Actually, I think you could be accused of such. You know very well what people are talking about when the talk about "strength" on the bike and strength training for the bike. You know very well they are not talking about 1 rep max strength, the only definition you seem to accept, yet you will not engage them in this discussion.
according to you this is settled science and there is no possiblity that anyone who think otherwise could possibly be right
Huh? What a stupid argument. Until the study is done and the data is analyzed one cannot say anything about any future study. However, one cannot be to hopeful about your open mind on these matters since your major criticisms of the Luttrell study were 1. the journal it was published in and, 2. the fact he didn't acknowledge that we gave him a set of cranks for him to do his study. Neither one of those have anything to do with the study design or data collected but it is all you ever say about the study and the man.
Are you saying the science is closed on this matter? No need to ever do another study on the issue. Everything that could possibly be known on this topic is known?
If it isn't published it doesn't exist. LOL. Lance and Carmichael write an article on how he trains and why and "because it isn't in a peer reviewed journal" it should be ignored. Lance trains with weights and because we know about it only from Youtube, it should be ignored? Is that what you are saying? Science learns from observation. When something is observed that goes against the common knowledge it behooves the good scientist to examine the issue to see if it is true and to try to explain the mechanism. I mean, really. Is it really your opinion that observations mean NOTHING unless they are in a peer reviewed journal?
Well, if you say "there is no evidence" ever you are most certainly almost always wrong. A more correct response would be "the preponderance of evidence I am aware of shows" but an even better response would be "I interpret the evidence to show" But, to say there is "no evidence" is crazy.
LOL. Who here do you think is going to have the resources to do a "proper" study and get it published in a peer reviewed journal to "prove you wrong". In my opinion you post as you do to feel superior to others or some other crazy reason. It certainly isn't to stimulate someone here to do the studies to prove you wrong.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Barry P. if those are your words so be it, and quit using ST as an excuse to masturbate. We really don't want to know.
meanwhile, ask yourself why you read "RT", but you see "LIFT".

TonyNYC, keep your interest in my bowel movements a secret. we really don't need to be that aware of your proclivities.

Andy, IMHO Bastiaan has done some good research. actually most of the research referred to provides an interesting result, but it is still a result that proves that the environment created by the study leads to the studies result.

I really find it difficult to spend more than an hour arguing with people so vehemently against opening their minds to the possibility that the science community has not CLOSED the book on this subject. When I get into these debates its amusing how quickly one person starts getting replies from a half dozen or more who combine losely formed arguments combined with a link to pubmed, and then some snide remark that usually indicates that they are just running out of steam and waiting for one of their confederates to jump in and save them. I'm tired on this, I just dont care enough.

I guess the part I am left with when I log off from ST, is that those people I used to SO look up to I cannot anymore; and the sole reason for that dissapointment is that they have lost that aspect of a true scientific mind that says: what DONT I yet know. Instead, you just keep reading posts that contain such a note of finality, as in: I KNOW, end of story.

That's not science, that's ego; and where is that going to take you.


Insofar as creating a study that might bring actual data on the subject, It would be comprehensive and I wont take the time to lay it all out but what would definitely need to be included and has been lacking in all aforementioned studies is:

a suitable recovery environment for all stressors provided for in the study
nutritional support for those same stressors
equal distribution of endurance training for both groups (volume and intensity).
the RT training model would be one applicable to the intended athletic activity.

In short, keep the endurance training equivalent across both groups,

Supplement one groups activity with RT, but both groups will still have a schedule that would allow for the additional time requirements that RT training requires, vs. forcing the RT group to return to activity before recovery needs have been met. this prevents a negative result based on inadequate recovery.

Ensure nutritional requirements are met for both groups, based on their recovery needs; this prevents a neg result based on inadequate nutrition.

I would call this a very short list of criteria, but these would be (some) the essential ones. To be honest, I just reached my limit for giving a shit for the day.
cheers,

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persequetur vestra metas furiose

Back in the mid-90s Maffetone was advising or coaching Allen, Pigg, and other top triathletes. He wrote a book which I owned at one time. From what I recall from the book and the old rec.sport.triathlon newsgroup, Maffetone advocated training at a HR of no more than 180-age and eschewed weight training as it was anaerobic and could impede aerobic function.

