I believe weight lifting should be part of training at the right time and in the right amounts, but Fleck is exactly right, empirical evdience just does not support the theory that lifting weights improves performance. Does it help prevent injury? I believe it does, and this is why I do it, and why I believe most pro's do also. I have a hard time believing that a leg session of 45min helps me more so than a well executed 2x20 workout on my CT(specificity!!). Here is a section from an excellent article that does a good job laying out the empirical evidence:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/...ss/?id=strengthstern "There have been many studies conducted on strength training to assess specificity (e.g., Luecke, et al., 1998, Harris et al., 2000, Fagan and Doyle-Baker, 2000, Bishop et al., 1999, Rich and Cafarelli, 2000), which have shown
no crossover in strength gains to a different exercise to that which was trained, even in similar exercises." Furthermore, as strength training increases the amount of contractile properties within the muscle, and as the muscle undergoes hypertrophy,
there will be a relative decrease in the volume of mitochondria (energy-producing bodies) within the muscle. Mitochondrion density increases with aerobic training."
"I really wish you would post more often. You always have some good stuff to say. I copied it below just in case someone missed it." BarryP to Chainpin on 10/21/06