gyming to improve power

I've started gyming, hoping it will help with improve my power on the bike.

Do I need to do heavy weights or high repition to improve my strength. Also what worries me is the fact that I'm putting on muscle weight.

if you're an endurance racing cyclist (e.g., RR, TT, MTB, XC, Track endurance, etc) it's a waste of time (unless you've just started exercise and cycling). Lots of threads on this!!

ric

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Hi Ric

No I've been riding for 18 years, 5 of those years where semi pro and then as an elite. Now I race jnr vet's 30-34.

I'm coming back from an injury (sciatica) and I've been off the bike for 3.5months and I've got an important race coming up at the end of July and its a very hilly coarse of 150km long.

So I thought gyming would help me build strength which I would need, I try and do power/strength workout on my bike on a wind trainer in the mornings and gym at night.

Talking about workouts, on wind trainer what workouts can I do to improve my power?

Glad to hear you're making a comeback!

Going to the gym and doing e.g., weight training *will* help build strength. However, [ECP] endurance cycling performance (e.g., RR, TT, MTB, etc) is *not* limited by strength, unless you have a functional disability.

Force requirements for ECP are quite low, and can be met by untrained, sedentary, healthy, age, gender, and mass matched controls. Additionally, peak power tends on average to not vary between racers and healthy, non-trained controls.

Riding at typical race speeds and powers, can be met by most people (untrained). Strength, is defined as the maximal force or tension a muscle or group of muscles can generate, and thus as described by Hill's Force-Velocity curve maximal force (strength) can only be generated at 0 (or very close to it) velocity. In other words, Hills F-V curve shows that force and velocity are inversely proportional to each other -- at high (crank) velocity, force is very low (or zero), and very high force can only be generated at zero velocity (think of pushing against an immovable object such as a brick wall). At normal pedalling velocity (or even at low cadences e.g., 30 revs/min) forces are very low.

Power (output) is the sum of all the forces that are required to move your bike forward at a given velocity under given conditions. ECP requires low to moderate power, which most people can meet. however, these powers need to be maintained for long periods of time, and it is this that causes the difficulty. In other words, you/i/others can ride at the same power as e.g., Amstrong/Simoni/Ullrich (whoever) on climbs such as Alpe d'Huez, however, we won't be able to sustain that power for as long (unless you're in with a chance of winning the Tour de France). For example, an untrained person, might last for 30-secs, i can do about 5-mins and obviously, the likes of Armstrong manage it for 38-mins.

Therefore, none of our performance is limited by strength in ECP, but by limits of lactate threshold and VO2max. these are trained by cycling from a period of several minutes to several hours.

Intervals that increase VO2max and maximal aerobic power (MAP) are 4-mins at above 10-mile TT effort. Sustainable power is developed with intervals of one to four x 15 to 30-mins, and you also want/need to do sustained efforts of 90+ mins at a fairly brisk effort.

If you need any help fitting all that together or some coaching give me a shout!

Ric

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Some light on the matter would be greatly appreciated.

I do most of my training on a wind trainer as I mentioned from Monday to Thursday and get on the road on a Friday till Sunday.

Thanks

if you're looking for some coaching then please contact me by PM or by ric@cyclecoach.com. if you just want some general advice, then ask away with a question!

cheers
ric

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Ric-

What are the advantages of 90+min 'brisk' efforts (tempo rides) as opposed to long intervals at around threshold? I tend not to have enough days in the week to schedule tempo rides as I do intervals twice a week and race once a week. The rest of my riding time is spent maintaining endurance / recovering with long-ish but fairly gentle rides.

Lindsay.

Ric-

What are the advantages of 90+min 'brisk' efforts (tempo rides) as opposed to long intervals at around threshold? I tend not to have enough days in the week to schedule tempo rides as I do intervals twice a week and race once a week. The rest of my riding time is spent maintaining endurance / recovering with long-ish but fairly gentle rides.

Lindsay.

I use them in place of 20-min efforts at just below TT power, when doing lots of zone 5 work.

ric

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From Charmichael Training Systems website ...

http://www.trainright.com/page.asp?p...leID=7#article

Yeah, putting on muscle weight just bugs the crap out of me too.

the studies cited in this article use untrained or low fitness people, and thus, as i've mentioned before weight training *will* increase fitness in these groups. in fact *any* exercise will pretty much increase fitness in these groups.

if memory serves me correctly, this article was thoroughly discussed by myself and andy coggan in one of the previous threads about weight training and cycling performance.

bottom line is: if you're a trained cyclist who races or can keep up with racers in endurance events (i.e., > 90-secs) then weight training is highly unlikely to be beneficial and is likely to be detrimental.

if you're untrained or not race fit, then it'll *possibly* be beneficial, but then so would any exercise.

additionally, if you're short of time (and not e.g., race fit) then you're way better off concentrating on cycle training as this will provide the biggest benefits.

ric

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Direct quote from article (reprinted without permission)...

"The initial study on the compatibility of weight training and aerobic conditioning surprised a few people. Hickson and colleagues from the University of Chicago studied the impact of adding heavy resistance training to increase leg strength in eight running and cycling trained subjects who had already been training for several years. Strength training was performed for 3 days per week for 10 weeks, while all subjects continued their normal endurance training."

Also, in the book The Lance Armstrong Performance Program, Chapter 10, page 100 outlines a weight lifting routing used by Lance Armstrong . Here's a quote from page 111 under the section "What would Lance do?" ...

"By late winter, after I've been lifting steadily for 3 months, here's what I can do."

Leg press: 400 pounds
Hamstring curl: 80 pounds
Leg extension: 120 pounds
Biceps curl: 50 pounds
Abdominal crunches: 200 pounds per set
Bench press: 125 pounds

Ric, I'm not trying to argue with you but why would Charmichael have Armstrong do this? He certainly wasn't an untrained cyclist at the time this book was written.

Call me insanely cynical, but do you really think Lance's exact program or abilities gets published and distributed to all his competitors? I had a couple of degree qualified strength trainers (one of whom is also a cyclist and a level 1 coach) look over the strength training program in Lance's book. They described it as 'straight out of the 70's', and a 'total joke'.

even *if* that was his programme i can't possibly see the reason why it would be beneficial, as these weights are way above the forces involved when (e.g.) climbing Alpe d'Huez (~ 24 kg between both legs).

in the study cited whether or not the 'cyclists' had been training for a few years, they weren't trained (i.e., they were low fitness).

ric

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Yes, I'm not disagreeing with you here Ric. Incidentally, how do you define trained? Is there a convenient metric for finding out if someone is within or outside this category?