Weight training for cycling
 

Do you do any weight training to help your cycling? What do you do, and why does it help?

For example, I read somewhere that muscles have more endurance if they are exerting only a small fraction of their maximum force, so if your quads are so strong that pushing that big gear takes only 25% of their available strength, they will last longer than if pushing that gear required 50% of their available strength. I also read that typically hamstrings are much weaker than quads and do much less work, but if you make your hamstrings strong then they can do their full share. Finally, I read something about using weight training to develop explosive power.

But that's just reading, I have no idea what is actually worth doing. Do you know something about this?

To be honest, the science behind it is really complicated and requires a lot of knowledge of human biology.
in a nutshell, what you said is right, but you start to get into things like fast twitch muscle fibers versus slow twitch and things like that.
it also depends on what kind of riding you do. Long distance riders probably will see little benefit from weight training in their cycling, as weights use fast twitch fibers and slow cycling uses almost always slow twitch.
criterium racers benefit a huge amount from weight training because they frequently have To recruit fast twitch fibers in the frequent, all out, short sprints that occur in criteriums. Road racers are somewhere in the middle.
the rule of thumb is, the shorter, more intense the effort, the more weight training will benefit.
keep in mind though, weight training overall is good. The pro racers you see in the tour de France are, in many ways, unhealthy people. Their training is so focused on the singular goal of propelling a bicycle forward that many parts of their bodies not needed for that go untrained, and they get so skinny that a cold can lay them out for weeks.

I'm here for the explosive power. . .

You'll get opinions all over the place on this, and the data is somewhat mixed. To the extent there's much consensus it's something like this:

1) resistance training is good for your overall fitness, and helps with bone density which is important for cycling.

2) working on your core year round will help with fitness, likely helps your cycling to some degree, and has no real downside.

3) some light upperbody work helps fitness, and probably doesn't damage your cycling.

4) lifting for your legs, offseason, may possibly help some with cycling, although the data's limited other than for track sprinters, and won't hurt anythin as long as it doesn't take away from time on the bike.


Where it gets contentious is lifting for your legs in season. You can only do so much intensity work. To the extent intense lifting for your legs in season takes away from the amount of intensity work you can do on the bike, IMHO, it's counterproductive.

However, there are some people who lift for their legs all year, and do well on the bike. Additionally, there are some recent studies that indicate it can help performance on the bike.

Please lord, not again.

Power (watts) is part of cycling and strength is the main component of power. So by adding strength you should not be hurting your performance.
Also strengthening your core is very important for overall fitness not just cycling. If you have a strong core your legs have a platform to push against. Off-season is the perfect time to introduce your body to lifting weights since you are training less and is easier to adjust. I do strength exercises 2x a week now and I will keep doing some work as season starts. I record my experiences on my blog. You can take a look at these links:
Core Strength: http://www.thetallcyclist.com/?p=668
Weight Lifting: http://www.thetallcyclist.com/?p=681

Weight training is very important for balancing your body. With the correct periodization lifting during season is also possible, however, as previously mentioned if it takes you away from the bike it might not be as helpful.

Good luck with your training!

Thanks. Your blog is very interesting.

Focusing on leg specific exercises, the obvious ones seem like leg press (quad, glute), leg extension (quad), leg curl (hamstring), toe lift (calf). Any others?

I'm hoping to spend the winter developing more power, for pushing bigger gears and for accelerating/sprinting. This is just for recreational riding, I don't need to win races, unless you count muni buses. So I started going to spin class where I push seated against high resistance. I'm noticing a difference from that, in my daily riding. Now I will start adding weights, every other day.

Leg extension, leg curl contraindicated - wrong range of motion, knee injuries. Other good things: barbell squats, deadlifts, horizontal row, back machine, pushups, roman chair.

@jyl
I am glad you liked it =)

Free weights are better since they strengthen ALL the muscles around a particular motion in a balanced way. Machines tend to isolate muscles so some get stronger while others not - never a good thing. That is why Back (barbell) squat is a fundamental leg exercise. The drawback of doing free weights is that execution is important or you might get injured if you do something wrong.

Also keep in mind that your ligaments and tendons recover at a slower rate than your muscles so start introducing weight workouts gradually into your schedule.

Good luck!

There's a wealth of info over in the track sub.

Couple of my favorites I've come across:
http://coach.dancoy.com/archive/Stre...or_Cyclist.pdf
http://www.training4cyclists.com/12-...-for-cyclists/

squats, deadlift

Just remember - even an anaerobic sprint is like doing 50+ reps of leg cycles.

Also, having strong legs in the weight room doesn't mean you'll be able to sprint well. If want want to be able to sprint well you need to practice sprinting.

Straight-legged deadlifts also good, also for sprinting. Hard to work the hams but that does. Be careful to be smooth.

Advice about slower recovery of ligaments is good advice. Friel starts with sets of 20-30, gradually decreases and increases weights as ligaments strengthen. I've found that to be a smart practice.

I think the machines vs. free weights boils down to "natural" movements, vs. "unnatural" movements. So barbell squats, deadlifts, chins are natural, something someone might do during the day. Leg curl, leg extension, preacher curls are examples of unnatural. Unnatural are more like to cause injury. The fact that free weights must be done in balance activates supporting muscles that machines don't.

I suppose I should add a link to my T&N post about strength training for cyclists:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...g-for-cyclists

I don't necessarily disagree with you (I don't know much about weightlifting), but this line of argument could be used as an argument against riding a bicycle ("pedaling" is not a natural movement).

more of a compound (deadlift, squat, etc) vs isolation movement (any types of curls, extensions, etc)

the truth is the recreational cyclists would probably better off focusing on a well rounded weight-lifting and cycling routine.

not saying you have to go "heavy" (which is all relative), but being able to squat your bodyweight 5xs wont really hurt anything, but will probably help with a lot more

I would have to say it's at least less of a compound exercise than squat to the extent that leg press is less of a compound exercise than a squat. I'm not really arguing that it is/isn't a compound exercise, just pointing out that there's gray area and blanket arguments about what kind of exercises one should do could be misleading.

Right on! Ever see a thread about how "my knees hurt?"

I lift weights so that I don't end up looking like a bean-pole pro cyclist.

And milk.

+1 on Carbonfiberboy on the natural vs unnatural.

None of the motions our bodies are perfect, hence why there are so many (small) muscles to keep things right. "Natural" movements engage all of these, while isolated or "unnatural" do not, so they take things out of balance. Cycling and cyclic sports (pun intended=) ) sometimes disturb that balance as well, hence why we need to perform exercises focused on whole body strengthening, rather than just legs, etc. This is one of the reasons why rowers do chest exercises to balance the overdeveloped back muscles.

There's a thread in the road bike racing subsection:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ssion-Workouts

++++ mother nature's steroid