johnism

What are some good leg exercises that build strength with out hurting knees?
Quads for sure

RedHerring

Climbing

Machka 

Cycling lots.

mushwars

pushing until you can't push no more. Then try to make it home without stopping.

swak

Ride Bikes,
Ribe Bikes,
& Ride Bikes.

RedHerring

and ride bikes

ericm979

Forward and reverse leg curls, leg press, calf raise, squats. You need to be careful when doing those, especially squats, or you will hurt something. But the same is true of cycling... do too much too fast and you will hurt your knees. Weight lifting does not help everyone be a faster rider, but when I was starting from being sedentary, weight lifting helped build some muscles. It was especially useful to help my knees. The calf raises fixed a problem I had with my calves cramping.

k12ug

Ive done that.....i had to call for a ride, i was 3 miles from my house.....

nitropowered

GO out and ride, then ride some more. But be sure to take rest, rest is just as important as training.

Machka 

You couldn't even walk the rest of the way?

dmb2786

wussy...

To the OP, ride and rest. find the balance. consult kevin nealon.

par avion

2x20s and climbing. Imho, the gym does not help cycling-specific power at all. Just ride. A lot.

thefsb

high gear training. it works. also sprinting hard. and when climbing, do it at the fastest pace you can sustain all the way up but put in a couple of all-out attacks during the climb.

as for knee pain, make sure your fit and cleat adjustment is right and adjust the overall strength training load to what you can manage without provoking any knee pain.

as ericm979 said, resistance training is also very good, though i don't know the routines myself, and can help you avoid knee pain on the bike.

Randochap

My experience is different. I hit the gym for the first time in years this winter and (despite a long bout of flu) my climbing power has increased.

Just did work on leg extensions, sled, hamstring curl and press. Also core work.

krusty

Here you go - the first piece of good advice.

Cycling, or any other single activity done to excess will hurt the knee. The repetitive motion involved in cycling does not work all the muscles attached to the knee joint equally. A strength imbalance across the joint will develop and will eventually cause misalignment, uneven wear of the joint and pain. A variety of leg exercises done PROPERLY in the gym (consult a trainer if you don't know exactly what to do or how) will increase your cycling strength. I used to ski professionally, and was taught how to work my legs to avoid injury by a retired national team member. No knee pain, plenty of strength, and I'm almost 50 now.

Randochap

And, as discussed in other threads, weight bearing exercise is good for cyclists. Studies indicate protection from bone-density loss.

merlinextraligh

we've been through this a few hundred times. No one has yet come up with an example of a road professional who lifts for their legs in season, or a study that suggests it would be beneficial for a road racer.

Ride your bike.

merlinextraligh

For general fitness/ health, not for cycling performance.

Thus to the extent there is consensus on this, a well rounded light weight high rep program in the base phase makes sense, and some core, light upper body year round.

But trying to get faster doing squats and dead lifts does not work, with the possible exception of track sprinters.

khatfull

Competitive table tennis three hours twice a week. I don't know where I get all my legs from, the cycling or the TT. I think I get the endurance from the cycling, which helps with TT and I get the explosive legs from TT, which helps in cycling.

Anyone else here into table tennis?

par avion

Work in the gym on specific leg muscle groups will indeed build leg strength, as the OP asked for. The routines noted by Randochap are indeed a good place to start. There's also a benefit, as you point out, to avoiding muscle imbalance and alignment issues later on. Work in the gym during the cycling off season is good for this. There's a lot of debate, though, as to whether or not work in the gym actually improves cycling-specific power, despite books such as Friel's that place an emphasis on it.

There's a lengthy thread on the topic here, as well as many others:

https://cyclingforums.com/t126133.html

This is for you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syjXcxGDgkA

krusty

I think we agree for the most part. For the average cyclist, some work in the gym in the off season will (probably) make for a better cycling season, but working for pure strength will not. Cycling will build cycling strength. Gym work in the off season will help prevent early season injury.

par avion

Ah, yeah. That's all I was trying to say. We agree.

johnism

I been doing allot of rides trying to get my legs back up to par ... I started including more hills and looping these hills in my rides. My quads still seem to just blow out.

StanSeven

[QUOTE=par avion;8782946]There's a lot of debate, though, as to whether or not work in the gym actually improves cycling-specific power, despite books such as Friel's that place an emphasis on it.

QUOTE]

Friel makes a living with his book and philosophy. His first edition is based on outdated logic. His latest edition is a compromise so he still sells

Randochap

I'm glad to find someone believing that the improvements I'm noting (as is one of my riding partners who has followed a similar winter regimen) aren't all in my head.

Whether preliminary impressions will translate into longer marathon events remains to be seen, as I missed the first part of spring series due to aforementioned flu ... which maybe I caught in the gym ....