Since Maffetone coached the dominant triathlete of the era and wrote a (non-peer reviewed) book or two. What makes his opinions less credible than Carmichael's?

Nothing. It would depend upon your bias as to which you tended to believe more, I guess. However, it seems to me that one might want to listen to what these folks have to say and perhaps explore what sounds interesting to them. At least with Armstrong we have some data to support that there might be some reason to believe that some of what they are saying might have some credibility, i.e., the Coyle paper which documents his 8% cycliing efficiency improvement over 8 years.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

Frank, I am a patient man and I have about run out on you. You can't possibly be this stupid, so I am going to try and explain it as simply as I can:

In triathlon, the triathlete never needs to "accelerate" to catch a break, they don't need to "accelerate" in order to make a break, they don't need to "accelerate" in order to cover a break, nore do they need to "sprint" in order to score points at the top og a mountain or at the end of a stage.

THAT is why cyclists lift weights. Any of those activities requires "sprinting" ability...ie, the ability to "accelerate quickly."

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I guess you have never watched a short course, draft legal triathlon. Those folks have to accelerate to catch breaks sometimes, just like cyclists.

Anyhow, while you may not think triathletes need to train like Lance, a lot of triathletes look to him to emulate him. Why not? What if he shows up at Kona motivated to really race and kicks everyone's butt. What will you say about how triathletes need to "lift" then?

Besides, the question had to do with sprinting anyhow. I was told Lance lifted weights because he was a sprinter with a reference to the "acceleration" statement as I remember. I simply pointed out that acceleration is not sprinting. Lance is not a sprinter but he lifts weights. Simple fact. And, while I agree that there is little, if anything, to be gained from weight training for a long-course triathlete I do not know if the science is closed on this subject and I am open to the possibility. Some here seem to think the book is closed. I sincerely doubt it. I have never seen any science topic in which the science is closed, where our understanding is complete. Plenty of people here (perhaps you are among them) seem to think it is when it comes to strength training for endurance athletes or pedaling technique in cyclists (why you would think so with a 16 mph average bike speed with your engine I don't know, but you might). But, to me, the burden is on those who think the knowledge is complete in this area and for them to prove they are correct.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

At face value, this is true, but I still don't agree with the argument that strength is not a factor once the force is sub-maximal. Suppose we have two people, one is a bench press champion who can bench press 700lb. The other is a more normal regular gym visitor who can bench press 200lb. They have a contest to see who can perform the most reps with 190lbs. I would put money on the 700lb bench presser performing more reps. Now, we might say that the 200lb guy isn't limited by strength, he just can't keep it up for a long enough amount of time, and this would be true, but I would argue that he IS effectively limited by his max strength, because if his max strength were better than 200lb, it would almost certainly increase the number of reps he could perform at 190lb.

So then you say yes, but 190lb is too close to his max strength, it does make a difference when you're that close. But how far away do you have to move before the importance of strength becomes zero? Have there been studies done where 700lb guy and 200lb guy have competed with lower and lower weights to see at what point 200lb guy becomes able to perform more reps?

Re Gebrselassie, I would also be willing to bet that if he were to undertake cycling training, even if he focused on aerobic work, he would inevitably increase his leg strength as a side effect of the cycling training. If this did happen, and his FTP improved along with his leg strength, I don't see how we can so easily dismiss the training adaptation of increased leg strength as playing no part in his improved performance. I have to some extent been through a similar process with my own cycling training. I started from an excellent aerobic base from years of swimming, and only managed to improve my FTP by 11%. At the same time, 5 sec power increased by 25%, despite this supposedly being less trainable. Logically, the bottleneck was initially primarily my leg muscles. Unfortunately I didn't anticipate this debate and didn't measure my leg strength before I started. When I resume cycling in a few weeks I won't have done much in the previous month or two, so I'll try to remember to test my leg strength as a baseline to compare against some months later.

