On-bike strength training?
- Thread starter Watoni
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velomanct said:
it's highly unlikely that you'd increase strength on a bike irrespective of whether you have a fixed or a geared bike. you'd have to be very weak, such as e.g., a frail old lady, to build strength using a bike. it maybe possible to increase strength in others on the bike with specific exercises, such as all-out standing start 50 metre efforts in a biggish gear and possibly uphill. however, apart from kilo/500-m TT riders and 200-m track sprinters (i believe that velomanct is or wants to become one of these) this session would be pretty much a waste of time for all other riders. additionally, in track sprinters this session may not increase strength.
as regards the OP, what sort of training you'll do in the off-season will be dependent upon what type of cyclist you are, your goals, your current fitness levels, your time availability, etc.
ric
what about climbing very steep grades at under 50rpms?ric_stern/RST said:
Last year I climbed a 16% hill on my 39x14, and it took all the total body strength I had to get up it without falling over. I wasn't breathing that hard either, my cadence was around 25rpms! It really felt like a squat sesssion.
Surely that kind of workout would increase on the bike strength?
velomanct said:
I agree. Infact, I'm sorry to say, but I find any suggestion that most people can't gain quadracep strength on a bike, quite strange.
If I may generalize from my own experiences and observations, my legs almost exploded in size (!!) when I started cycling, mostly likely because I used to train like a maniac, including in my workouts, many sprints and hill sprints to the point of "pewking" fatigue.
Some ectomorphs seem to find it difficult to achieve strength gains on a bike, but for the rest of us, especially those with little or no strength training background, I'm confident some quadracep strength and hyprotrophy can be achieved.
As velomacnt intimated, hill work can easily be "organized" in such a way that a muscle 'overload' can occur.
Fat Hack said:
Please see the gym and weight threads and http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=strengthstern. It's highly unlikely that you can gain strength through cycling, as the forces involved are very low to moderate and easily met by anyone. In fact elite endurance cyclists (i.e., RR, TT, track endurance, MTB etc) are no stronger than untrained, sedentary, healthy, age, gender and mass matched controls (and they may actually not be as strong, as aerobic machinery replaces contractile proteins when endurance training).
ric
ric_stern/RST said:
Hmmmm, that's sounds amazing to me, and I'd love to see the journal articles.
Why haven't you included track sprinters in there? Do they achieve strength and hypertrophy on the bike?
I'm by no means a freak athlete, but after two years of hard track sprinting and criterium racing, my laterali were hanging over my knees, and I was able to walking a gym and (45 degree) leg-press 500lbs!
EDIT: How many pounds of pressure can be applied to the pedals during a hill sprint at low rpm?
Fat Hack said:
track sprinters/kilo riders/500-m TT riders, olympic sprint/etc do need to do weights, my comments about strength/weights refer to endurance cycling performance.
depends on your power, the cadence, etc. for e.g., riding a mtn TT (i know, it's not a sprint) requires an average force of about 250 Newtons (~ 25 kg) between both legs to win the TT.
i find that if i cycle hard up a hill at a stupid low cadence, it hurts, it feels hard, but i can't generate as much power as a 'proper' cadence. with my power vastly reduced, the force (even with a low cadence) isn't high.
additionally, assuming that the hill takes some period of time (e.g. more than several seconds to climb) force and power production have to drop off, even if you were able to make an all-out effort (as power is inversely proportional to time, i.e., short efforts all-out are at a higher power than longer 'all-out' efforts).
ric
ric
It's fair to say there seem to be grains of truth in what both yourself and Ric have said.
Firstly I agree with Ric that competitive cyclists may very well be weaker than a non-athletic individual but this stands to reason. Competitive cycists carry very low percentages of body fat and have to keep their weight down at unatural levels. Ask yourself how much a world class climber such as Pantani could have bench pressed, given his low body fat and weight.
Lance Armstrong would probably weigh in at least 200 lbs if he didn't cycle so hard and watch his diet. Therefore, if someone like Lance stopped cycling and put on 30 lbs, my guess is he would be stronger (although maybe not proportionally).
As for guys who can get strong on bikes or develop muscles on bikes, I think there are many folks on this forum who can do this but I confess I'm not one of them. Mesomorphic riders with thick, muscular legs may very well find their legs developing on a bike.
