500w is probably too high for 20 mins. I’d guess it’s more like 10 mins at best. No matter, though.
I have sprinted at 850w after a 50 min TT uphill, and typically hit a peak power in the 650w range on a normal training ride (5 sec @ 450w+). I have yet to sprint on fresh feeling-strong legs, so have only just barely hit 1000w. But that’s more strength than anyone needs (short of a sprinter). Yet… my hour TT power is ~240w.
You’d know the answer to this if you watched some crits. Realllllllllllllly skinny kids, with legs barely large enough to stretch their shorts, hang at some pretty high paces.
“Increasing strength for ECP it is possible/likely that it is either a waste of time or detrimental to performance.”
I don’t buy it. How do you explain top cyclists that lift weights? I’d assume they know what they’re doing.
From an article about the training course followed by many of the USPS riders (when USPS was alive):
“By December, the riders who are preparing for the early races and the classics in April will be steadily putting in four-hour rides. They also will combine this with two to three days lifting weights.”
I personally place full responsibility on the mitochondria. I’ve even taken to yelling at them to “pick it up” when climbing long hills. They’re picky little bastards though and usually end up with the last laugh…
“500w is probably too high for 20 mins. I’d guess it’s more like 10 mins at best.”
Well, for reference, Lance wrote something about climbing a hill before his first TdF win at, I don’t remember exactly, but roughly 460W for 30 some minutes. I think Francois Modave wrote one time here that he held above 400W for a 20K TT or 20 some minutes, can’t remember exactly.
So, one of you smart people please learn me why Fernada Keller can’t hold 230W for an Ironman if strength is not key. Since she is out running 14 miles while I’m having my morning donut, I have little doubt that it is based on my superior aerobic conditioning. Since the natural selection process has never selected me to be a competitve endurance athlete, I doubt that it is genetics. If my threshold power is higher than hers, it’s because I’m stronger, period.
By the way, for every skinny legged cyclist in a crit you can find, you’ll find another guy with cut legs completely out of proportion with the rest of his body. The pro triathletes (men) that I have seen in the flesh have mostly had some pretty impressive leg muscle, despite their 150/160 lb weight. Pro bike races perhaps even more so with the exception of the climbers. I think these guys have pants custom made with the thighs from a 34" sewn into a 28" waist. Tyler is no exception.
<It’s a conglomeration of mitochondrial activity, oxygen delivery, waste removal, energy substrate availability, lactic acid buffering capability, electrolyte balance, heat generation/dissipation, and even a mental aspect, all working together to determine your function at that moment. >
“500w is probably too high for 20 mins. I’d guess it’s more like 10 mins at best.”
Well, for reference, Lance wrote something about climbing a hill before his first TdF win at, I don’t remember exactly, but roughly 460W for 30 some minutes. I think Francois Modave wrote one time here that he held above 400W for a 20K TT or 20 some minutes, can’t remember exactly.
So, one of you smart people please learn me why Fernada Keller can’t hold 230W for an Ironman if strength is not key. Since she is out running 14 miles while I’m having my morning donut, I have little doubt that it is based on my superior aerobic conditioning. Since the natural selection process has never selected me to be a competitve endurance athlete, I doubt that it is genetics. If my threshold power is higher than hers, it’s because I’m stronger, period.
By the way, for every skinny legged cyclist in a crit you can find, you’ll find another guy with cut legs completely out of proportion with the rest of his body. The pro triathletes (men) that I have seen in the flesh have mostly had some pretty impressive leg muscle, despite their 150/160 lb weight. Pro bike races perhaps even more so with the exception of the climbers. I think these guys have pants custom made with the thighs from a 34" sewn into a 28" waist. Tyler is no exception.
Yeah, but Hammy is a lot lighter than Armstrong. Fewer watts will get him up the hill in the same time. I recall someone calc’d LA’s output up Alp d’Huez last year to be ~440w for 40 mins. And there’s a huge diff between 400w and 500w. No matter, though, as that wasn’t the intended subject in this thread.
Various studies have shown that there is very little if any transference or gains in fitness and performance from lifting weights in the gym to the actual action on/in the field - in this case the cycling stroke. What do you do? You ride the bike thousands and thousandfs of miles developing a smooth and efficient pedal stroke while at the same time establishing a base of aerobic fitness. You then build up sport specific strength with big gear work and climbing steep and steady hills. It’s remarkably straight-forward when you get it down to the basics.
You probably weigh significantly more, or are a bigger profile than Keller, therefore it takes more watts for you to travel at a given speed. If you are 50% heavier or have 50% more drag (both forms of resistance depending on situation), but only produce 25% more watts, she’s going faster than you…
Watts is a pure number that doesn’t take into account body weight or drag. Therefore, watts per lb (or kg) of body mass (or other unit of resistance) is a more comparable number. Pure watts doesn’t really mean much unless you’re comparing two creatures of the same mass or drag or both… It’s all about strength/weight ratio or strength/resistance ratio.
Either way, strength isn’t the reason you can hold a wattage over several hours.
Various studies have shown that there is very little if any transference or gains in fitness and performance from lifting weights in the gym to the actual action on/in the field - in this case the cycling stroke
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This was, in fact, the conclusion of a much longer but similar thread last year in which various pop-scientists and anecdotalists argued extensively with “The Oracle.” Until something substantive is provided by the the pro-weights crowd, it seems that one cannot expect their bike splits to drop based upon time spent in the weight room.
If My memory serves me correct , Lance did his field test that everyone’s talking about at 495 watts for 30minutes. That’s f*&king hard.