It is also possible that some of that increase in 5 second power came about because of better coordination or dynamics as you got used to the bicycle. There are so many variables it is impossible to know with just this simple power data.

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

At face value, this is true, but I still don't agree with the argument that strength is not a factor once the force is sub-maximal. Suppose we have two people, one is a bench press champion who can bench press 700lb. The other is a more normal regular gym visitor who can bench press 200lb.

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The issue might be clearer if you understood the magnitude of forces involved and the pathways of energy production to service the production of the forces.

Tension on the muscle stimulates a demand for energy in order to resist the tension. The greater the tension the greater the demand for energy. Large forces require greater energy production. The muscles use ATP for muscular contraction which can be generated through 3 pathways (which do not act independently), which can supply more or less ATP at different rates and sustainability.

Strength (production of high force) requires larger amounts of ATP produced quickly. Endurance (production of lower forces over a longer period of time) require correspondingly lower production of ATP which must be sustained for the duration of the activity.

In general there are two distinct muscle fibre types and the magnitude of forces acting on the muscle fibres directly relates to the recruitment of these fibre types. The lower the force the more likely endurance fibres will be adequate to supply the energy to meet the tension demands. The greater the force the more the strength fibres will be needed to be recruited to produce enough tension.

As has been said before the force required to produce 400watts when cycling is so low that most any untrained healthy individual can do so. The ability to maintain this force for appreciable distances (supply energy by aerobic means) is reserved for relatively few because few have the genetics or training to be able to produce ATP at the aerobic rate required. Strength (production of ATP due to high force) is not the issue, sustainability (production of energy over a longer period) is.

Your example , the stronger athlete will indeed have the advantage depending on how long the duration of the activity is because the activity demands high force production over limited time span. But this is not a fair comparison to endurance cycling as the force/energy demands for lifting 200lbs/700lbs are so far removed from the forces required to generate typical cyclist wattages. The fact that some cyclists may and some dont lift weights and either may cycle at 400 watts for 1 hour is hardly evidence that weight training is required to cycle at 400watts for 1 hour.

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"Re Gebrselassie, I would also be willing to bet that if he were to undertake cycling training, even if he focused on aerobic work, he would inevitably increase his leg strength as a side effect of the cycling training."

The low force demands of cycling would likely not improve strength (maximal force production) but definitely improve the supply of energy aerobically (production of lower forces over a longer time period). You could call him stronger aerobically but not stronger in exercise science def of "strength".


Andrew

 


And the burden is on you to prove that masturbation will not improve my cycling. While we are at it, the burden is on you to prove that cycling zero miles a week will not improve my cycling. Yeah, I know, some people seem to think the book is closed on the subject and that knowledge is complete, but they are full of themselves. They can't possibly know that masturbating and riding zero miles a week *won't* improve my cycling, so who are they to say that it doesn't? Next thing you know, they'll start insisting that we stick to precise definitions of "masturbate" and "zero," all in an attempt to confuse the reader.


Seriously, Frank, do you live in Bizzaro world? All that has been said is that there has been no evidence to link one to the other. You can do whatever the hell you want with your training, but when asked if weightlifting and building strength will improve your endurance cycling, the answer is that there is no logical reason to believe that it would.

...............I will grant you the caveat. It is quite possible that it actually does, just like it is quite possible that monkeys will fly out of my butt. Until you prove they can't, lets keep the book open on my butt monkeys.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Then insert "like the boys on the Pro Tour do" and we should be in agreement.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

I do understand all that and thank you for giving a logical and rational argument via an explanation of underlying physiology. It's a much better argument than people repeatedly asserting they are right, and saying we should believe them because they assure us they are well qualified and know what they're talking about.

