Monthly Archives: January 2009

Why good form and lifting technique BURNS!!!!

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I learned today that using the correct technique for box step ups makes this exercise much much harder and really gets the quads fired up like nothing else! The trick is to do this exercise with proper form and technique by

1. lifting the opposite leg into the air at the top of the position and NOT resting it at the top of the bench or chair etc.
2. coming back down with control, so that you get more out of the down part of the motion and it makes it harder
3. focus on blasting up with power and speed, then coming back down with control
4. basically it’s one fluid motion from start to finish
5. don’t alternate legs either, you blast one leg at a time.
6. Don’t rest to long when you come back down, pop right back up

If you do this right, your quads will be on fire! I could only do about ½ the reps this way compared to when cheating. And doing this after having done squats and leg presses, my quads where on fried lol I could only do one working set. I think it made it even harder by saving this one for last after having already done 10 sets of squats and leg presses.

I also learned today that the 45 degree leg press sled might not be the best thing for muscular endurance high rep sets as.

My heels where coming off and my feet moving around when I don’t have a bunch of weight loaded on it, probably because I’m not the flexible either.

Since your legs are basically in the air, I think this interferes with the blood flow, I think it’s easier and more natural to get the blood circulating when you’re upright. But on the other hand maybe not having enough blood flow and get a wicked burn because of that will teach the leg muscles to deal with working in a fuel starved, high lactate environment better?

An old dog and his new tricks

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I’ve been riding bikes on and off my whole life and through the years I “trained” as best as I could, but I think since the last time I was seriously biking about 9 years ago I have learned the most about training and my own body and how it reacts and what works best for me. I might not be 20 years old and have the suborn strength and endurance of someone that age, but I think I have learned a lot more in recent years that’s really helping me now, things that I wish I had known then, I really wish I would have had a really good coach when I was younger.

