"John Stevenson" <
[email protected]> wrote in message [...]
> Coach Ric Stern says not, except for a couple of special cases:
Apologies for warping the thread a bit, but if you disregard cycling
performance and look at the bigger picture (your overall health & fitness),
wouldn't moderate exercise doing upper body strength exercises be a great
way to bring balance to your physique?
Lots & lots of cycling will give you really strong legs, even just a low
1700Ks per year will give you reasonably strong ones (my case). I used to do
much more, probably 6000-7000Ks per year but that was up till 2001 when
cycling in Oslo, Norway - so that gave me a bit of a base which is still
sort of in place even with the low Ks I'm doing now.
Now I cycle mainly to work for fitness & convenience, averaging 25-30 kph
when not waiting for red lights (when I do; mainly the big ones). This is on
a reasonably good Gary Fisher MTB with combo slicks (knobbed sidewalls for
the occasional mud cornering, flat top for better city riding).
Combined with treadmill running [my knees are a bit bad and treadmill is the
only running I can do], I might do my legs over in the gym 6 times per year;
I don't need anything else to keep them in balance with my upper body which
is what I mainly train.
Also, if you're a total nut & can't go a day without exercise, splitting it
up with one or two days of upper body strength might give your legs some
much needed recovery time.
Just my $0.02c.
j