cyclintom

Uh, not really - Researchers found that trainees experienced a “shift” in their muscle fiber types, from type IIx (anaerobic fast-twitch, or explosive) to type IIa (aerobic fast-twitch), during training. After stopping training, the shift reversed, and even led to an increase in type IIx muscle fibers.

Two studies have observed the transformation of type 2 fibers to type 1 with copious amounts of endurance training (Howald H) (Smrkolj L, Škof B). Interestingly enough, both studies noted observed that explosive training leads to the hypertrophy of type II fast-twitch muscle fibers, and not a transformation.

Many studies have shown that changing fast twitch to slow twitch doesn't appear to be possible. But as I've said elsewhere most of these studies have too small a sampling size and cannot be considered definitive. And most of the studies have opposite findings.

seypat

I really don't think weight lifting is beneficial to "serious cyclists." The main reason is that lifting weights will not produce the pencil necked, stick figured upper body that they crave and brag about on bike forums.

OBoile

I'm a fan of Mike Israetel. Definitely someone I listen to any time he comments on a topic.

Goldsbar

Some random thoughts from someone who has spent decades both cycling and lifting (mastering neither!)...

• To those that suggest 25 reps to failure, have you ever done 25 reps in a compound exercise to failure? It's torture. Far worse than cycling intervals. The one time I thought I had a heart problem, couldn't sleep all night and actually went to the doctor was after a single 20-rep max set of squats. No thanks.
• Lifting at "only" 80-85% of max does not mean your not going to failure. Two completely different concepts. Powerlifters don't "max" (i.e. 1 rep to failure or 1RM) because it kills joints if done too often. It doesn't mean they don't go to failure at say 5 reps x 85-88% of 1RM weight.
• Be reasonable. 2 days/week 3x8 on the main compounds same weight to near failure on the last set is a good compromise.
• Actual strength is determined largely by where your muscles insert, which determines the length of you lever (leverage). Bigger muscles have slightly more leverage. Muscle type is also a huge contributor. Much of this can't be trained.
• To the original question of the OP, I think weights help a little with cycling. Mostly on jumping up rollers or the beginning of a sprint. Better to spend time cycling if getting faster is your *sole* goal

KraneXL

LOL, that would be useless weight to a pro or enthusiast cyclist. But I think the idea is to train the muscles that count, e.g. lower body.

Carbonfiberboy 

Yeah, I used to do 30 reps (usually only 28) both with barbell squats and the sled. And yes, there were a lot of big guys in the gym who couldn't do what I did. But I trained specifically to do that. And yes, it hurt like hell, but it made a difference in my cycling. Pete Penseyres, was reputed to be able to sled 50 reps at 400 lbs.

Good points there. I start my lifting season with 3 X 12 but using progressive weights. I need to warm up. My second set is always easier than the first, even at increased weight. By the high season, I'm down to 2 sets of 5. Twice a week, like you say. I've found that weights help my cycling a lot, but I'm older than most people here, which makes a difference. One must realize why one is lifting and leave one's ego at the gym door. The results roadies are looking for are found on the road.

OBoile

Higher reps are harder for "strong" guys than they are for endurance athletes for a couple of reasons IMO:
1. They're stronger, so they're doing a lot more work in a given time.
2. They're not as fit from a cardio perspective, so they can't handle the same amount of work, let alone more.

The strong guys can really create a lot of oxygen debt when they do high reps.

Several years ago I did a deadlift for reps contest to raise money for fellow lifter who was severely injured (in a car crash - not from lifting ). As the weight being done was based on a lifter's bodyweight, you could kind of see a distinction between the "weak" people like me and the strong people. The weak people stopped due to muscular failure, the last rep or two was a grind. The strong people, who did >= 15 or so reps stopped due to cardio issues. The weight was still moving very quickly for them, they just were (extremely) out of breath.

Carbonfiberboy 

^WOW. That's a lot of weight and DLs are much harder than squats because more muscles involved. Amazing.

Carbonfiberboy 

My favorite quote for the Renaissance link:thus I say, "Endurance starts when you start enduring." Which really starts when you get tired. From then on, you're golden. When the serious pain starts, it's happening for you, baby. Smile big.

KraneXL

Fortunately I've lived long enough to see the results later in life from lifting those heavy weights and its not pretty. I suppose one might say that's the price you pay for fame, and that the same thing is true in most major sports. But its important to get in and get out before any permanent damage is done. Unfortunately, most weight/power guys don't do that until its too late.

PaulRivers

This is said - make big claims about healthy and no injuries, people get injured, attack the people so what actually happened to them doesn't interupt your absurd claims.

This was the only post I could find in the thread from you where you linked to anything:
https://www.bikeforums.net/20638588-post31.html

No mention of studying injury rates.
"Specifically, adults with high-intensity exercise levels, such as 30-40 minutes jogging for fives days per week, appears to keep your cells nine years younger than your birthday cake would suggest."
https://www.iflscience.com/health-an...most-a-decade/

No mention of studying injury rates.
"As we age, two forms of exercise are the most important to focus on: aerobic exercise, or cardio, which gets your heart pumping and sweat flowing, and strength training, which helps keep aging muscles from dwindling over time...Strength-training moves like tai chi are best for preserving muscles from age-related decline...(it later mentions planks, bodyweight squats, and 20 lb dumbells"
https://www.businessinsider.com/best...w-aging-2018-4

No mention of studying injury rates.
"Subjects performed 12 different exercises including the chest press, leg press, leg extension, leg flexion, shoulder press, lat pull-down, seated row, calf raise, abdominal crunch, back extension, biceps curl and triceps extension."
No mentions of the specific higher risk lifts I mentioned - squats, deadlifts, bench press. A long list near the bottom of things you should do to be cautious about not injuring the clients.
https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Articl...resistUNM.html

No mention of studying injury rates.
Says that older adults can gain muscle mass by lifting weight but no mention of the actual lifts to do other than a ancedotal "human interest" person who I don't think was even in the study doing very low weight.
https://www.npr.org/2011/02/21/13377...-pressing-iron

No mention of studying injury rates.
Says "strength training" but is completely lacking in any specifics of what exercises they used.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14552938

No mention of studying injury rates.
Exercises seem to be bodyweight and light dumbells, ankle weights, wrist weights.
https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity...g_stronger.pdf

-------------------------------------------------------

You have not linked to a single study on injury rates.

