I'll check it out later. It is long though, and I doubt it has much in terms of studies. If there are particular posts you think are relevant it would be gret if you could share.

I know, and that is one of the things: What junior riders need and/or benefit from is very different to what adults need and/or benefit from.

I'm sorry, but that has to be one of the worst pieces of evidence for anything ever used.

I agree that fifteen second power is important, and would imagine that lifting helps with that. Anything longer, I am not too sure. A video somewhere of Sagan doing something doesn't convince me otherwise.

Indeed. But he also says that the benefits are not becoming a faster cyclist, but a healthier person.



All in all, I'd imagine (without any supporting evidence) that lifting helps cycling performance. Now, deviating three hours of training on a ten hour per week schedule to it, I am not entirely convinced would be the best use of time. It probably would if improving your sprint a bit is what will take you from not winning to winning. Otherwise, not too sure. Would love to see evidence claiming otherwise though.

I think that is going to be hard to get, as are Diets, power results and training plans.
This is often proprietary for pros and I don't know how good studies of 10hour/week riders moving 3 hours to weights would be.

Even juniors that had Strava segments are now taking some down. I have saved some older segments that were public and have seen others. Not a bunch, but some.
So its not the kind of stuff, even if I have some data on (and I have very little) that can really be easily shared.
I use the forum for lots of opinions and see what I can put together.
So you won't be getting any proof from me, just experiences.

Fair enough.

Fwiw, I do some lifting once a week. I think next base period I'll do a lot more than I did this time around. My sprint is pathetic.

Not so sure I agree with the bolded part because this really depends on what training phase you are in, how close you are to needing to be able to perform in a race or event, or how well the individual can take physical stress vs. recovery.


If your weight training takes away from your ability to actually perform during an interval workout because you are exhausted or takes away from proper recovery time, it will probably do you more harm than good. You will wind up digging yourself into a lack of recovery hole that will take a lot of time to get out of. Of course, this kind of stuff should factor into an athlete's schedule should they decide to incorporate weight training into their training regime.


here is a good podcast that goes into it. Ask a Cycling Coach Podcast 007 ? TrainerRoad Podcast - TrainerRoad Blog

So what is a good way to start interval training? I have some flat land so that is fine though mostly ups and downs where intervals may be tougher. What time ranges are you guys using? I have read all sorts of different things- from 30 seconds to 4 minutes of 90% and then 1 min to 5-6 mins of 50% effort, with 4-6 repetitions and 4-6 sets.

It depends on the time of year, the kinds of races I'm doing, and weaknesses I need to address. I use workouts from Racing and Training with a Power Meter (https://www.amazon.com/Training-Raci.../dp/1934030554), some from a coach I've used in the past, and some from the sticky thread in the 33 (https://www.bikeforums.net/33-road-bi...cipe-book.html).

These are mostly geared towards using a PM but many can be done with a HRM or good old fashioned rate of perceived effort (RPE). Generally, the longer the interval, the more useful a PM is. You can certainly do 2x20's with a HRM and your speedometer, but a windy day might throw everything off, so using a PM will keep you in the desired zone.

On the other hand, for tabatas, 30/30s, or 1's, all you need is a stopwatch and a big dose of HTFU.

[MENTION=184551]Chandne[/MENTION]

I do hill repeats once a week (Tuesday evening, because I'm recovered from the weekend and have enough time to not still be feeling it on Saturday).

Once a month I use a short and punchy hill, go up at race pace, and coast back down. After a few laps I'm still huffing and puffing from the last interval when I start on the next. These build anaerobic power like for sprinting, and help me recover more quickly from intense effort. It's a good day if I can do this for 20 minutes. The rest of the month I use a longer hill and try to spend about 5 minutes at about 105 % of my FTP or slightly higher. Coast or soft pedal down. These are easy at first but it gets harder to maintain as the ride goes on. I want four laps here which takes about half an hour.

Thanks guys. I'll gear my workouts towards these tips. I do have a hill close to home, with a short (30 seconds at a fast clip) and long side (5 mins) I can use too. I may start next week since I'm still a bit worn from a couple of hard rides and legs day at the gym, and I need to do a big climb on Sat at altitude. I appreciate the info...this should be easy to follow. While I have no PM, I can use my HRM and a stopwatch.

Yeah, wait for next week.

If I can't hit my targets after two intervals, I call it quits for the day. Maybe do a recovery ride, maybe go home, but the hill repeats aren't going to be effective if I can't do them right.

I'm going to chime back in anyway. My impression is that so far no one has read the links in my post 7. If one is interested in whether or not weight training works for endurance athletes, those links are a good place to start.