Myself I find I can lose a heck of a lot of muscle on a bike as well as fat. If I rode 3 hours a day every day, I think I'd go down to 11 stones easily. For the first 6 months of my cycling I held on to body mass but I soon dropped pounds and pounds of weight. My strength also dropped, although leg strength not so much. Naturally my cycling performance became quite impressive when I peaked.
Firstly I agree with Ric that competitive cyclists may very well be weaker than a non-athletic individual but this stands to reason. Competitive cycists carry very low percentages of body fat and have to keep their weight down at unatural levels. Ask yourself how much a world class climber such as Pantani could have bench pressed, given his low body fat and weight.
Lance Armstrong would probably weigh in at least 200 lbs if he didn't cycle so hard and watch his diet. Therefore, if someone like Lance stopped cycling and put on 30 lbs, my guess is he would be stronger (although maybe not proportionally).
As for guys who can get strong on bikes or develop muscles on bikes, I think there are many folks on this forum who can do this but I confess I'm not one of them. Mesomorphic riders with thick, muscular legs may very well find their legs developing on a bike.
Myself I find I can lose a heck of a lot of muscle on a bike as well as fat. If I rode 3 hours a day every day, I think I'd go down to 11 stones easily. For the first 6 months of my cycling I held on to body mass but I soon dropped pounds and pounds of weight. My strength also dropped, although leg strength not so much. Naturally my cycling performance became quite impressive when I peaked.
Fat Hack said:
Interesting thread. When I was into racing back in my late teens, early twenties, I had thighs like tree trunks. Could press over 1200 lbs with my legs on the universal gym at school. Not sure where I got all the strength but all I really did was ride, but easily did 75 miles a day during the season. Now I'm 47 and after riding about 150 miles a week for 3 months I've not noted much change at all in my legs, other than some loss of fat and some quicker rides. Guess I'm a good B rider (17+ mph over 40 rolling miles) at the current time but on A rides get pretty much drained and last in. What I seem to be lacking the most based on rides with others is I have problems keeping up on hills inclines. Saw another thread that recommended a resistance trainer and am considering that this winter. Have a roller presently and is good for learning to ride smooth and for some focused training (right leg is weaker than left) but not much good for strength building. Recommendations?
I'm no cycling coach but I do know something about the scientific principles behind muscle growth.
Unlike cycling training, muscle building training needs to be intense and brief. The more intense your session is, the briefer it must be.
There was a researcher called Arthur Jones you can all look up on Google. He recommended something like a 45 minute training session of the whole body, 2 - 3 times a week for maximum muscle growth. He proved that low intensity prolonged exercise was less effective for muscle growth and strength gain than intense bursts over short time spans.
Therefore, cycling training isn't really designed to build muscle, although the very easy gainers amongst you may actually build some degree of muscle round the legs on your bikes.
If you wanted to use your bike as a leg building tool, the only way would be to cycle flat out for 2 minutes at a time at a pace and intensity you would be physically incapable of sustaining for longer than those 2 minutes. Somehow you'd have to reach muscular failure (uphill) - but it would be hard to do on a bike and maybe even dangerous.
Unlike cycling training, muscle building training needs to be intense and brief. The more intense your session is, the briefer it must be.
There was a researcher called Arthur Jones you can all look up on Google. He recommended something like a 45 minute training session of the whole body, 2 - 3 times a week for maximum muscle growth. He proved that low intensity prolonged exercise was less effective for muscle growth and strength gain than intense bursts over short time spans.
Therefore, cycling training isn't really designed to build muscle, although the very easy gainers amongst you may actually build some degree of muscle round the legs on your bikes.
If you wanted to use your bike as a leg building tool, the only way would be to cycle flat out for 2 minutes at a time at a pace and intensity you would be physically incapable of sustaining for longer than those 2 minutes. Somehow you'd have to reach muscular failure (uphill) - but it would be hard to do on a bike and maybe even dangerous.
i'd like to know what and where you teach, as you seem to have great difficulty grasping some ideas. it's also apparent you don't know much about cycling -- why do you think you you can only reach muscular failure uphill and why would it be difficult to do on a bike
ric
ric
Carrera said:
Well, you're correct that I'm by no means an expert on cycling - something I've made clear in other posts. So my advice to anyone is ask a qualified cycling coach about cycling training but feel free to ask me on the correct way to stimulate muscle growth.
With regard to the science of muscle growth, yes, I do have plenty of knowledge and experience as well as formal studies in human biology. I'm also kind of lucky in as much as I spent time with elite athletes in Russia and became familiar with Eastern Blok methodolgy - very different than approaches in the West.
