You will find people who quote stats that it can't help you and if you say it did they say you are nuts. You will never get a number cruncher to believe anything they can't verify with a calculator.

I can say from personal experience it was either the biggest coinkydink or it worked for me. Tried for nearly a decade to break an hour for the annual club 40K with no success. Hung out with a track guy who invited me to do a 10 week weight training course that winter. Became freakishly strong in the core, glutes, hammys from where I had been. I was able to turn 2 extra cogs at maximum effort during my training that spring and went 58:10 for the spring 40K.

The no weight training group will say it was something else, but I know the changes my body went through and to go from 1:01ish to 58ish.....I know what happened.

Try it, what's the worst thing that can happen?

I introduced weight training into my schedule beginning in Nov, (so 10 weeks ago).

in the meantime my swim, bike and run have all improved, plus my mad calf is now GONE GONE GONE.

My 4 hour power has gone up 22 watts in the last 24 days.

My 20K run time has dropped 4 minutes.

IF weights dont work............ then it must be my Mark McGwire signature series footy pajamas.

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persequetur vestra metas furiose

Mad calf?

Some kind of prion disease...

He was hungry, so he ate it. He loves him some good veal.

How this is relevant to weight training, I'm not sure. ;)

-Jot

p.s.: I believe Slowman posted something about "mad calf" disease on the main page.

Could you link the Science please?

http://www.slowtwitch.com/...alf_disease_926.html

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persequetur vestra metas furiose

"Actually, it's doubtful Longo can push harder on the pedals than many here. What she can do is push the pedals at some power for longer than almost everyone here.

Unless your big gear work lasts only seconds or maybe a minute or two, then no, it isn't strength training as you are still only using a small fraction (25-30%?) of your max power."




I'm trying to learn here, so don't misinterpret this as an argument. You said that we are only using 25 - 30% of our max power.

If our max power is trainable and increases by strength training, then why wouldn't our sustainable power increase as well? You should still use the same 25 - 30% of max, correct? I'm not saying that weights or "strength" training is the only or best way to increase the max power, but it seems like it would work. Or am I not thinking about this correctly?

It's my understanding that max power and max sustainable power don't correlate. Raising the former does not necessarily come about through adaptations that will also raise the latter. Boardman supposedly could sustain 40-50% of max power for an hour; I'd suspect that the best road or track sprinters could only sustain ~20% for an hour.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Muscular force is for the most part specific to the speed of muscular contraction.

It is pretty clear that you do not understand the relationship between force and velocity then.

Maximal force of a muscle/group of muscles (i.e. strength) occurs at zero velocity. No one pedals with their feet going at zero velocity. I can be very strong (e.g. have a very high 1RM) but be pretty slow on a bike, because I have crap aerobic fitness/ability to generate significantly sub-maximal forces repeatedly over long durations.

As soon as you introduce velocity to the effort, the maximal forces we can apply reduce, pretty much decreasing linearly with increasing velocity.

But cycling in a TT involves forces that are well below our maximal force-speed line anyway. It is a metabolic fitness issue and has nothing to do with strength.

Indeed this applies to even the elite track sprinter, let alone endurance cyclists. I was stronger than dual Olympic gold medallist sprint specialist Ryan Bayley (i.e. I could squat more than him) but he can do a flying 200m on the track nearly 3 seconds faster than me. That's because he can apply sub-maximal forces at high velocities than me.

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Training Plans -- Power Meter Hire -- SRM Sales Australia -- cyclecoach.com -- My Blog -- Sydney Turbo Studio

Bingo!

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Training Plans -- Power Meter Hire -- SRM Sales Australia -- cyclecoach.com -- My Blog -- Sydney Turbo Studio

Bingo what?

is a cadence of 20 better than a cadence of 40? edit: or a cadence of 140 better than a cadence of 100?

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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks

It is pretty clear that you do not understand the relationship between force and velocity then.

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I completely understand, Alex.

I also understand why someone who can squat more than an Olympic Gold medalist sprinter, can't ride as fast has him.

Strength is a component of power, right? I understand strength as it relates to cycling. It's a relative thing. Can we compare apples to apples, so to speak?

Let's say two riders of the same weight and same drag, finish a 20km TT with the same time (same average power). One rider averages 75 rpm and one rider averages 100 rpm. How would you characterize the difference between the two riders - in general?

JR

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Jimmy
http://www.Riccitello.com

No. Developing sustainable muscular force to the pedals at 40 rpm will not necessarily translate to a proportional increase in force one can put to the pedals at 80 rpm. Muscular strength is speed of contraction specific. As an extreme example, that's why isometric strength building exercises are for the most part worthless.

But that's where you're going wrong. Strength is not a component of power. When riding our bikes the forces are so far below the maximal force we can apply that strength simply doesn't come into it.

One prefers to ride at a lower cadence than the other. So what?

At 250 watts that's an AEPF of 187N and 140N respectively (170mm cranks).

That's equivalent to pushing ~ 19kg at 75rpm and ~14 kg at 100 rpm with both legs. If you can stand up out of your chair you are already pushing several times that force.
Massive strength is required to do that.

"It's an aerobic sport, dammit" - A.R. Coggan

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Training Plans -- Power Meter Hire -- SRM Sales Australia -- cyclecoach.com -- My Blog -- Sydney Turbo Studio

But that's where you're going wrong. Strength is not a component of power. When riding our bikes the forces are so far below the maximal force we can apply that strength simply doesn't come into it.

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Al- I'm a 5'6" skinny legged runt who used to be able to keep up with big manly guys - I understand the role of the engine in the process.

I understand the relative forces are low - but if one person applies a little more force per pedal stroke to produce the same power - I would classify that person as stronger ... in a cycling sense.

But all these years I did not realize the bicycle magically propelled itself if you simply sat on top of it with a great aerobic engine. Damn - I wasted a lot of time.

JR

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Jimmy
http://www.Riccitello.com

Actually if you read the velocity specific training research literature you will find that training at slow velocities of contraction tends to result in improvements in force at faster velocities as well. The opposite is not true.

Mike

but if one person applies a little more force per pedal stroke to produce the same power

Actually, I'd say it's tough to make any conclusion. Results seem to be kind of contradictory.

http://jap.physiology.org/...t/abstract/51/6/1437

http://www.springerlink.com/...nt/h57235146815622w/

Maybe it's best to say that in a perfect world, specificity still applies and the more specific you can match your force-velocity training to the force-velocity demands of your event the better.

Unless the race is a 1 pedal stroke race. But I've not seen any of those.


Either way you want to pedal, you have to produce energy. It's not a function of how strong you are but, in part, a function of how efficient your body is at meeting the energy demands over a period of time.

Lots of people don't have a science background, for them, maybe it's hard to grasp that strength doesn't = going faster, as I said early in this thread on the surface it seems to make sense for the layman. it's also hard, especially in a conversation that deals with the generalities of energy production, to start talking about the individual nuts and bolts of an athlete.

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

The Kenyans and the Ethiopians are the strongest runners in the world, but if you look at them, it's pretty apparent that they have never been near a gym let alone a weight room in their lives! Connection?

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog