anaerobic strength
 

Although I climbed the half mile hill my house sits on today without using my smallest chain ring I still fell lacking when pushing high gears on flats.

My question; What is the best way to build up anaerobic strength?

Also, how do you gage how good your aerobic fitness?; my current resting HR is less than 60, I know that I cant be bad because I pass roadies every day(on flats, hills & with knobby tires)

Thanks,
~X-Zen~

You can tell how well you're working aerobically by how hard you had to labor up that hill!

You'll need to spend some time working at base doing more aerobic riding. This might take a few weeks to a few months depending on how aerobically uninclined you are.

Once you have a good aerobic base, you can incorporate other types of training into your schedule- strength, intervals, endurance (do endurance first, then add in the others).

Koffee

Do more hill climbing. It will help you push high gears on flats. Find the biggest hills you can.

What is "at base"?

At base= low heart rates. It won't feel like a workout, but it will be! You'll generally get cardiovascularly more fit from base training, and you'll be able to take in more oxygen as a result of training at base properly.

But very much so, after you do that, you should definitely start the next phase of your training once you have base down, and go into endurance. From there, if you're primarily interested in doing lots of hills, head into doing hill work a lot. But if you're just concerned about getting better with hills, continue from hill work training to interval training, then incorporate endurance, strength, and intervals into your full training routine.

Koffee

Is there a good place to find extend info on interval training, endurance, strength, and intervals and constructing a training plan.

Try the Sally Edwards/Sally Reed book: "The Heart Rate Monitor book for Outdoor and Indoor Cyclists".

Koffee

Ride a heavier bicycle! to help build up that anerobic strength.

how's a 32 lb. MTB with fat tires :rolleyes:

you would think that would help, but it doesn't really. you just go slower with the heavy bike. you put out the same power regardless. actually, you might be able to put out more power on the road bike because of the positioning.

anyway, you build anerobic strength by doing intervals. however, intervals shouldn't be done unless you have a good base, becuase intervals are very hard on the body, and they shouldn't be done more then once or twice a week.

Good advice about a good base and not too often.

I might add. ride a fixed or a single speed road bike in the hills once in a while. It's like doing weight lifting with your legs. It will make you strong very fast and the bike is fast so it's less frustrating. A couple of my friends don't want to ride with me when I ride my single speed road bike, they complain about me going up hills too fast.

Again, not too often and you do need a good base it is tough on the body.

The mountain bike could help, but only if you ride with others who go faster than you, and you have to try to keep up. That way you don't slow down as much on the mountain bike.

Go to the library and find a good book on distance running if you can. This will tell you more on interval training, anerobic threshhold, etc than you probably really care to know. Most of it can be adapted to cycling.

just a few options: squats, leg press, leg extension, calf raises, tibia machine, one legged squats on the smith machine, good mornings, leg curls

I was weightlifting before I started cycling and didn't let my cycling get in the way of my weight training. I still continue to go the gym 4-5 times a week even during the peak of cycling. There are days that I'll do legs in the morning and ride 60 miles that night. Anyway, the best way of building anaerobic leg strength is by lifting weights.

Oh yeah. I just about puked (after a heavy squat kind) reading this. Brings back memories of my days in the gym pounding on 5x5's doing deadlift or squat. Wow...

Leg press was my butter, I would buy a 45 degree olympic leg press if I had the room and money. I freaking love pounding out reps with more weight than could crush an average man...

There are many good ways to do the same thing. I happen to prefer riding my single speed road bike because It does not get old or boring for me. Plus I'M RIDING! You have to pick what you think will be best for you. There seems to be a lot of good information here that all works.

If you are passing roadies with knobby tires, you may want to get off the park bike path and find some real ones on the road. I've never seen a mountain biker keep up on a club ride on the road. They always get dropped within the first half mile. Mountain bikes are great, don't get me wrong, but they aren't the right weapon for the road to compare yourself to other riders. By the way, I'm not a roadie. I'm on a racing recumbent, but in this case I feel the need to defend the poor roadie.