dtaffe said:
And yet his athletes continue to compete at very high levels in cycling, triathlon, including national and international-level championships... Are you saying they win despite his coaching and that he deserves no part of the credit?
i'm saying he's wrong about what he states in his books about weights (and nutrition). i believe he may have altered his ideas about weights recently to come more in line with what i (and otheres, e.g., Andrew Coggan) state.
I was at the US Olympic training center last spring and watched the women's cycling team putting up impressive weights, under the guidance of their coaches... I've seen film clips of US Postal working out in the gym as a team... Are you saying that all these high-level, successful athletes and coaches are wrong, and you are right? I don't get it.
there's myths galore in cycling. assuming the women and/or others weren'yt on the track sprint or MTB DH squad then they may well have been wasting their time. there are studies looking at elite women and strength training and effects on cycling performance (e.g., Bishop et al 1991, iirc) and this showed no increase in fitness.
that and some other references are in my article here
http://www.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=strengthstern
From my own N-of-1 study, a focused, correctly-timed weight program made a big difference in my cycling (and I had been cycling for 15 years prior to that.)
an n=1 is unfortunately completely meaningless as there's no control. additionally, and without wishing to sound rude, going from ~ 15 to 20 mph takes you from a low level of fitness to a moderate one, assuming these are maximal efforts. at that fitness level any exercise helps.
But my original point is that this argument doesn't serve the original poster at all. He wants to know how to get faster, and I saw nothing in your posts that would serve him well. I was simply trying to give him concrete advice that would contain enough specifics to help him build a periodized and focused training plan.
concrete, weights, and cycling shouldn't be in the same sentence. it's really a waste of time. he needs to do specific on the bike training.
But since you've stirred me up, I'm curious:
1. You repeatedly describe "endurance cycling." Do you separate this from traditional racing? Ie crits, road races? Are you limiting your discussion to training for Brevits and other ultradistance rides, or do you include these shorter efforts as well. Because a 40 minute crit involves *much* more than endurance: power, anaerobic endurance, rapid recovery are big players.
endurance performance is anything greater than ~90-secs, as by this time duration the majority of energy expended comes from aerobic sources. Thus in cycling terms any event from say a 2-km TT upwards
recovery from efforts in e.g., criteriums are entirely dependent upon aerobic metabolism, in other words they're limited by MAP and LT
When you describe endurance, are you focusing this on muscular endurance, aerobic endurance, the ability to endure high lactate levels for long periods?
in cycling no one endures high lactate levels for long periods of time. although in all honesty i don't what you mean by "high" and "long" (in other words you could be defining them differently to me).
2. You have said that "strength" is not a limiter. What do you mean by strength? Do you mean force? Do you mean muscular endurance? Do you mean mental strength? This is a very imprecise term and is too open to interpretation to be the basis of much discussion.
strength is a clearly defined word within the scientific literature, and i have gone to pains to clarify it on numerous occasions at this board. it is, the maximal force or tension a muscle or group of muscles can generate.
If you mean force, then absolutely it can be a limiter. I can hang with a pack all day long on level ground or small rollers- there is no problem with my endurance. But when the hills get steep (even if they are short), and the leaders accelerate, I can not accelerate as well as they do, no because I tire, but because I can't generate enough force.
unless you are totally mismatched to your group or you have a functional disability this just isn't true. you'd need to be either 40kg (i.e., small and low strength) or very large (e.g., 100 kg) to struggle to produce the required forces for your mass. for e.g., to win the TT or place in say the top 5, if you were the same mass as LA, you'd need to produce a force of ~ 250 N (~ 25 kg) between *both* legs. I don't personally know any 70 odd kg people who can't produce that (and additionally i know much smaller people who can).
The reason you can't keep up with your compatriots on the hill is not being force limited, but most likely being limited in the power for your mass. this is a cardiovascular and metabolic issue.
it is my inability to apply more force to the pedal that prevents me from accelerating. I am not arguing (at this moment) about whether weights or on-the-bike force workouts are the best way to improve force, but you have stated that it is definatively never a limiter, and that's just not true.
this is untrue although admittedly, if you were riding a very steep hill, e.g., 33% and going very slowly, e.g., < a couple of mph, or trying to start from stationary then forces here maybe limiting, but this isn't a situation that you're ever likely to meet in e.g., a race
ric