, their absolute power could/can/may be quite low (i.e., their power to mass ratio is high because they have little mass). In TTing it is your absolute power that's important (as well of course as presenting low air drag).

Nonetheless, Pantani won or placed well in flat TTs, and Mayo recently won the prologue TT of the Dauphine Libere, showing that he has a high absolute as well as relative power output.



i haven't seen anything to support Ullrich using weights, nonetheless, as i have repeatedly stated riding a big gear does not require abnormal amounts of strength. Most/all males will be able to generate the forces required to TT an elite level. It's the ability to sustain these forces, and more specifically the power output that is important, and which has nothing whatsoever to do with strength, as it's a function of metabolic and cardiovascular (primarily convective O2 delivery and cardiac output) ability.

i don't know what you mean by his size, but his mass is lower than Armstrong's mass (or at least it was last year), and is what an average sized male is (~ 71ish kg).



In TRAINED cyclists weight training ONLY increases peak (that's sprint effort) power output. it has no bearing on sustainable power output or VO2max or LT.

Only increases in muscle cross sectional area (hypertrophy) will transfer from weights to cycling. however, that means more mass to lug uphill, and a decrease in mitochondrial and capillary density, which will cause a decrease in aerobic function.

if the gains are neuromuscular, then there's no transfer to cycling.



the major problem i see, is that it's pretty a waste of time if you think it'll make you better at endurance cycling performance.

ric

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Carrera

I sometimes wonder whether we really have much to disagree over. I'm not really claiming weights will make a person a better cyclist as such. I wouldn't advise someone to weight train because it would improve their cycling. I do it myself for overall conditioning but I guess I don't gain muscle anymore due to the increased aerobic work I'm doing. I mean, I know some guys only have to look at a weight and they pile mass on. In my case I'm an ectomorph so cycling and weight-training tend to neutralise one another.
There's only one point, though, I might dispute. I was out on a training run today and tackled some of the biggest hills in the region and I confess it was a demoralising session. I've been on the flat for a while resting and the hills came as a shock. At one point I thought I wasn't going to make it as it was cold, windy, rainy and miserable. But, to be honest, I really had problems powering the bike. Some points of the climb were so steep I only just managed to keep the bike moving. My legs are generally quite strong as well but it was tough. If I weighed 20 kg less and my leg strength was the same I guess I'd fly up these steeper hills.
I once went up this hill with a female cyclist - which is interesting. Obviously she would have had far less leg strength than me but she also had far lighter bones and bodyweight. So, her relative leg strength to body-weight made for 2 different sets of circumstances. So, I concede the fact that a lady has sufficient strength to power her way up a 20% climb does tend to support your argument (she's a very fit woman to be honest).
My problem, however, was I had to haul 185 lbs up a 20% - 25% gradiant behind her. So for me, strength was a factor.
Last time we climbed together she led on the steeper part of the long hill but I finally seemed to push her far more when we got onto the parts that weren't as steep.
Today I was close to short, sharp muscular failure, not failure induced by exhaustion or lack of stamina. The gusts of wind made the task somewhat harder as well.
All in all that was a punishing session but it can't be any worse next time I go on that route.

Roadie_scum

Some of the perplexity here arises out of the 'feeling' that you are not strong enough to ride up hills - this depends not on strength in the properly defined sense, but on the primarily aerobic metabolic pathways Ric describes.

Using your example: If the lady you were riding with weighs 20kg less than you, and you weigh 80kg (a guess). If strength is the important factor, she would need to be able to lift 3/4 of your 1RM. If you train in a gym regularly, I'm willing to bet she can't do this. What she does have is higher sustainable aerobic power to weight (not strength related).

What you are lacking riding up the hill is not strength, it is the ability to supply oxygen to your muscles so that your effort is sustainable.