Here’s a highlight of some of the things I’ve learned over the years

  1. Strength: I’ve learned that my body is built for endurance but at the sacrifice of strength, I have above average endurance esp. for someone of my size, but I have average or below average strength.  I think for every sport a person most become technically good at the sport, but there comes a point where speed, strength, agility, flexibility etc. are the things that need to be improved on to reach high levels in most sports. I’ve found this to be very true with rock climbing and in cycling, but of which I’ve trained for very hard and specifically to improve strength. My climbing improved by 1/3 and I was climbing at an elite level after spending an off season of strength training. My body seems to respond well to strength training,  and training in general. I’m not sure if other people would see such an improvement, I imagine they would but I don’t know other people’s bodies like I know mine. Now I’m employ the things I learned from strength training for rock climbing, and just general strength training and body building and apply that to my cycling.  And from what I’ve seen over the last 3 months of strength training I’ve been doing for my legs and core and even my heart muscle which I’m “strength training” as well, the improvement in my power output on the bike has been dramatic for me. And I’m excited as I’ve never been in such good cycling shape and I know that I’m only scratching the surface since I still have weight to lose and there’s no way that in only 3 months of strength training I’ve reached my genetic potential in my leg strength.
  2. Natural diet: I’ve learned about how critical a healthy diet is, how important fresh raw organic vegetables and fruits are for our bodies. How some foods make us weak and tired, and other foods make us feel strong, energetic, light and fast.
  3. Periodized diet:  I’ve learned that you should eat differently depending on what your body needs, what type of training or stress you have going on at the moment, the climate you live in, and your body type etc.
  4. Strength to weight ratio: I’ve learned that when I was running a lot and was very light, I was able to rock climb much more gracefully and efficiently, with little forearm strength training I was able to jump on what where hard climbs and actually climb them.
  5. Cardio stregth and how it helps rock climbing: I noticed also when rock climbing that not only was it easier when I was light from running a lot and being very thin, but also that my new found cardio endurance helped feed my arm muscles fuel, and also most importantly my climbing technique was very good even things got tuff because I was able to breath through it and have oxygen going to my brain so I could think clearly and have cordination. Usually when you climb at your limit your often start holding your breath and becoming stiff, when that starts it’s only seconds before you pop off.
  6. Rest: I learned from bodybuilding that if I was patient and waited 5-6 days to let my muscles fully recover that I grew more muscle and got stronger, and when I did train that muscle again, I could really tear it up and train savagely. This was after having been bodbuilding for a year though, and going to the gym and not feeling sore anymore after training. Once I started resting fully and training more intestly I started to progress again. Lesson learned, Train really hard, but rest really hard too. If you rest half way then train again you won’t be able to truely train hard.
  7. Patience: I gave up MTB racing after my first season because I had no patience and I was unrealistic about how fast I could progress. I have to really laugh at myself now, but my first MTB race I did, I entered as “elite” class, I was fast, but not that fast, and of course got left in the dust.  It was a very humbling experince and I trained hard and did more races that season and had one problem after another, besides getting dropped all the time, I kept breakign my bike and crashing from riding at my cardio limits and having nothing left for cordination. I honestly expected of myself to be winning elite class MTB races my first summer of racing. I didn’t understand that it takes at least a couple years training summer winter summer winter long to start to get really fast for most people, and then even longer to reach your genetic potential.
  8. Not taking one training session or week or even one season of biking performance too seriously. I would make judgments about my potential and talent as a cyclist on a daily basis always re-evaluting myself and trying to figure out if I’ve become a pro today, or if I am kidding myself that I could be great one day. I would let one bad race, one bad training sessesion descourage me from riding, sometimes leaving riding all together for the whole season or years.
  9. Periodization in training:  I’ve learned about periodation in training, training different aspects of athletic performance at different times of the year then brining them together and trying to be in “peak” form at the time of your target events.
  10. Peaking: I’ve learned that when you’re peaking you’ll be breaking new records on a daily basis, feeling as strong and powerful and fast as ever, then as quick as that comes, a week or two later, you’re feeling like you’re at 50% riding is really off etc.
  11. Tapering and doing it properly: I’ve learned that tapering before breakthrough training sessions and before competition is important, better to be under trained and over rested then over trained when starting a race. But I’ve learned too that tappering and taking it too easy can leave you feeling stiff and slow in a race esp. during the begining part while you’re warming up.
  12. Warming up is crtical before races for me.
  13. Cross training and avoiding staleness: It’s good to avoid riding or running or doing any sport too much, it’s good to maybe run one day instead of riding etc.  so you don’t get stale.
  14. Training your weakness and racing your strengths: We all are born with certain body types, and respond to training differently, and have different weaknesses we have to train. It’s important to be honest with yourself and identify exactly the things you need to work on to reach your goals. It’s also important to race in events or courses that are suited for your body type if you plan on winning. If you’re a light rider, then climbing will generally be easier for you and hilly courses. If you’re a big powerful rider, then maybe shorter, flatter events suit you, or sprinting etc.
  15. I use to think that training on a stationary bike was silly, and artificial and not as good as a real bike. But what I have learned is that on a stationary bike you have many advantages. You can train any time of day, in any weather condition, there’s no excuse to cut a training session short because of rain or hot weather either. You don’t have to worry about getting run over by cars or smashing into rock and trees, so you are able to focus on the pure physical effort of cycling and put all your focus into it. Coasting feels really silly on the stationary bike, I avoid doing it. I am able to focus on my pedaling technique better as I’m not distracted. I am able to focus on my bike position, breathing etc as well. Also doing one legged pedaling drills is much easier on the stationary bike. And there is always, water, fuel, bathroom, towel, music etc. on the stationary. Granted riding out on the open road is very exciting and fun and what this sport is all about, the stationary training, rollers etc should not be overlooked as one of the tools in your arsenal. Just make sure to take enough rest days and do a little cross training to avoid getting stale or over trained on the trainer as it’s easy to do when weather and darkness don’t slow you down.
  16. And most importantly have fun! What good is winning or reaching your goals if you’re not happy? Just chill out and be patient train hard, rest even harder, have fun and don’t pressure yourself so much

Leg press vs. squatting vs. one legged exercises

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I’ve been weight training my legs a lot more seriously this off season more then I ever have before even when I was bodybuilding. I’m becoming a student of leg training lately trying lots of different leg exercises and thinking about the pros and cons of each exercise. I’ve learned a coupled things recently like