I've read everything I could find on the weight training of elite athletes. For example:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16287351
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20799042
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19855311
https://pelotrain.co.za/wp-content/up...kins-Paper.pdf
https://www.hokksund-rehab.no/filarki...ES_CYCLING.pdf

If anyone is actually interested in learning more about the subject, these links are next after reading the CTS links.

It's my observation of many successful riders over the years that there's a wide variation in how easily cyclists put on muscle in response to cycling only. Oddly, two of the best climbers I've ridden with are very different in this respect. One is a short guy with really big thighs and calves (for a cyclist), the other being a 6' guy who weighs 145. For sure, modern TdF winners have all dieted way down, losing a lot of protein. Lance is a guy who puts it on easily, one of his reasons for success in GT riding. He had to lose 7 kilos of protein for his comeback.

So I'm saying that riding and weight training both have different effects on different riders. One has to take that into account. My 145 lb. friend never dieted or weight trained. He was just like that. Could he have benefited from weight training? I don't know. He aged out and I don't ride with him anymore.

Be that as it may, my best individual years as a climber were years when I focused on weight training. I'm one of those guys who doesn't put it on. If I train really hard, I can put 1/2" on my thighs over a winter's twice weekly weight work. Maybe a pound or two of protein. Diet makes no difference. This is relative, as I train both on the bike and in the gym year-round. I would get different results if I took the winter off.

I do climb better when my thighs are at their max size. In my late 50s, I sledded 700 lbs. but never tried to do more. That was enough. Today at 72, I squat 1.7 * bodyweight and I'm not inclined to try more. No need, I think. My BMI is ~23.

Does climbing well have anything to do with leg strength? Obviously it does. We have to be able to turn the pedals with enough speed, force, and endurance to be able to max out our aerobic system. One has to find one's balance between leg strength and aerobic strength. Experimentation works if you don't have a coach who knows exactly what you need. Doge's kid's coach, for instance.

This and the above links are everything I've learned on the subject. I would like to know more, though.

Good advice, Seattle Forrest. I'll have a decent time target at least on the easy/short side. My quickest is 25 seconds while the KOM is 14 seconds. I'm 920ish out of ~9000ish, though I'm usually not in that high a percentile unless going on downhill twisties...I just pushed this hill really hard a few times. The longer side is around 3 mins. If I keep doing intervals the right way on that side and the long side...one or both, I should be able to discern an improvement over time. So far, I have not been able to break 25 seconds without risking (what I feel) is an impending heart attack. Let's see how I feel after 2-3 months of this. Thanks again.

True.
But you are not supposed to weight train that hard, just as you are not supposed to ride that hard. There are many ways to dig yourself into a hole. And I wouldn't take more working out at the expense of sleep and diet.

I scoped above my thoughts for a roughly 10hr/week person 3 hours gym, 7 on bike. What is done on the bike is affected by what is done in the gym and visa versa. Normally less hard interval time is needed on the bike and even fast group rides and mid-week worlds rides may be too fast. So there are a lot of reasons not to train like this, as it may be less fun etc. But I have become convinced it is more efficient.

When isn't it ( *think* it may not be)?
When 30% is less than 2 hours in the gym/less than 2 days - so it is one day. That may work, but there is time overhead getting to/from gym too. If you have just 5 hours /week to train - maybe stay on the bike.

When 30% is much more than 3 hours / 3 days a week. I'd cap it about 3 hours/week.

When the rider is really going for long distance. Muscle can also be fuel, but yea, I agree that it may not be so important for 2-3 hour regular rides.

Pepe,

Seems I read somewhere that you were on a college cycling team. If so, that might give you access to:

1. Facilities(weight room, etc.)
2. Trainers/coaches that could provide you with the info you are seeking.

Contact the athletic department at your school and explain your situation. See if they can get you hooked up with people you can talk with. At worst, you can get some valuable info. At best, you could get a lifting program structured to your goals with the use of the athletic facilities at no cost.

Those are good links. I read the abstract, not the details. I am already convinced however.

A few things were being mixed.

The addition of explosive training and high-resistance interval training to the programs of already well-trained cyclists produces major gains in sprint and endurance performance, partly through improvements in exercise efficiency and anaerobic threshold.

Some argue you can do the same thing on the bike. When you take a group of only 9 riders - I see more juniors :-) and also introduce on-the-bike training it is hard to say which is more responsible.

As I know this is not a racing forum, I have not mentioned the R word.
But the best combo seems to be lift, do long tempo, not too hard recovery - but long, race.