I think a ‘calculation’ of Lance holding 440 watts on l’Alpe d’Huez would be a lowball number. Any USCF coaches out there that attended the SRM presentation back in November would remember seeing the Jens Voight SRM files. One was from l’Alpe d’Huez where he averaged 440+ watts for 40something minutes. And that stellar performance got him 60th on the stage. Then the Plateau de Bau stage where he (Voight) was in the break, he had just over 3hrs producing over 5.2 watts/kg out of a 6hour stage. A nice 7600 kilojoule day, to finish what 50th?
Not trying to put down Jens’ performances; he’s a hard ass rider. Just pointing out that the watts needed to contend at le Tour is higher that most of those predictions.
Well, I never said I was faster, I just said I could hold higher wattage for an IM distance length. We could talk about ways for me to get lighter, but it can’t include changing my diet of donuts, pizza, and chicken nuggets.
Okay, suppose strength isn’t her limiter (dispite the fact that I probably have 2x the muscle mass she does) and that it is all oxygen delivery. Her actual wattage was 161W, with a power/weight of 3.22W/Kg. If she could improve her VO2 max alone to increase her power, then at 240W she would have sustained 4.8W/Kg. The top men are about ~4W/Kg (3.86 according to the link), so that would be some sort of tremendous VO2 max. Can you provide any example of anyone maintaining 4.8W/Kg for an Ironman? Until then, I will have to presume that the VO2 max required is unachievable, so the only way for someone like her to improve her average power that amount would be to gain strength. I’m not saying the VO2 isn’t a big part of it, but strength is equally important. I can’t think a reason why women would be significanlty handicapped in terms of VO2 compared to the top men, but they are obviously carrying less muscle, and also clearly have slower bike times.
I would bet lots of $$$$$ that she can easily achieve 240 watts. Therefore, one might conclude that she has the necessary strength. However, she would possibly be above lactate threshold and would not be able to maintain 240 watts. But the main point is that she has plenty of strength to obtain far above 240 watts. It’s the maintenance of that power that is the sticking point. More muscle mass or neural recruitment (the ONLY two ways to increase strength) aren’t going to make her more able to maintain 240 watts.
Stated differently:
She has to have X number of muscle fibers fire to get to 240 watts. She definitely has enough fibers. She just can’t feed them fast enough to maintain 240 watts over 5 hours. The limiting factor isn’t the number of muscle fibers. It’s lactate threshold.
When I ride at 240W, my heartrate is about 145bmp. I haven’t tested lately, but figure I can hold ~170bpm for up to 1 hour. My peak heartrate on the bike is around 190. Clearly I have much more cardiac output than I am using.
"More muscle mass or neural recruitment (the ONLY two ways to increase strength) aren’t going to make her more able to maintain 240 watts. "
If you really believe that more muscle mass will not help her achieve 240 watts, then I will quit wasting my time. If you compare the threshold power of trained cyclists against their weights, you will certainly see a positive trend.
If you really believe that more muscle mass will not help her achieve 240 watts,
She already can ACHIEVE 240 watts, she just can’t MAINTAIN it. There is the crucial difference. The limiting factor isn’t achieving the power output, she can already easily do that. Five more lbs of muscle mass will increase her peak power output, nobody’s arguing that.
“Lactate threshold is not based on VO2 max only.”
True. Many factors, none of which is muscle mass or strength at aerobic outputs.
If My memory serves me correct , Lance did his field test that everyone’s talking about at 495 watts for 30minutes. That’s f*&king hard.
I think a ‘calculation’ of Lance holding 440 watts on l’Alpe d’Huez would be a lowball number. Any USCF coaches out there that attended the SRM presentation back in November would remember seeing the Jens Voight SRM files. One was from l’Alpe d’Huez where he averaged 440+ watts for 40something minutes. And that stellar performance got him 60th on the stage. Then the Plateau de Bau stage where he (Voight) was in the break, he had just over 3hrs producing over 5.2 watts/kg out of a 6hour stage. A nice 7600 kilojoule day, to finish what 50th?
Not trying to put down Jens’ performances; he’s a hard ass rider. Just pointing out that the watts needed to contend at le Tour is higher that most of those predictions.
It’s very difficult for me to imagine, being the same weight as Lance, that he can rock on for 30 minutes at a pace I could only hold onto for about 150 seconds. Crap, that’s pretty far out there.
374w for 3+ hours for a 72kg rider is outright insane. Can that be validated? If so, can the insanity be certified?
Okay, I should have said more muscle mass will allow her to MAINTAINE 240 watts. Either way, as I mentioned, there is clearly a strong correlation between muscle mass and maximum sustainable power as demonstrated by any weight vs power comparison of cyclists.
How exactly do you define “strength at aerobic outputs”? The strict definition of strength is the 1 repetition maximum weight, hence non-aerobic, and in fact not even glycogen sourced. I’m sure we are both considering strength the same way, I’m just not sure how you would define it. If you have more of this loosely defined strength (glycogen fueled), you can maintain a high power for short periods of say 1-2 minutes, ie a sprinter or track racer. This is actually anerobic endurance. If you have a high anerobic endurance as measured by a high power output for a 2 minute period, then it would seem to follow that you have a high lactate threshold in watts (not in heart rate). Your ability to hold a high aerobic wattage is determined by how close it is to that threshold. If you agree that more muscle mass provides a higher threshold power, then that is identical to saying that lactate threshold (in watts) is proportional to muscle mass.