  1. I’m absolutely convinced at the effectiveness of leg strength training as part of well balanced training plan especially for riders not blessed with natural leg strength, I wont’ even waste my time debating with the cycling geniuses out there that say it doesn’t help. Only if your bike touring perhaps would I say the reward might not be the effort, but even for bike touring you could cycling with more comfort and be injury free, so it still has a place even in that example.  It’s pretty neat to be able to hold the same wattage for 45 minutes at a lower heart rate then which you struggled to hold for 10 minutes at your threshold only a couple months ago. Strength training is the missing link, at least  for me.
  2. Single leg exercises seem to put more stress on the knee with the exception of perhaps the box setup.
  3. But on the other hand single exercises seem to be great for muscular endurance phase as it reduces the chance that your cardio system fails before your leg muscles do. When you’re doing sets of 50 or 60+ reps and using both legs like in squats or leg presses etc. the demand of both legs needing oxygen and fuel can easily set you in the red zone and put your heart rate through the rough. I don’t do these sets with baby weights, these are very challenging sets that push your leg muscles to failure and beyond. When doing these challenging endurance sets I’m finding I prefer single leg exercises in particular box setups. Single leg lunges, or single leg smith machine squats all feel like they’re bad for the knee. I don’t like doing leg extensions either as that is not a sport specific motion and puts too much shear stress on the knee.  But I do appreciate the burn that leg extensions are good at inducing.
  4. I haven’t done box setups heavy yet, but I don’t think this exercise would be suited for doing it heavy.
  5. When I do go heavy as in the hypertrophy and strength phases of my off-season training I prefer doing heavy squats and very heavy leg presses. I feel much more secure and stable when going heavy with these exercises.
  6. I like the smith machine squats because I can get my legs more underneath me as I would be when pedaling a bike, I can also get my legs closer together as well as when riding on the bike. Trying to put my feet like this doing a normal free weight squat would having my falling forward.
  7. I also like the smith machine squats because you dont’ have to worry as much about balancing yourself and you can put all your effort into pushing, this is good and bad. Your core muscles and balancing muscles don’t get the same workout, but I’m trying to bike faster by pedaling harder, not winning a strong man competition rolling tires over hahaa.
  8. I find that super slow reps can be especially good during the strength phase as it seems to really dig into your muscle and trigger more motor units. If you’re going heavy and doing reps until failure then your last 1-2 reps will probably be super slow anyway, if they’re too easy then you need to put more weight on. For strength you don’t want to be doing more then 6 reps. If you get to 6 reps then put more weight on.
  9. I bet 80% of your strength improvement happens during the last 1-2 reps where you can barely push the weight and it’s slowly moving, I bet that is when your muscles learn to fire off more nerves and more muscle fiber is challenged. It’s almost like the first couple reps are to exhaust the strong muscle fibers and the last couple reps are to punish the weak that are still standing ahahhaa. This is probably why I had such great success with my rock climbing training when I did negatives and static strength positions, eventually I was able to do multiple one arm pull ups.
  10. I think you can and should incorporate some of your resistance and strength training on the bike itself. I think this works good more for muscular endurance and building up power and sport specific strength. I like doing sprints on the bike trainer, power starts, over gear work pedaling at really hard gears at low cadence. Hills, hills in low cadence gears.
  11. Single leg exercises are great, they are really good for helping to strengthen the shin muscle to prevent shin splints I noticed. As well as help with eliminating dead spots in your pedal stroke.
  12. The days after a really hard leg workout when your legs feel pumped but not necessarily stronger is usually because they’re swollen and healing from training, I like when they feel like this because it feels like they’re growing which they might be, but until that feeling of puffiness goes away I would rest before doing any hard leg session, swelling=microscopic damage=growth, if you train hard too soon then you’re just breaking yourself down again, remember training is the stimulus to improvement, real improvement happens during rest. If you’re not improving anymore instead of first trying to just ride more miles, think of ways you can increase the intensity of the miles you are already riding, this will increase the quality of the stimulus. Make your rests between intervals shorter, ride harder, ride faster, pedal faster, there are lots of things you can do to make your works more intense.
  13. I’m really starting to like doing heavy leg presses, we have two machines one  machine you’re basically lying flat on your back pushing up against the shoulder pads, the other leg press is a sled where you are sitting upright 45 degrees pushing up. They seem to be very different, even though at first glance you’d think they’d be the same.  Since we bike bent over and not standing straight up, I think the leg press sled at 45 degrees is superior, plus you don’t get those nasty shoulder hickeys from going heavy with weight o the shoulders. After doing a couple heavy sets with the 45 degree machine I was left with the impression that this is more sport specific to cycling. Also my legs where finally sore again the next day just like when I first started working my legs 3 months ago.
  14. I still like doing squats and smith machine squats, but I think I’ll be putting more attention to the 45 degree sled from now on. From what I read Lance only does leg presses as his coaches are worried about him hurting his back by doing squats, maybe he had a back exercise before I’m not sure, either that or they realize that his upper body and back muscles are not strong enough to handle his leg strength and the chance of injury is higher?
  15. I think that single exercises can be more sport specific to cycling then double leg motions since when we pedal we don’t push down on both pedals at the same time. That’s also another reason why I like single leg exercises. I think that it helps strengthen the core and balancing muscles that have to be strong when we pedal hard. I noticed that when I keep my upper body quite when riding and hold the trainer handle bars hard to keep my upper body as rigid as possible while pedaling that I notice that my wattage output usually goes up as more power is transmitted to the pedals and not lost in upper body motion and flexing. I think this also proves to myself that having strong core muscles is really important in riding faster especially when you start riding really fast and you’re pedaling with a lot more force and longer. Strong core muscles will help stabilize your body and let you have a none moving object to push off of when you push down on the pedals, as oppose to having something that bends and flexes when pressed hard that absorbs some of the pealing effort. I probably would not have learned this had it not been for training on the stationary trainer while having
  16. It’s important not to hold your breath when lifting weights especially when doing muscular endurance training when you have sets  with a high number of reps, you need that oxygen.