The point I made about cycling is surely obvious, though. Bikes aren't designed to take a muscle to muscular failure. Bikes are driven by a crank system that drives a wheel, which is why 95 per cent of people on this forum who reached their limit on a bike (being unable to carry on the activity) would have reached a point of cardiovascular/aerobic failure (not muscular failure).
In plain terms, roadbikes are designed for cardio activity.
So, what I tried to explain is the only known way you could attain muscular failure on a bike would be uphill in a big gear. The bigger the gear and the steeper the grade, the more likely you would be to come to a halt as a result of muscular limitation (as opposed to cardiovascular limitations). Of course, nobody trains like this but we were discussing the links between strength and cycling or whether bike activity can increase strength.
One thing should be pointed out here. There seem to be dozens of folks on the forum who aren't quite clear on the subject of muscle gain and cardio/endurance performance.
Let's clarify the basics:
(1) To increase stamina, fitness and endurance one should do cycling, running or rowing e.t.c.
(2) To gain muscle and strength one should seek to attain muscular failure over a very brief period of time with slow, controlled contractions. Either machines or free weights are the tools required.
(3) To develop some degree of muscle size and strength (combined with endurance and speed) one should cycle and weight-train simultaneously (or use machines) (although strength training will possibly hinder cycling and cycling will probably hinder strength gains to some degree). We're sacrificing specialization to gain some all around ability in sport.
Back to the science of muscle stimulation:
This stipulates that the more intense is the effort, the briefer the effort will be. Therefore, if you stress the leg muscles at very moderate levels of intensity over a 2 hour period, muscular growth would normally be minimal. If you stress the leg muscles at maximum intensity over a very brief period of time (literally 1 - 2 minutes), muscle growth will maximise, but at the expense of endurance.
Therefore, to answer the question whether an individual can increase size and strength on a bike the answer is that some strength gains may be made but certainly not at optimum levels. Short, sharp sprints would be the most effective whereas long 3 hour rides don't place sufficient (max intensity) stresses on the muscles to create a spark.
If you read the articles by Ellington Darden - he explains it all better than I can.
With regard to the science of muscle growth, yes, I do have plenty of knowledge and experience as well as formal studies in human biology. I'm also kind of lucky in as much as I spent time with elite athletes in Russia and became familiar with Eastern Blok methodolgy - very different than approaches in the West.
The point I made about cycling is surely obvious, though. Bikes aren't designed to take a muscle to muscular failure. Bikes are driven by a crank system that drives a wheel, which is why 95 per cent of people on this forum who reached their limit on a bike (being unable to carry on the activity) would have reached a point of cardiovascular/aerobic failure (not muscular failure).
In plain terms, roadbikes are designed for cardio activity.
So, what I tried to explain is the only known way you could attain muscular failure on a bike would be uphill in a big gear. The bigger the gear and the steeper the grade, the more likely you would be to come to a halt as a result of muscular limitation (as opposed to cardiovascular limitations). Of course, nobody trains like this but we were discussing the links between strength and cycling or whether bike activity can increase strength.
One thing should be pointed out here. There seem to be dozens of folks on the forum who aren't quite clear on the subject of muscle gain and cardio/endurance performance.
Let's clarify the basics:
(1) To increase stamina, fitness and endurance one should do cycling, running or rowing e.t.c.
(2) To gain muscle and strength one should seek to attain muscular failure over a very brief period of time with slow, controlled contractions. Either machines or free weights are the tools required.
(3) To develop some degree of muscle size and strength (combined with endurance and speed) one should cycle and weight-train simultaneously (or use machines) (although strength training will possibly hinder cycling and cycling will probably hinder strength gains to some degree). We're sacrificing specialization to gain some all around ability in sport.
Back to the science of muscle stimulation:
This stipulates that the more intense is the effort, the briefer the effort will be. Therefore, if you stress the leg muscles at very moderate levels of intensity over a 2 hour period, muscular growth would normally be minimal. If you stress the leg muscles at maximum intensity over a very brief period of time (literally 1 - 2 minutes), muscle growth will maximise, but at the expense of endurance.
Therefore, to answer the question whether an individual can increase size and strength on a bike the answer is that some strength gains may be made but certainly not at optimum levels. Short, sharp sprints would be the most effective whereas long 3 hour rides don't place sufficient (max intensity) stresses on the muscles to create a spark.
