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Quads vs. Hamstrings for Power Production

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Quads vs. Hamstrings for Power Production

Old 11-16-13, 05:05 PM
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I feel your pain. It is a real challenge finding business clothes, at 6'2" and 245, I come in at 36/48 with a big can and thighs from ice hockey.

Couple of questions for posters here...

1) I like working with dead lifts, farmers walks, and squats. However, I feel like I'm not strength ing my hams as well as I should. I'd like to keep these balanced - any thoughts on how to help with that?
2) how about stronger calves - I've noticed this is an issue on a long ride, as my pedaling form starts to suffer.

One other thought: box jumps seem to have helped a lot on hills. Has anyone seen this, or could this just be a function of me not working on explosive power?

Great thread by the way
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Old 11-16-13, 05:58 PM
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Originally Posted by JCNeumann
I feel your pain. It is a real challenge finding business clothes, at 6'2" and 245, I come in at 36/48 with a big can and thighs from ice hockey.

Couple of questions for posters here...

1) I like working with dead lifts, farmers walks, and squats. However, I feel like I'm not strength ing my hams as well as I should. I'd like to keep these balanced - any thoughts on how to help with that?
2) how about stronger calves - I've noticed this is an issue on a long ride, as my pedaling form starts to suffer.

One other thought: box jumps seem to have helped a lot on hills. Has anyone seen this, or could this just be a function of me not working on explosive power?

Great thread by the way
You going all the way down to parallel on your squats? That helps. Also, deficit deadlifts put more emphasis on hamstrings than standard deadlifts because of the larger range of motion.

I have naturally large calves for some reason, so I don't really think a lot about it, but I did notice that parallel squats (and deficit deadlifts, for that matter) work the calves as well as the hamstrings.

As far as explosive power, I intend to do bike work for that, a little closer to the season, but I've also added very fast, approaching a clean, deadlifts on my warmup sets. Lots of track guys do power cleans for power development.
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Last edited by Brian Ratliff; 11-16-13 at 06:01 PM.
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Old 11-17-13, 02:40 PM
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You all have shamed me into re-joing a gym (Bally's). Felt good having so much dedicated equipment. Starting slow but focus will be on legs, abs, and back.
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Old 11-17-13, 03:00 PM
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meanwhile jean claude is doing these!
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Old 11-18-13, 02:52 PM
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Originally Posted by JCNeumann
I feel your pain. It is a real challenge finding business clothes, at 6'2" and 245, I come in at 36/48 with a big can and thighs from ice hockey.

Couple of questions for posters here...

1) I like working with dead lifts, farmers walks, and squats. However, I feel like I'm not strength ing my hams as well as I should. I'd like to keep these balanced - any thoughts on how to help with that?
2) how about stronger calves - I've noticed this is an issue on a long ride, as my pedaling form starts to suffer.

One other thought: box jumps seem to have helped a lot on hills. Has anyone seen this, or could this just be a function of me not working on explosive power?

Great thread by the way
I agree with Brian. Here are some others:
Walking lunges
Lying leg curls
Hamstring curs lying with dumbell (youtube it)
Donkey Kicks

For explosive power?
Hacksquats
Leg Press
Jump Squats


Calves?
Probably a fit issue, not a calf strength issue...
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Old 11-18-13, 04:00 PM
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Originally Posted by rkwaki
...
Hamstring curs lying with dumbell (youtube it)
...
I'm a little afraid it'll come up with some weird form of porn.
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Old 11-18-13, 04:07 PM
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Originally Posted by Brian Ratliff
I'm a little afraid it'll come up with some weird form of porn.
I wouldn't do that
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Old 11-18-13, 05:27 PM
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Originally Posted by rkwaki
I wouldn't do that
Lies.
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Old 11-18-13, 05:49 PM
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subd!
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Old 11-19-13, 02:27 AM
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I hope this thread goes 20 pages, because it's a topic worth examining and reexamining. On this point:


Originally Posted by Brian Ratliff
Everyone has probably seen this chart before:





[snipped]


One last observation came on a spin bike when I was cooling down from a gym session last night: There tends to be a certain RPM band around 120rpm where people tend to become very rough. Below that, it is smooth, above that, it is smooth, but there is a transition. What is actually transitioning? I now think it is transitioning between a quad dominated motion below the RPM band and a hamstring dominated motion above the RPM band, and the transition region is when the body gets a bit confused about what muscles should do what. When I focused on a rigid back and a hamstring dominated motion, the transition region seemed to disappear.