Off season training I can believe in.

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Until this year I’ve never trained much for cycling in the off season, but this year is different and I am training straight through the winter and setting goals and meeting them. I’m really happy with my progress so far and I think a lot of it has to do with me doing having clear goals and also studying my weaknesses in depth and then making a plan to target them like a laser beam.

Also this is the first time I’ve employed periodization training methodology into my cycling training , so in the last 4 months meso-cycle 1 month adaptation, 1 month hypertrophy, 1 month strength, and now 1 month muscular endurance training.  I was seeing a big jump in strength and speed towards the end of last month. But now that I’m working on muscular endurance I’m seeing big improvements on my longer tempo training session TT tests that I do. So in the hypertrophy and maximum strength phase I saw a big improvement on my 1 mile TT, but not so much on my 5 mile TT. But now since I’m making big jumps in the number of reps I’m doing per set and focusing on muscular endurance I’m seeing big improvements in both my 1 mile and 5 mile TT, in the last couple weeks I keep setting PB records which is exciting. I’m going to take it easy next week and have an unloading week to regenerate and prepare for another off-season meso-cycle of weight training which will take me up to April. So next month is hypertrophy for 3-weeks, then another full month of strength training, then another month of muscular endurance training, but with a more on bike specialized twist as I want to make sure the gains and improvements convert most efficiently into on bike performance. I have to make sure to listen to my body and not do too much quantity of high end work as that’s a sure way to be burnt out before the season starts.

I’m still deciding on how I’m going to train and maintain during the main season. I think since I’m not worried about being that competitive this season since I need to lose more weight and build up more power this year, I’m probably going to continue my “off season” training over the main season and only compete in a couple races and only do 1x group ride per week where last year I was riding 3-4 times a week with the group and doing weekend races and events. I figure if I pay now by missing out on some group rides and events and races and focus on my individual training goals and needs then in 2010 I should be in much better condition then if I would only just maintain strength gains over the summer and riding lots. I find that excessive group riding just interferes with my training schedule, I try to work it in, but if I have an easy day and ride with the group and they get a wild hair and start doing one hill climb after another my whole week’s plan is screwed up. I think the whole summer I was on the verge of over training from doing to much group rides and hammering all the time, I don’t plan on making that mistake this year. My goals are to keep reaching new levels of performance and speed, not just to be in group riding shape. As much as I love group rides I know I have to make a choice in how fast or slow I want to reach my potential.

Anyway just wanted to say that I am seeing the results of my off-season training big time, esp the on and off bike strength training I’ve been working hard on. It’s very satisfying to see the rewards of hard work paying off, it’s motivating me now to set yet higher goals to reach for then I thought possible.