If you read the articles by Ellington Darden - he explains it all better than I can.
ric_stern/RST said:
Ric, I invite you to ride a short(under 1 minute) steep(>12%) hill in your biggest gear on your bike, as fast as you can. (~53x12)
Then come back here and tell us again that the forces on a bike are not enough to cause muscle growth.
Sure, this type of training is not typical. But your statement that you cannot build strength on the bike is not entirely true.
My point is, if one were to ride a fixed gear over hilly terrain(very short, very steep hills), they WILL build strength.
It's simple. How can you say that doing overgeared workouts on the bike won't increase strength? It stresses your muscles a lot more than typical cycling, so there has to be some strength benefit. Otherwise, these overgeared workouts wouldn't be a problem, if they didn't require such high strength.
If musclar failure on the bike were not possible, then it would mean you could ride up a short 20% hill in your biggest gear. Can you ride up a 20% grade in a 53x12? It's not a matter of cardiovascular fitness at all, because the hill may only be 50 feet long and it would still be impossible.
Then come back here and tell us again that the forces on a bike are not enough to cause muscle growth.
Sure, this type of training is not typical. But your statement that you cannot build strength on the bike is not entirely true.
My point is, if one were to ride a fixed gear over hilly terrain(very short, very steep hills), they WILL build strength.
It's simple. How can you say that doing overgeared workouts on the bike won't increase strength? It stresses your muscles a lot more than typical cycling, so there has to be some strength benefit. Otherwise, these overgeared workouts wouldn't be a problem, if they didn't require such high strength.
If musclar failure on the bike were not possible, then it would mean you could ride up a short 20% hill in your biggest gear. Can you ride up a 20% grade in a 53x12? It's not a matter of cardiovascular fitness at all, because the hill may only be 50 feet long and it would still be impossible.
Carrera said:
being a sports scientist, i'm well aware of various parts of physiology.
you mean drugs?
so, what happens when you ride, for e.g., a kilo TT?
the ability to move (e.g.) uphill is a function of power to mass ratio. normally, you would self select a gear/cadence to allow you to best ride at a power/velocity that will get you up a hill in the shortest time. of course, you could be daft and ride a huge gear up hill, but assuming that it takes some period of time more than say 30-secs and you've been riding prior to the hill then you won't be relying on strength which is the maximal force or tension a muscle can produce.
which i keep quoting to -- about standing start 50-m efforts separated by long periods of rest.
however, the OP doesn't appear to be interested in strength gains as such, but increasing endurance cycling performance, and as such, as for most cyclists these exercises are a complete waste of time (exceptions are e.g., 200-m track sprinters and kilo etc riders).
velomanct said:
the point is why would i want to? i'm well aware that you're a track sprinter or training to be one, and as such you have a different set of requirements. why do other (non-track sprinters) need to do such a session?
see above, i said you could build strength for some riders on the bike (i.e., 50-m standing starts) the question is why would you want to?
sure, just because they require more force than usual doesn't mean they increase strength.
ric
velomanct said:
(s)he wanted to know about base training. i'd *imagine* (but can't say with any certainty) that the poster had heard about gym work being useful for training for ECP as many people propagate this myth, and had also seen the postings on the forum suggesting otherwise and wanted something to (mistakenly) increase strength for ECP. as we know, for ECP, you're not limited by strength (except in some 'unusual' circumstances).
In my experience, when most people say that want to build strength on the bike, they're hoping to increase climbing ability, and this is a cardiovascular and metabolic issue
ric
velomanct said:
Overgeared hill workouts on a bike will increase power at the cadence trained and has no adaption to endurance or sprinting cadence.
And you would not experience the maximum muscle exertion to exhaustion as in a weights room.
Coconi used to recommend 30-40 rpm hill workouts in a big gear. This was followed by the likes of Obree and Rominger. That fell out of favour when East Germans and AIS recommended a 50-60 rpm minimum. But modern sports physiologists assert that for strength/power development to be applicable it must be developed at the velocity of the joint.
In athletics track sprinting and cycle track sprinting this is usually undertaken by 12-15 reps for muscle hypertrophy and 2-5 reps for strength development. Then the specifics of developing strength at joint angle velocity by setting a weight that allows you to complete the power phase of the rep at the same speed as your cadence. This is done with the assistance of a stopwatch. For a track sprint cyclist the time would be from .3 to .5 of a second (120-180 rpm).
The higher the speed the less weight you can manage and this aligns with the reducing pedal force as cadence increases on a bike.
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