What if the hill was 30m long, and you and this lady both went into it at the same speed and sprinted for the top? Who would win?

bikeguy

Ric, you have completely confused the effects of isometric and isotonic weight training, and completely disregarded that isometric strength training has no relevance whatsoever to cycling, I don't even know why you bring up the topic. You ignore studies that show that muscle fiber recruitment (including of slow twitch fibers) is improved by explosive weight training, and therefore the efficiency is increased through reduction in internal resistance. I won't bother with references, look them up if the matter interests you. In addition slow twitch fibers do hypertrophy with weight training, although nowhere near as much as the type IIb or type IIa fibers, which will increase their glycogen, CP and ATP content which will increase anaerobic power quite a bit and aerobic power very slightly (caveat: excessive upper body mass particularly in the shoulders and chest will detract significantly from cycling because that mass doesn't contribute to the cycling motion).

Tidbit for you cyclists: Frederick Hatfield, a World Class Powerlifter and record holder in the squat (squatted over 1000 lbs) has a heart ejection fraction (the percentage of blood ejected from the heart) that is as high as the fastest marathon runners ever tested, and he didn't do any cardio. So don't tell me that weight training doesn't improve some aspects of the cardio-respiratory system (see Hatfield, "Power: A Scientific Approach"). Of course Hatfields just too plain big (115 kg), his lactate threshold is probably really bad and his V02 max (and relative V02 max per kg) undoubtedly sucks so he would bite really badly in endurance cycling. However I do find it amazing that a powerlifter, who by his own admission abhors cardio training of any kind could have a heart ejection fraction as high as the best marathon runners.

I agree that weight training should only be a very small component of a endurance cyclists training program (Jeukendrup: "High Performance Cycling" also advocates the use of weights for endurance cyclists) although more so for 4000 m pursuit and shorter distance track cyclists. It's relatively easy to improve strength and power, only 2 workouts a week of 5-10 minutes actually spent lifting weights is all that's needed to improve anaerobic power, but training to improve V02 max and lactate threshold takes much more frequent and longer workouts.

ric_stern/RST

i haven't confused anything, if you have any proper evidence then you should share it. however, there isn't any. you're not bothering with references, i guess, because you won't find any!

i have "looked it up". in fact i'm writing a research a paper on it!

i will state again, there is no benefit to endurance cycling performance in trained cyclists with weight training, with the exception of increasing peak (sprint) power output (at the detriment of other measures of performance).

ric

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bikeguy

You most certainly have confused something regarding isometric and isotonic weight training.

The information regarding isometric and isotonic weight training is commonly available or can be figured out by simple logic. Some aspects of weight training aren't rocket science.

I ask you again why you brought up isometric training when it has nothing to do with improving performance in cycling or any sport (excepting powerlifting or strongman type competitions where static strength is important), or increasing anaerobic power? What was your reasoning in bringing it up????

2ndly, an increase in ability to lift a load for 1 RM or 10 RM concentrically in an isotonic movement, in general, automatically results in an increase in the amount of force you can generate in an isometric contraction at all points through the ROM of that movement (range of motion) unless you have severe muscle imbalances. Do you, or do you not agree with this statement? Of course this has nothing to do with cycling, but it does show you don't understand the simplest concepts of weight training if you think that isn't true.



Did you read my post? Why does Jeukendrup in "High Performance Cycling" recommend weight training for endurance cyclists? Why does Hatfield, an elite Powerlifter (and an example of a man who lifts weights if there ever was one), have a heart ejection fraction as high as the best marathon runners despite performing no cardio exercise? Do you think Hatfield's heart stroke volume is also pretty good?



Well then you have a lot of work to do. Perhaps you can think of this as practice for defense of your thesis?! It should help you when you really have to defend it (I assume your doing a PhD graduate thesis). :-)



You can state it till you're blue in the face, who cares. Prove there's a detriment to aerobic performance or at least show theres a good reason to think so.

I haven't seen you site one reference through all of this. Furthermore, you admitted yourself that anaerobic ability may be beneficial to endurance trained cyclists. Weight training is the best way to develop anaerobic ability because it causes hypertrophy of those oh so anaerobically important type IIb muscle fibers, thereby increasing their total muscle glycogen, CP and ATP content. Common knowledge available in most sports science and physiology textbooks.

Yet you still don't think weight training (targeting areas specific to cycling) is beneficial to endurance cyclists? Why? What is your reasoning, what are your sources??

- Bikeguy

(edited to separate quotes and responses)