Should EVERY over-reach be accompanied by pained legs?

Strumpetto

I make sure that I put in one horrendous ride every week. I do 20 miles, two times around a lake, as hard as I can. When I'm finished, my legs ache quite badly. It goes away, of course, but will this continue to happen EVERY time I over-reach? I am assuming that I will hit a training plateau, at which point my body will respond similiarly.

Secondly, my legs seems to be my limiting factor as I have a lot of lung, I think. I read somewhere here that lifting has not been proven to increase power. (Or maybe I'm dillusional) However, I find it hard to believe that adding more mass will not allow me to produce more power. Does anyone have any lifting workouts that do not require you to go to the gym? In any event, I think that if I can build my legs up my FTP will go way up. Thanks for your time.

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Columbia

if your legs were not aching after an all-out effort at that distance, then i would take it as a sign of over-training.

no, you wont simply hit a training plateau where riding 20 miles all-out wont hurt any more, but you will get used to riding it at a certain speed. how and ever, if you continue riding flat-out, you will obviously go faster, an effort which is liable to cause your legs to ache still.

jsirabella

Please take what I have to say with a grain of salt as I am really just starting to take the cycling training as seriously as I used to take the bodybuilding training. There are many exercises in the gym which do generate power and not just mass/strength. One great one is the jump squat but what I have done over the last month is completely change my gym routine and limit it to at most twice a week...

My gym workout follows the 5lb rule with a special twist...I only work on three areas chest, back, shoulders (arms).

I choose about 5-6 different exercises for each part with what I would feel is a comfortable weight where I could get atleast 5-10 reps and 5 sets done of each exercise not struggling. Each time I repeat that day I raise by 5lbs, if I can not get alteast 5 reps I go back down to my comfortable zone and build again. Gives the muscles time to recover. Now the big twist is this:

Between each set of each exericise I do 10 reps of either a clean and jerk or a deadlift at a weght which is 50% or less of my max. and to really add the endurance and power, YOU CAN NEVER STOP TO REST. This adds up to about 300 reps or more of these compound exercises. That is really the key as you finish each set you move on to the next set. You must keep an aerobic pace, meaning for me a heart rate in my tempo zone. You will be amazed how much you sweat and how your heart rate flys up!

I have found this to get my body fat down and give me a sensation similar to cycling. I am still experimenting with the changes but I do warn you, it will hurt. It will hurt alot esepcially if you have proper form on the clean and jerk and the deadlift. During my first week I threw up on two occasions and you will need lots of water and I bring a couple of gels. After the third week I was able to get my body in the condition for this work out. It was really the change to a carb loading that I learned from the cycling that made the difference not the usual proteins and aminos.

Good luck and ask alot of people and experiment...that is part of the fun.

-js

Thius type of things alot of pro bodybuilders do during the spring to get ready for the competition and get the body fat into those single digits. It is usually less intense depending on the person.

daveryanwyoming

Well by definition if you go "as hard as I can" then you'll feel the results of your efforts. Maybe hard as you can is 22 mph now but becomes 25 or 28 mph in a few months but you'll still feel the effort if you go at your max. As Greg Lemond said: "It doesn't get an easier, you just go faster".

Read this thread: http://www.cyclingforums.com/t126133.html you'll hear from both sides of this argument, but pay attention to the comments on specific joint angles and how applicable pure strength from one set of exercises is to another. You might want to read this as well: http://home.earthlink.net/~acoggan/misc/id4.html

I don't disagree with js that some gym exercises have a power focus but the question is how directly that applies to cycling with its specific joint angles and muscle recruitement patterns and whether that time would be better spent on the bike. If you really want to develop cycling specific peak strength you might consider standing starts or big gear seated efforts from a near standstill. Those will at least work the appropriate ranges of motion and recruit the right muscle groups.

FWIW it's pretty typical for cyclists to feel weak and in need of leg strength when they bump up against their performance limit. In most cases it's still just a matter of training the appropriate aerobic and anaerobic systems to deliver more sustainable power over the durations of interest and not a lack of peak muscle strength. Sure there are exceptions, but for the road cyclist focusing on events longer than five or ten minutes they're rare.

-Dave

Strumpetto

Thanks for all the great replies. Very much appreciated.

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jsirabella

I do agree with Dave that weight lifting exercises are limited in what muscles the work when compared to cycling. In weight lifiting you really only have isolation moves or compound moves. Even the most involved compound move (clean and jerk) can not really compare to cycling when looking at which lower body muscles are involved. The mechanics of cycling are quite unique and I do believe that to get better at cycling you just have to keep cycling. They also work the upper body much harder than cycle in general terms which means while I am saving my lower body for the heavier weights my body needs to divert blood and energy to recover my upper body workouts which takes away from cycling. Your body can only do so much before you are overtraining.

This is especially true when you consider that weight training does absolutely nothing for your bike handling skills which as I train more and more seem to be much more important than when you first think of it. And another thing you have to consider is that no matter how many reps I do, I can not match the number of reps involved when cycling (rpms) no matter how light the weight and how much I try to keep moving to keep the heart rate up.

I feel once I start to give up my love for the weights I will eventually get completely off of it but not sure as they are still a big part of my life. In the end I have to have fun and right now weights are still fun but who knows the future.

-JS