Originally Posted by Koffee Brown
Ric, I did the Pub-Med search, and when I inserted your name, there were no hits at all. Any other places to look?
maybe i worded it bad... when i said check pub-med for evidence i didn't mean for my work (that's obviously going to say what i've been saying here, i am, afterall, hardly likely to contradict myself!). what i meant was check pub-med for the evidence of weights and endurance performance, and you won't find an increase in performance with trained cyclists.
I did speak to Robbie Ventura, and he said that the US Postal DOES weight train- all of them. They weight train in the off season, but when they start the training rides, the weight training part of their program ends, and they focus primarily on the riding aspect. What they do for weights and how much weight they use depends on what they specialize in (hill climbing, sprinting, long distance tours). He looked at me crazy at the idea that there's no weight training involved.
Koffee
lots of TT1 riders don't weight train. the point i was making is that weights don't increase performance (in trained endurance cyclists), aren't likely too, and there'd be no real reason to think they would (excluding in some instances of injured riders).
pros (and amateurs) do all sorts of things, good, bad, and downright stupid. it doesn't mean you should copy them!
ric