What I will say from my own experience of combining weight training with swimming is that it is much more complex than what you described because of the interaction between the two forms of training. When I leave the gym and get into the pool, my muscles are absolutely crushed. This has to have a knock on effect on what is happening inside my body during the swimming training. If you keep performing the weight training, your muscles reach a depth of fatigue totally unlike anything you get from swimming training alone. Believe it or not, you can find your strength increasing in the gym while still feeling like your muscles are totally and utterly crushed, and swimming like a slug. The magic only visibly happens when you stop doing the weights. I'm not going to attempt to explain how it happens, but it can take a long time after stopping the weight training for improved performance to show. One possibility is that because you're still doing the training for your main sport, in my case swimming, your body really struggles to recover from the weight training while you're still hammering your muscles every day with training for your main sport.

Now Andy Coggan has assured me in the past that what I have described above is highly implausible because changes in fitness happen quickly and tapering only gains you a few % of performance at best. What he says simply doesn't match my experience. I have had a 10% improvement in 3 minute cycling power output after doing no cycling at all for 3.5 weeks, for example. I know someone who thought he had found the holy grail of swimming training when he changed his regime to a high intensity low volume regime. This is great, he said, I'm no longer tired all the time, I can swim fast at every meet, I'm doing PBs. Really, he was just on a very long taper, and it took 1-2 years for the benefit of his previous training to fully decline and he stopped doing PBs. First he couldn't swim a fast 200m any more, then some time later he couldn't swim a fast 100m any more, and eventually he couldn't even match his best times over 50m. But it took a really long time for all those changes to happen, and he spent many many months getting faster before the decline started.

As you point out, this just isn't an analogous situation, since the force requirements in cycling, which have been detailed in this thread, are far below maximal for anyone without a serious infirmity.


I'd say when the duration of the event is such that it uses up the immediately available phosphogens, ATP and PCr, strength becomes less important, and the longer you go on that continuum, the less important it becomes. We can all agree that leg strength is important for efforts of 5 secconds. At 30 seconds, the importance of leg strength starts to become debatable. We aren't talking about that,though. We're talking about strength's contribution for efforts of several minutes, or several hours. It's a completely different animal, fueled by different energy sources than events where 'strength' is an issue.





the flip side of this is that I got into cycling after playing tennis competitively, of all things. My leg strength has deteriorated, significantly, as my FTP has improved. So does that mean that weaker legs=better cycling performance? Well, not necessarily. It just means that cause/effect isn't always as clear cut as it may seem.

Look, I have no agenda regarding weight lifting, or trying to raise your FTP by increasing your 5 second power. And no one KNOWS that leg strength and 5 second power aren't related to threshold power. Then again, I don't KNOW the sun's coming up tomorrow, but I think it's reasonable to hypothesize that it will. Here's what we do 'know', however:

1. overwhelmingly, most of the available scientific data available suggest that leg strength is not a contributing factor to endurance performance

2. there's a ton of anecdotal evidence to suggest that leg strength and endurance cycling performance aren't related

3. there's no real reasonable hypothesis as to why leg strength would affect threshold power--at least a hypothesis which holds up to any scrutiny at all

Despite all that, you can try to raise your threshold power by dragging it up from the extreme left end of the power profile, and by increasing your leg strength, and see if it works for you. Hell, I've done sillier things in an effort to improve performance. That said, I'd suggest thinking about it a little more critically and trying a different path. I think that would be a better use of your time. This coming from someone who already has tried the whole 'converting leg strength to power' thing. That's my .02.

Cadel Evans on gym work:

Most of the exercises I do are specific to my sport. Its not like I can say "I bench this weight and I squat this". I do squats but they are leg squats with dumbbells. I train so that I don't compensate to one side - to my stronger side. I concentrate on being of equal strength. To be a cyclist, you have to be careful about strength and balances. Obviously if you've got a stronger leg, your going to favour that leg and that affects your hip, your back and all sorts of injuries can result from that.

Most of my strength work is based not only around increasing strength, but also as an injury deterrent or focussing on maintaining a balance in strength.

From "Close to Flying" Rob Arnold 2009

In response to this the nay sayers suggest that these athletes are still great regardless of their mistakes (implying that weight training is a mistake). They leave out that they all have VERY smart and experienced people advising them and have actually achieved results. Not everything is learnt from lab coats :)
:)

Edit: As for not being able to prove injury prevention. You should look into results regarding the introduction of specific weights sessions to prevent/remedy ITB injuries in runners. From memory the success rate after 6 weeks was over 90%.