I have observed a similar "RPM band effect" riding on the LeMond Revmaster Pro spin bikes at my gym, and I agree with your analysis.

Also, the neuromuscular leap from the 175mm cranks on my road bike to the 170mm arms on the LeMond seems bigger than 10mm in diameter. The spin bike's shorter arms screw up my timing when firing the hip flexors through the top of the stroke and gauging the glute-quad overlap at the maximum moment of the power stroke (3 o'clock). I too use the spin bikes for post-lifting session recovery, so I spend most of my time in that 100-120 RPM band in lowish gearing. The flywheel also "deprives" me of the reference point that the usual dead spot in the pedal stroke would otherwise provide, so it takes me about 15 minutes to recalibrate my pedaling motion and settle in every time I climb on.

My situation is somewhat exacerbated by my size (6'3", long femurs and lower legs), which puts me at the outer limits of the LeMond's geometry (seat post maxed out, "stem" slammed, bars fully extended). Ideally, the bars would extend slightly further out, then the seat post would go a bit higher so I could rotate my pelvis further forward and flatten my back. Bike fits are always compromises, and this one leaves me a bit more upright than I would like. Is it ridiculous that I care about getting long and low on a bike that isn't going anywhere? Yeah, a little bit but it's a comfort issue, too, as I occasionally drope in on a real spin class and have to hammer in this Frankenstein position.

Anyway, all of that leaves my hip angle slightly closed off at the top of the stroke, even with the shorter cranks. My hip flexors default into taking up the additional work through the 12 o'clock position, which is not a good situation given how this coincides with the actual dead spot on a road bike crank and (as someone pointed out earlier) how small the hip flexors are compared to the big leg muscles. My workaround is accentuating the hamstring contraction in the back end of the stroke and really driving with the glutes at the top of the stroke. Bookending the problem in this way has worked out OK thus far.

Incidentally, I've wheeled the spin bike in front of a mirror and tried a variety of positions and approaches to pedaling before settling on my current setup. I have to say that my pedaling looks smooth enough, both head-on and from the side, but a flywheel will do that and it still feels weird. Less weird than it did before I started mucking about with all of this, though.

Yeah, I spend my spin class appearances wondering how nice it must be to be a normal person grinding away in sit-up-and-beg.

Last edited by RedViola; 11-19-13 at 02:38 AM. Reason: speling mistake
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Old 11-25-13, 11:24 AM
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Originally Posted by Ghost Ryder
The only downside to having firm glutes/quads/guads, is finding a pair of pants that for comfortably.
My waist is 28"-29" , but I have to go with 30"-31" just to fit comfortably around "the middle". The "back" makes the front too tight.
People always ask why I wear shorts 10-12 months of the year...
This is sooo true. I'm forced to wear L shorts to fit my quads but then they are loose on my waist, which causes chafing coz they are loose so the extra cloth causes rubbing. I finally found Sugoi RX shorts that fit perfectly.
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Old 11-25-13, 11:32 AM
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Originally Posted by TexMac
This is sooo true. I'm forced to wear L shorts to fit my quads but then they are loose on my waist, which causes chafing coz they are loose so the extra cloth causes rubbing. I finally found Sugoi RX shorts that fit perfectly.
My Sugoi bibs are my faves!
I have to go small/med cause larger is too long for me, I find they stretch/form to my body nicely.
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Old 01-03-14, 04:37 PM
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Originally Posted by rkwaki
I agree with Brian. Here are some others:
Walking lunges
Lying leg curls
Hamstring curs lying with dumbell (youtube it)
Donkey Kicks

For explosive power?
Hacksquats
Leg Press
Jump Squats


Calves?
Probably a fit issue, not a calf strength issue...
Sorry for the long lag time...

These suggestions worked really well, and with a fair amount of stretching for the calves was able to address that. Thank you!
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