Weight-Lifting for Legs

Chris Hoy (Track)... Fabian Cancellara (Road)... have proved it. Greater force, greater speed.

Have you ever pushed a big gear?.

It requires force.

Don't you understand. Ability to produce more force in a bigger gear, more speed.

 

So without delving into the ignore file let me guess more appeals to authority and a few You Tube clips to conclusively prove his point. Pity anyone with Quadrant Analysis and a calculator can prove him wrong.

Bwah ha ha ha ha /img/vbsmilies/smilies/ROTF.gif (love that smiley)

 

Chris Hoy (Track)... Fabian Cancellara (Road)... have proved it. Greater force, greater speed.

Have you ever pushed a big gear?.

It requires force.

Don't you understand. More force, bigger gear, more speed.



No. More force, requires a mullet. Greater Mullet, Great Speed

 

Jono that is a Bike NZ secret. We have estimated that Shane's mullet gives him an extra 10% power.

Ha ha Chaps, dif day, same old tripe. QA and a pocket calculator and your force argument falls flat on it's face./img/vbsmilies/smilies/ROTF.gif

 

Interesting.

It's something you will have to delve into in the future to make your riders contenders at world level, or the probable outcome is that your guys will get left in the dust.

More force (strength), the bigger gear you can push, more speed.

I find it laughable when people say you don't need strength to push big gears or ride a bike fast. Are you FECKIN' kidding me.

 

Fascinating Chapeau thank you.

I was wondering about the efficacy of lifting within road cycling given its value for short track work. I transitioned from powerlifting to cycling 3 yrs ago and while 20years of strength work will hopefully transfer into speed at some point, I find that the lifting leads to a lower back tightness (stinging discomfort) if I get the balance wrong. I can get away with 3 gym sessions per week, basically road riding on alternate days to the gym and doing 45 mins on rollers on gym days.

Unfortunately my mass means the watts/kg is disadvantagous given the distributon is relatively even over the body and it is only on the flat that I can compete. I don't find the strength work improves hill work as yet and perhaps that is optomistic anyway. If you have any advise to accelerate my transformation to cycling please let me know. I'm getting about 300kms on the road and rollers most weeks with the odd 1000 kms week during the year. Not sure what I can compete in although crits are looking very interesting.

 

Kbev, doubt you'll never improvement in your climbing speeds by lifting heavy weights slowly for a few reps; that work builds the wrong kind of muscle. For sustained hill-climbing, where you have to push the pedals forminutes at a time (hundreds of reps), what you need to build up is your slow-twitch aerobic muscles, as well as their mitochrondria which converts glycogen into the energy that enables them to repeatedly contract. You also need to build the capillary and venous network to move the O2 rich blood in and clear the lactate out. Fortunately, riding training 300 km's per week will definately do all this.

Heavy lifting in the gym may be fun for a lot of us (I like it), but sadly it has really nothing to do with bike riding, where you need to push no more than your bodyweight for hundreds/thousands of reps non-stop in one "set". Ask yourself this question: does a powerlifter train on a bike to improve his VO2 max (aerobic fitness) levels as a way to lift heavier weights?

 

Thankfully my competitive lifting days are gone and I'm really enjoying a sport with oxygen involved again - I was a rugby player prior to lifting. It has taken a long time to get a lot of the physiological development you mentioned into play and I am starting to see the window of opportunity opening whereby I can start to use a training programme. Leg speed is definitely a development need, going to your point. On comparing my WKO quadrant analysis to a competitive roadie I am predominantly to the right and they have a much higher % to the left - higher pedal velocity. So I have set about a schedule using 6x10 mins avg 100 rpm with 2 minute rest to get used to and improve my leg speed in general riding. I can only get 155 maximum cadence on the rollers! I do find it easier to pedal faster whe there is a resistance, which may well be normal. So I use the 53/12 for these cadence sprints. I assume it takes a lot of effort and coaching - happy to receive recomendations for a cycling coach!

 

I haven't lifted for many years. Like you, i'm a believer of doing strength work on the bike. Everyones goals are different though.

 

I did squats when I raced in my 20s (now racing in my 40s).
Over a Summer I didn't do much riding but I went to the gym regularly and squated with the big guys (I'm tall and thin).
At the end of that Summer our road race season started. By that stage I had stopped doing the squats and got back into riding.
The first race I did was a criterium. Instead of hanging on the back like usual I was at the pointy end of the race for most of it and felt good. My leg strength was what made the difference.
I wished I'd kept up the squating while upping my training miles too.

Now I'm not happy to put my back through squatting but I've made up a solid 'box' (relatively high compared to my leg length) to do step ups on with dumbbells which basically gives the same effect.

BBB/img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif

 

I do on-the bike strength work, squats, and the box/dumbbell routine you described, during the off-season (AKA now), but when I up my training miles and start racing in spring, I won't be doing any more of that . . .

 

Wow, somehow I missed this thread, but here's my contribution, sorry if it's already been posted http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDawlrIeaVM

 

God!! Will someone just delete this silly video of Lance they play all the time for strength training argument.

 

Sorry about that, first I saw it when I was looking for some squatting techniques from Mark Rippetoe. I though it was neat, but should have known it was probably pretty well worn out here/img/vbsmilies/smilies/redface.gif

 

hmmmm, can we conclude that LA's relatively successful "comeback" has been because of the weight training, or can we conclude its success was in spite of the weight training...I'll go with the latter...looks like some basic overall conditioning exercises to me - rather benign - and definitely not what I would consider "weight lifting" to improve cycling performance...

 

A question for everyone!
How many watts can you hold for an hour?

 

I set a goal for myself this year.
I want to push 500 watts for 1 hour.

 

I misspelled my username.
I wanted to write cervelo1.

 

So do I, but I only weigh 54kg, so I'm satisfied with 500W being closer to my 15s number than my 60min number!

Is it a feasible goal for you? How big are you? My friends who race cat1/2 on the track and weigh something like 200lb are lucky to push 300-350W for an hour. . . .

 

I'm 71kgs.
I have to test my watts soon. I'm waiting for the weather to improve.