Crank length experiments

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kooka-cranks

So after much research and inner reflection, meditation, intuitive hunches, signs from above etc. I decided that it’s only logical that a taller rider would best fit a longer length crank which would be relatively proportional to their leg length. Any other argument against it wasn’t logical to me.

Saying that a tall rider should ride a 175mm or even 180mm length crank that in reality isn’t long enough, is like saying that a 5′ 9″ tall rider with a 30″ inseam that normally rides a 172mm or 175mm cranks comfortably should instead ride a 150mm length crank, to get the most power out of their riding and a better more ideal fit.

For the record I’m 6′ 2″ with about a 34.5″ inseam, and my weight is usually anywhere from 190-230lbs. I’m not your typical sized rider, have been riding off an on for 20 years, road, MTB, touring etc.

So I purchased a custom length crank at 190mm, according to some calculations by long crank length proponents I could have even fit a 195mm, but I was concerned about chainstay, BB height, and toe/front tire clearance and thought better to lean on the short side with with my off the shelf commercial frame, in the future I might get a custom frame built to fit a 195-200mm crank, but we’ll see.

So here are my positive observations so far after riding the last two days on them. The only negative then I can think of is that my legs muscles and nerves have to get accustomed to turning a larger circle that I should have been turning all along. And that I’m so happy with my new cranks that I have buy another set for my MTB bike! hahaa

1. The cranks are heavy, but I don’t mind because relative to my size 200+lbs it doesn’t matter, the stiffness is more important I think, and these cranks are as stiff as they come.

2. I really like the 190mm I think this was a successful experiment

3. I put a set of FSA 50/34 chain rings on, ramped and pinned, they work great

8. I have no problem with rear chainstay or rear derailleur clearance.
9. No problems with front tire clearance
10. No problems with corning clearance that I’ve noticed yet.
11. I had to drop my seat about 15mm, which makes the whole bike feel different as my center of gravity is lower, but this actually feels good I think, I didn’t like that I was so high in the air pushing little cranks not using my legs all the way. So between my new lower center of gravity, and my wider foot stance in both directions I feel more stable and more part of the bike like a shorter rider does getting on a typical sized bike with typical length cranks I bet.
12. I can feel that my leg muscles and nerves will need a couple weeks to become fully adjusted to the new crank length, but already from riding 1 hour I can see I have much better pedal stroke, much better power, and I’m actually able to spin better with more power and and higher RPM. I have no problem riding 90-100+RPM with 190mm cranks, in fact it feels much more natural and I’m using my full leg muscle and full potential. I already am seeing 1-3MPH AVG speed increase with similar effort.
13. I can accelerate easier now
14. When I get out of the pedals and accelerate or power over short hills I feel like my bike is responding much better and I’m not wasting energy trying to build speed.
15. There is less pressure on my knees, even when I pedal at a harder slower RPM, I often have slight knee soreness after hard rides through the hills as I have to apply so much more force with 175mm cranks.

16. My feet would often will get hot spots, my feet feel better as the pressure is less now.

17. I can spin better actually with the longer cranks, even though everyone says short cranks are better for spinning, I feel like an airplane propeller with my 190mm cranks I love them! I can not only just spin, but more importantly spin with real POWER.

18. I can accelerate and sprint faster, I can convert more of my leg strength into power because spinning is feels much better to me know with the longer cranks.

19. My pedal stroke and form is much improved from the longer crank

20. I can use my hip flexor i.e pulling muscles on the upstroke when pedaling much more effectively now as I have now 1″ more total length to pull up on my pedal stroke

21. I can maintain my momentum over small hills much better, it’s like I have another gear now I didn’t have before. I don’t slow down like I did before when hitting inclines. Before if I hit even small hills my speed would drop dramatically, my spinning had no power behind it, all I could do is crank really hard in a low RPM and sit back on the saddle to keep my speed up.

22. I’m actually thinking I could handle and might like even longer cranks 195-200mm perhaps

23. I’ll probably get a pair of these cranks for my MTB also in the triple crank format

24. I much prefer the classic square tapper BB Vs the new external BB designs, the BB is much smoother and stronger then the new external BB. Every other ride I would have to tighten the crank arms on the external BB. And I don’t like the exposed tiny little bearings that external BB’s use, I think that external BB are a gimick. What they need to do is take the best of both and combine them, if that’s possible.

