"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - How early in the training cycle do you start working on strength / force?

I ask because I realize that this was a real limiter for me. My FTP, while mediocre, at least marginally improves. But my 5 second or 1 minute power are abysmal.

I saw on Friel’s blog that he starts very high load “force reps” pretty early. (Beyond those found in the workout sticky, any recommendations on good trainer exercises for this would be appreciated.)

(Cross posted in Road and Cross racing fora.)

My coach had me doing muscle tensions (high gear uphill low cadence) and power starts in the first two weeks of base.

Of course that was after only a two week "off season".

Assumming you've got some miles in your legs, I think you can start on strength right away.

Yep, I had a little more time off, but my coach has also had me doing low cadence drills since October.

yeah, I did a lot of big gear work in block 1.

force or Q II is basically climbing. i climb alot this time of year, and do it at SST intensity. I dont do many intervals for this, but if you go out and do it in 2x20'/3x20'/8x5'/etc. you'll hit your targets. can do on trainer by putting yourself in a big gear and focus on 60 - 70 rpms (+/-).

every time I ride the SS MTB

this afternoon early enough?

All the time, although I should qualify that.

I do big gear, low rpm work all year, typically at least one ride a week. If I only ride once I'm probably doing "weight training while pedaling" kind of pedaling. I work on pedal form too, but I approach pedal form in two ways - first, pedal properly at low rpm; second, pedal properly at higher rpm. So I can always justify doing low rpm work :)

The above works on strength. It doesn't necessarily improve speed.

For actual sprint work where I do a 100% jump and wind it out to top speed, I do that only after I have some semblance of form and if I'm warm (dressed enough and it's above, say, 35 degrees). Sometimes my first sprint of the year would be at the end of my first race, but I quickly learned that those sprints didn't go very well. I'll do some specific sprint type work by late Jan/early Feb, usually outside when I'm at a training camp kind of location (SoCal, FL). Indoors I don't do sprint work, and I rarely ride outdoors here in CT between now and end of Feb.

If I have 10-20 sprints in before my first race I'm pretty happy. 5-10 would be a minimum. It sometimes takes me 2-3-4-5 rides to get just one sprint in that I consider a sprint, so one sprint may represent 5-10 failed or aborted sprints. 20 sprints may represent 40-100 jumps. In a typical training week in SoCal in Jan/Feb I'll get in what I consider to be 2-5 sprints in 7-10 days of riding and give up on maybe 30-50 sprints.

Jumps into sprints allow me to work on gearing, technique, and gets me an idea of what I can and can't do (i.e. where to jump and how fresh I need to be when I jump). As I get more fit I can jump from further away and I can be really fatigued when I jump.

I should also say that at the same time some of my best years on the bike were preceded by absolutely no sprint work. I did big gear work but no jumps. Just a ton of JRA, 53x18 all over the place, using small ring when necessary, rolling big gears on the flats. It builds FTP I think and made racing seem "easier".

This all means do what you feel like doing. Heh.

cdr

every time I ride the SS MTB

this afternoon early enough?

yeah, I'll be hitting some woods around 1:30 myself..

i've read Friel's book, but can't quite figure out what benefit you get from force reps. I personally have a set coming up this week.

Jim, there's a section in the power book where they talk about them (I can look up the page when I get home). Basically they sound a little skeptical about their utility, and say that if anything it's the equivalent of climbing a ****-load of stairs, but not really anything like weight training since the force is so low and the reps are so high.

Jan 1st (first race end of March)

Haven't ever stopped working on strength.

December 1st.

Racing starts 1st weekend in March.

I did a lot of that last year, but I can't say it helped at all except for encouraging mashing and ruining good cadence...which is why I'm completely avoiding this year. Instead right now I'm focusing on lots of tempo and LT work while spinning (105+ rpm).

I did a lot of that last year, but I can't say it helped at all except for encouraging mashing and ruining good cadence...which is why I'm completely avoiding this year. Instead right now I'm focusing on lots of tempo and LT work while spinning (105+ rpm).


you're sorta doing extremes here 50 rpms and 105 rpms. Not knocking your training, i know your a cat two so you know what works.

you're sorta doing extremes here 50 rpms and 105 rpms. Not knocking your training, i know your a cat two so you know what works.

Can you clarify your point? (not being an a-hole, i'm curious with what and why you're disagreeing)

you're sorta doing extremes here 50 rpms and 105 rpms. Not knocking your training, i know your a cat two so you know what works.

isn't training all about extremes?

you're sorta doing extremes here 50 rpms and 105 rpms. Not knocking your training, i know your a cat two so you know what works.