Naysayers, anecdotes and appeals to authority. Did you do the same mail order Diploma of Marketing as Frank Day?

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Hamish Ferguson: Cycling Coach

Let us take a more relevant weight-lifting thought experiment. You take any non-endurance-trained weight lifter/body builder/power lifter, and I'll take John Kenny, an STer who is a world-class long distance swimmer and pro triathlete. Plunk them down on a lat-pulldown machine, and see who can lift the most total weight in, say, 20 minutes, using any weight per rep they choose, changing it at will. Now, your guy might be able to do 2-3 times what John can do in a single rep. Who will you put your money on as to who can do the most total work in that 20 minutes? I'll put money on John, and give odds to boot.

This is much more applicable to endurance cycling, as it is the total work done in a given time that matters, not who can do maximal effort for brief spurts.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I agree, I was just making the point that the argument that an exertion is purely aerobic once it is below someone's one rep max strength is a poor one, because it depends how far below it is, so one would need to justify the decision as to where exactly the transition occurs.



Lets run with this, as we're at least getting into discussing the real reasons why strength training would/wouldn't make a difference. The fuel for all exertions is ATP, the only change is where the ATP comes from. So your muscles are fueled by the same substance whether you are exerting yourself for 1 rep or 5000 reps. This brings an important question into my mind - if you increase your one rep max strength, what happens to the relationship between force and ATP used? If person A can bench press 200lb, and person B 600lb, does person B simply consume 3x as much ATP to do that? I think this is perhaps the crucial question. If there is zero difference in muscular efficiency from strength training, then the % of 1 rep max strength used for an exertion will be an irrelevance, as it would only be the absolute level of exertion that determines ATP utilisation, and hence the need for ATP production.

Actually what I think is most relavent is if you take a guy and have him do zero squats in a week but 6 hours on the bike and take that same guy and have him ride 5 hours a week and spend 1 hour doing squats and see who gets faster in the end.

On a related note, I remember a football coach laughing about a guy who was "power lifting" for football. Even in a sport where strength is clearly important, he found "power lifting" to be a waste of time compared to the explosive style lifting and sled pushing that he had his team doing. Bottom line is, whatever people think lifting is going to do for them, they'd be better off actually doing the activity. Is lifting going to make one a better climber? How about doing hills instead? Better at sprinting? Sprint instead. Better at 6 hour rides? Do 6 hour rides instead.

.....I mean, hey, if its all related, then those 6 hour rides should improve your squat anyway, right?

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Since both of those lifting activities (200 vs 600) are going to take the same amount of time (about :05 for a 1RM lift), they will be supplied by the PCr system.

If you wanted to do 5000 reps, they will be supplied through oxidative phosphorlyation predominately.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I'm not sure it is so unrelated to endurance running, the relationship between running economy and explosive / plyometric training seems well documented:

http://jap.physiology.org/...ntent/full/86/5/1527

http://www.hawaii.edu/...etric%20Training.pdf

http://fulltext.ausport.gov.au/...csms/papers/SPUR.pdf

More intriguing perhaps, at least for me, is the relationship more recently found between more standard máximal strenght training and running economy:

Maximal Strength Training Improves Running Economy in Distance Runners

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Ale Martinez
www.amtriathlon.com

I haven't read the first three articles, but I've always maintained that the shorter the event, the more necessary drillss, hills, and plyometric type training is. The longer the event, the les important they are. For elite 5K runner, plyos are still fairly important.

As for the last article, I find that interesting and would be interested to see what the differences in race times were. Perhaps AC has or has not read that study?

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

That study mentions an increase in time to exhaustion, which seems to come up in cycling as well.

Resistance Training Leads to Altered Muscle Fiber Type Composition and Enhanced Long-term Cycling Performance in Elite Competitive Cyclists

The link to the hawaii study doesn't work for me

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

I've fixed it, try again.

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Ale Martinez
www.amtriathlon.com