- Internet rumors on forums and even “professional” blogs etc. of knee pain and flexibility issues etc. I’ve found at least for me to be totally incorrect as I suspected.

- I did drop my seat down as I expected I would have to do, but I also think I’m going to need to slide my seat forward slighting, and I’m pretty sure I need to drop my bars down by taking out some spacers etc.

25. Overall I will stay this experiment is a great success, I will know for sure in a few weeks of riding and my body adjusting and getting the full power out of the new longer cranks. But just from riding the last couple days I can say that I already notice a very big improvement to my riding, nothing like getting free power and speed, comfort etc. out of thin air! And as I get leaner and in better shape I will be able to tap even more power out of my body with these cranks.

biking etiquette and superstition

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Found a link to this news site http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9496562 at this post where there was another bike/cyclist conflict. I think I’ve seen examples of both cases of where the driver was at fault and the cyclists was at fault and also where both where at fault in an accident.

I would say that we should defend ourselves, and not instigating fights, if someone just about ran you over, then call the police, get their license plate report them, DO NOT try to act as judge jury and executioner out there on the road, no matter how mad or right you are, or you could find yourself dead or in jail. But  if a crazy driver jumps out of his car and tries to take you out with a tire iron, then by all means take him out first to defend yourself.

There’s a very fine line between defending yourself and starting a fighting and calming a situation down.

10 road cycling safety tips

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Good post about post accident review of a cyclist’s accident and a link to 10 road cycling safety tips.

I agree that wearing a helmet is important, but that statistically speaking when someone gets killed by a car they’re usually crushed to death and smashed in ways that not even a motorcycle helmet would have saved them. But in more common typical spills, hitting gravel, another riders tire etc. and just flying into the road, I think a properly worn helmet can help.  So please wear a helmet as head injuries suck, I have a friend with one and it’s very sad thing to have to see happen to a person!

Lance is training and riding as hard as ever!

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oakley-lance-armstrong3

Lance had a strong showing at the Tour Down Under yesterday, even surprising himself with his perfomance. I’m so excited to see Lance racing again this season, espepecally since I’m an older rider as well 2 yrs younger then Lance. I read in another article as well that his coach Chris Carmichael had to slow Lance’s training progress down a bit so he doesn’t peak too soon as he was progressing faster then expected. I predict that if Lance does well this year that the average age of retiring cyclists will be extended almost a decade lol, we’ll see though.

I would love to see some power files of Lance to get an idea of what kind of numbers he’s putting out, but I guess that he and his coaches might want to keep that hush hush for now.

Go Lance!

Strength training for cycling, Rambo biker vs. Bill Gates biker

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rambo VS. images

There seems to be much debate in the forums, books and studies about the effectiveness of lifting weights and strength training for cyclists or endurance athletes in general. I think one key point that is always ignored is that we are all built differently and everyone has unique strengths and weaknesses that we’re born with and we should  train in a way that is unique to the way we’re built. Also the length of the event we are intending on competing in should have a bearing on how much and what types of strength training you do as well. So both the type and length of events and also your genetics both should play a role in how your unique training plan. It seems like most people want to make things simple black and white, should I lift or should I not lift weights? But the truth is much more complex then that, but yet I see the same question asked over and over online in the forums etc. Do you think that Chris Carmichael would have Lance doing all the strength training they do in the off season if it didn’t work? And I can tell you from documented first hand experience that for me it has made a huge difference in my riding, weight loss, and overall fitness and well being! You have to make an honest assessment of your strengths and weakness and train to improve your weaknesses and further improve your strengths.

Extreme examples of two possible types of riders Rambo rider, and Gates rider and some things to think about

  1. If you’re naturally strong and have powerful muscles, then making them stronger probably won’t help much with cycling unless your focus is short distance events where you can never have enough leg strength. Now on the other hand if you’re built like a sprinter, but want to race in long events like centuries etc. you’ll probably want to focus more on endurance training to help build up your ability to ride for many hours at a time. But I still think that everyone no matter how they’re built should strength train for cycling, you’ll just need to do less of it. Think of the 80/20 rule, you should be riding lots of easy to moderate miles but still having a day or two a week dedicated to intervals and or weight training etc.
  2. A skinny weak legged cyclist that may have plenty of endurance but not much strength or power will want to do the opposite and spend 80% of his time building up the raw strength and power in his or her legs to meet the demands of riding fast, esp. if you’re intending on riding fast for shorter distances where emphasis is on the muscular system.

