I too am a fan of SLDL's and of any compound hip extension movement (sq, clean, DL, jumping, etc.)
Learning to jump properly really reqires good coordination and timing and decent muscular balance, these exercizes all require this. I would love to see a group of "random" bike racers do a vertical leap test; it would be very interesting to see how many of them tried to just do a knee extension (quad dominant) to jump and the resulting lack of jump height. Then i might wonder how much learming to perform a coordinated hip extension would help on the bike... or if there is no coorelation what so ever.
To clarify, I am only talking about improvement in explosive power, not endurance.
i guess another Question (for VUDU?) would be: would speed work with weights benefit a cyclists sprint/neuromuscular power more if the focus was on a hang clean (shorter range of motion, less quad, more posterior chain) or a speed SQ or jump SQ (deeper, more "cycling specific" ROM, more quad)?
Just curious to hear what others think here.
off to go work on my meager FTP.... maybe some cleans for fun...