Not sure where you're seeing extremes...as I said when I was doing big gear work earlier in the season I wasn't seeing a lot of effect from it - I was uncomfortable at cadences over 95 and this definitely fatigued the legs quicker...once I quit doing it and instead focusing on raising my cadence and doing lots of TT intervals (this took a few months), I really started seeing great results.

now.

Here's a new wrinkle to the strength training debate that I want to throw out for people to think about and comment on:

First, everyone should realize that cycling taps both the aerobic AND anaerobic systems of power virtually all the time. And, at different times one or the other of these systems are of greater importance. Hill climbs and time trials, for example require high levels of aerobic power, while sprints, attacks and accelerations out of corners require high anaerobic power.

Each system of power has it's own protocol for optimal training, and every person who has studied a little exercise physiology knows what this is:

Aerobic Power - Lactate Threshold and VO2 max intervals (resulting in increased mitochondria count and density)

Anaerobic Power - Progressively overloaded resistance, in both the concentric and eccentric movements, and in the EXACT muscular motion which is used in competition

Cycling coaches are pretty uniform on the aerobic side of training, but on the anaerobic side it is a quite varied--some advocate weight training in the gym and some recommend on-bike strength workouts. The problem with the gym and on-bike training, however, is that none of the prescribed workouts conform with some basic tenets of ex. physiology--the gym workouts lack the specificity, and the on-bike workouts don't offer eccentric resistance, an adequate amount of progressive overload, or the ability to exercise the muscle groups in isolation.

So, after greatly benefitting myself from on-bike strength workouts, and knowing a little about ex. physiology, I developed the apparatus in the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_9Cue-qKb8

After using a garage prototype for a few months, and seeing the benefits of this modality of training, I decided to build something for real and see what others think about it. The apparatus in the video is a pre-production prototype and I hope to be able to make it available to other racing enthusiasts--but before I go and make a big investment in it, I'm very curious what people think of this concept.

Please chime in...and please forgive if you see this post on a couple of other forums with activity on this subject matter.

Each system of power has it's own protocol for optimal training, and every person who has studied a little exercise physiology knows what this is:

:notamused:



Anaerobic Power - Progressively overloaded resistance, in both the concentric and eccentric movements, and in the EXACT muscular motion which is used in competition


Considering that the motion used in competition lacks a eccentric component this statement is contradictory; it can't be both the exact motion and something that regular cycling lacks.

Furthermore, your joint angle velocities are off and the subject is forced (due to the short tower / simple resistance mechanism) to decelerate and reverse the pedal at the top and bottom of each stroke -so the motion itself isn't even that close.

I do like the idea of stationary trainers that actively push back instead of just drag you down (stop pedalling on a trainer/flat ground you just roll to a stop, do that on a steep hill and you go into reverse quick); this has been accomplished by researchers with giant treadmills. I feel the home solution will be something with an electric motor in the bottom bracket area that would actually pedal the cranks backwards if you clipped out. This would also allow for your beloved eccentric exercise by turning the thing way up and tying -but failing- to stop the motor with your legs.

So no, I wouldn't buy your design.

Thanks for the comments; I'm really hoping there can be a lot of debate on this...in response to what you're saying:


Considering that the motion used in competition lacks a eccentric component this statement is contradictory; it can't be both the exact motion and something that regular cycling lacks.

While, yes, it might seem to be contradictory to advocate the "backwards" motion, it isn't the forward/backward component that defines the motion; rather, it is merely the joint angles and and the extent of the lengthening/shortening of muscle fibers that determine the "specificity" of a motion. A backwards motion, even though not used in a sport doesn't invalidate it's use in training--in powerlifting, for example, the lifters don't get credit for putting the weight back down; yet it is well known that including the eccentric motion in strength/power training is required for optimal development.


Furthermore, your joint angle velocities are off and the subject is forced (due to the short tower / simple resistance mechanism) to decelerate and reverse the pedal at the top and bottom of each stroke -so the motion itself isn't even that close.

As long as the frame/seat/bar/crank geometry is the same as that of one's regular bike, the motion is exactly the same--albeit broken up into two 180 degree motions, to enable isolated training of the muscle groups used in the full 360 degree motion. And while it may seem very different at the top and bottom of the movement (to all of us used to pedaling in circles), these spots are where a cyclists ability to apply torque is the lowest; training this way really helps your legs and mind feel and identify these weak spots and help to mitigate the weakness.

As for the speed of the exercises, this will vary depending on what modality of power training the user employs (the ACSM recommends a combo of slow and fast motions for optimal power and muscular endurance).