It’s very surprising that so many “experts” bad mouth strength training for cycling saying it’s not effective, or even that it will slow you down or injury etc. Lifting weights is discredited by many, probably because the “research” that was done was only conducted on trained athletes for a couple months, which is too short a time span to see any major improvement in fact negative improvement probably is what happens in the first weeks of any weight training program as your body is adjusting and you feel sore most of the time. I found that for myself that I was slightly stronger the first month and a bit more a month later, but after a good rest over the Christmas week I was fully recovered and was stronger then ever, and now after another month, now 3 months later I hardly feel sore anymore after lifting weights and I’ve added about 160watts average to my previous average on my 10 minute TT test I do at the beginning and end of each monthly cycle. That’s a huge improvement, but I think that for me having weak legs and realizing it and making it a key point in my training focus is paying off big.

Here are the improvements I’ve noticed for myself from weight and strength training, I say “strength training” as you can strength your legs with body movements and on bike exercises etc.

  1. My recovery time is much faster now, before I’d have sore muscles for days after a hard ride, now I only get sore only if I have a particularly grueling weight session with heavy weights and or high reps or a new exercise.
  2. My running speed is faster, I feel like I have a much stronger stride now when I run, and that I can run faster.
  3. My endurance has improved I don’t tired as easy, and most important my power endurance has improved.
  4. My metabolism is higher, I’m losing weight faster now then just cycling or running alone.
  5. I feel stronger, esp. from squats as they make your whole support system feel strong you can hold yourself up easier you feel more athletic
  6. I also ski in the off season and I’ve noticed that I feel much stronger and have better muscular endurance and don’t have to stop in the middle of the run now, my legs don’t burn as bad.
  7. Injury prevention, by having strong muscles, tendons and ligaments it helps reduce your change of injury
  8. I think that by having legs that are strong and match the strength of your cardio system, your legs can drive your cardio system even harder so that your cardio system can improve even more. If your legs are weak and fail before your cardio system does then you won’t get as good a cardio workout. I notice now that I can feel my heart muscle really working where before it was more like my legs just burned up and I’d have burning legs and an overall feeling of fatigue but not really out of breath, it just seemed to start with the legs and then my whole body was in distress. Now with my stronger legs I can pedal big gears for much longer times and I get the intuition that my cardio system is getting stronger too in an effort to match what my legs can dish out.
  9. They do say that your legs act as a second heart helping blood move around during the contraction of your legs. If that’s the case that would also reinforce perhaps the theoretical advantage of having a high RPM pedaling style of a rider like Lance Armstrong. Perhaps having stronger legs helps push the blood out of your legs better?
  10. I think that from strength training my legs are more powerful meaning the motor units i.e the nerves can fire more synchronize and deliver more force in a shorter time.
  11. I also think that from strength training I’m able to know spin much faster then before, I can get up to 150RPM now where 130RPM was about limit, I felt like my legs where going to just fly off if I went any faster.
  12. I’m sure my sprint has improved now, we’ll see once I start riding outside.

Anyway, it just blows my mind that so many cycling “coaches” tell their riders to avoid weights, here are some common myths I hear

  1. Weight training will make you get huge muscles and add extra weight then that will cause you slow down.
  2. Studies have proven that strength training has no benefit in endurance tests.
  3. Look how skinny pro rider John Doe is
  4. It will make you’re pedaling stroke bad
  5. It will make you rider slower and weaker
  6. There is no benefit from strength training
  7. I’m sure there’s more I haven’ heard or I forget about too

Cheating in cycling training can be good.

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I was training hard as usual today but I felt off since I woke up, at the gym the feeling didn’t go away and after a couple sets of weight lifting I felt weak and jittery. I decided to cheat on today’s session and left early. Normally I would not do this but I”m starting to listen to my body and be flexible with my schedule. I mean we’re not robots, somedays we would be better off resting and recovering. I’m sure tomorrow I’ll feel great, so it doesn’t bother me to backup on days when you really feel like you should back off.

I could have pushed through it, but I knew the smart thing to do was to call it a day as I would have probably felt even worse the next day if I dug too far into my reserves on a really off day.