Also woven throughout this and similar threads is the thinking the best exercises (squats - I agree) are the best for everyone. I went into a long thing in the weight lifting thread on why trainer did not have junior doing squats. Primarily so force on legs could be maximized with weights he was unable to control safely on squats. On a press he could have 700lbs on his feet, on a squat 300lbs. He didn't need, for cycling to develop the other muscle to squat 700lbs.

I read them (had already read them before.) Those focus on overall health/fitness though, not cycling performance.

I'll check those out. Cheers.

Good point. I do have access to the facilities (newly built this year, so quite fancy.) I haven't used them, should at least go check them out. As for trainers, I do remember that we were offered some free training when I was in the soccer club. Might have to check if we can get a similar deal as part of the cycling club. Will probably have to wait until the fall unfortunately, but worth checking out. Thanks for the suggestion.

You may do better following a cycling coach/trainer. Trainers I meet at gyms are real into the whole body thing and often don't know the sport to help with sport specific training. It depends what you want, of course, but a series of core work to balance out your strong back, or squat set because it is a whole body workout, my be different than what you want.

Pepe, if the facilities are close, you can probably "get by" with only 2-3 times a week, 15 minute sessions of leg presses and/or squats and evaluate the impact. I doubt it can hurt and it just might help.

Thanks. Way out here in geezerville, I quit doing the 2 legged sled a few years ago and have focused on squats and the one-legged sled for reasons other than leg strength. I have found squats to be very helpful with core work, especially when the weights get up near max. One-legged sled is good for leg balance and simulates our asymmetrical pedaling.

So what would a typical 1 hr session involve?
Doge mention 3 sets of leg presses, but that wouldn't take long.

Here's is a book for the topic:

https://www.amazon.com/Weight-Traini.../dp/1934030295

I think it does help to some degree but i believe injuries is "how you fall" that determines lots of injuries.

So will running.

I am not anti-lift for bone density, but it is one way to do something else.
If neither running or total body/workout or lifting are contributing to going forward faster and are done for overall health, then the athlete can pick from many things. They can swim and run and lift solely to go faster forward.
A completely optimized to go fast forward cyclist is not going to have a "balanced" body for most events.
There are muscles that look good that are not used much for cycling. They are being developed for other reasons than increasing speed. Which is fine, even good. Just not a requirement for going faster.

It is more like 30 min for cycling only. I separate the cycling specific vs whole body/health for clarification in the thread. It was important for junior to do more balanced exercises as there was more he had an eye one. So he did work upper body, he did row, and in the end - he ran. And it was social time.
But the cycling exercises take <30 min + warm-up.
10 min some kind of warm-up. Ride to gym. If not run on treadmill. The nice thing about a trainer is they mix up the exercises that are doing the same thing. One day quads is single leg extensions (I know some see those as obsolete), another a Russian squat, another a step down, another a lunge. So the thinking is the trainers. His trainer trained 4-5 at the same time. They would do a set, ask what to do next. Each time he'd assess their rest/effort/pain level and not over do it, or push them more. Workout would start with questions about what they ate last night, bed time, sleep, how they felt and what was their morning resting HR (tells a lot). So I was buying something different than flinging steel the same way each day, but also for a kid to be kept on track in the other areas too. A disciplined adult may control themselves a bit better.

Here is what the cycling stuff looked like (the the video I posted a page back). Often items were single leg. That also engages core. So not being a trainer, but having watched a lot something like this...

@50% weight:
16 reps working quads
16 reps working hamstrings
16 reb of some core (cable pull down)

@70% weight
12 working hamstrings
12...

@failure weight - seasonal...
4-6 sets
Depends on the day. On easier days, Monday and Friday (after and before racing) it was do 6 reps of a weight about 90% of what the rider could do. If the race had been real hard, this may be like set 2.
On mid-week, if rested, the weight would be hard to finish 4 reps and likely would fail before 6.

During season, Maybe skaters...explosive stuff for the 3rd set.

Yes, running does but mostly leg bones. I am not looking to optimize solely for cycling...too old and slow for that. In addition to becoming a stronger cyclist though, I'm looking to gain bone density in my upper body too...arms, shoulder, collar bones, etc. Not doing it to look good from a vanity standpoint though I do look more balanced and feel much stronger when doing everyday things. I keep reading that lifting heavy weights (I go heavy for me, once a week) actually bends the bones a minuscule amount and that is what causes them to gain density. Running does the same thing but the "weight" comes from landing and putting pressure that cause the bones to deform or bend slightly. I'll take up swimming this Autumn.