The articles you posted recommend things like walking to light weights with a few weight machines.

​​

Campag4life

Tendon, ligament damage resulting in joint replacement?
Vertebra atrophy/spine issues?

Is there a pattern that is known among lifters?

I have never lived in that world and this thread has been an interesting read.

mcours2006

What endurance athletes, particularly cyclists, should be concerned about is loss of muscle mass with the amount of endurance training that they do. They shouldn't concern themselves with training for strength as much as mitigation of loss of muscle mass. Training in the 5-8 rep range may help to slow or stop the loss of muscle mass, and keep you from having that skin and bones look.

OBoile

It wasn't on this thread.
https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycl...-riding-3.html
Go to post 66. You'll see I posted statistical evidence, you posted anecdotes, excuses and a poorly understood interpretation of powerlifting methodology. Then, as it appears to be how you operate, you claim you're being "attacked" by anyone who points out a fallacy in your reasoning.

OBoile

Well thanks. The truth is, I was always pretty mediocre (iirc, the winner did something like 21 reps). But, that's comparing myself with people who did it seriously and generally had good genetics for the sport (which I did not, I was always too lanky, I should have been 40-50 lbs heavier for my height). Seeing what the truly gifted (and dedicated) people could do was always very humbling. Compared to a "typical guy at the gym", yeah I was pretty strong.

OBoile

I lived in that world. What he says isn't true. A very large portion of competitors were masters (40 and over) lifters, with many in their 60s and 70s. I don't know of a single one who suffered any kind of debilitating injury which kept them from living a normal life. Keep in mind, these are people who are pushing their limits and competing (i.e. taking risks), not people who are just lifting for health as is being suggested here.

Carbonfiberboy 

And I don't think I've mentioned a big reason for cyclists to lift, though it is mentioned in my links which few people have probably read: bone density, i.e. staying fracture-free into old age. I'm a cyclist who's never broken a bone, though I did crack a couple ribs in downhill skiing accidents in my youth. The thing is that to force your body to strengthen a bone requires a stress on said bone equal to 10% of its breaking strength. Therefore it's either do plyometrics or lift heavy. My reading says that lifting's safer and you can load more bones.

PaulRivers

What you linked to:
https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/4/211

What is says about itself:
"Quality assessment - the results of the quality assessment are presented in table 3. One study was considered to be of ‘good’ quality.20 This was the only study that could answer question nine of the assessment tool ‘Were the exposure measures (independent variables) clearly defined, valid, reliable, and implemented consistently across all study participants?’. Four studies were considered to be of ‘fair’10 ,18 ,19 ,21 and four were of ‘poor’ quality... Since no study identified the possible risk factors, most studies were of retrospective design and generally of ‘poor’ or ‘fair’ quality; the information received from this systematic review is insufficient to address the potential for prevention. Future studies are needed to describe the specific injury types and risk factors for injuries in weightlifting and powerlifting."

But it looked at the average people I was talking about? No.
"Studies had to meet the following criteria for inclusion: study population consisting of competitive weightlifters or powerlifters and inclusion of injury incidence and/or injury prevalence..."

What happened to the average people who got injured while training and dropped out and didn't become a successful powerlifter? They're not in the study.

I have yet to see a single study on what the injury rate is for regular people with an average age and regular office job. My experience is it's terrible.

What I wrote earlier:
"I think it's a combination of lifting being a little dangerous moreso if your body isn't suited for it, and just abysmally terrible advice given out as to how to lift. The "popular" lifting programs I see are like equivalent to suggesting people bike by dressing up in all black and riding on the street at 01:30am in front of the worst bar in town. When you see actual professionals who both train people and also face consequences if they injure people talking about how they train, it's almost always the exact opposite of the "popular" advice you read about lifting online."

Starting off with complicated high weight lifts, starting those lifts off with near your max weight the first time you do them, training every time at or near your max, not warming up - people who are successful powerlifting coaches etc do not train this way. This is what a lot of "popular" online lifting programs do and probably a contributing factor to why I see everyone who jump into them get seriously injured.

OBoile

Do you have any evidence, at all, that "regular" people are somehow more injury prone? If not, perhaps you should stop making that assertion. Once again, your argument of "I hurt myself so it must be bad" which is not a particularly strong one. Pointing that out isn't attacking you. It is a far worse argument than even a "poor" study, let alone the aggregate of several.

Finally, again, competitive lifters are purposefully pushing the envelope. It is far more risky than strength training for general health.

Squats, deadlifts and bench press aren't complicated.
No program does this.
Virtually no one does this either.
I'll give you this one. People should be warming up and many don't.
Pretty much no one trains this way. And what would you know of what popular powerlifting coaches do? Have you ever trained with one? I have.
No they don't.
You mean the two people you mention (while ignoring the people on this very thread who lift and have not been injured)?

Threads like this are a classic example of why it's a bad idea to get advice on lifting from a cycling forum (much like it's a bad idea to get advice on cycling from a lifting forum).

Hermes

I have been lifting weights consistently and belonged to a gym since 1977. So has my wife.

I saw this thread initially and was going to post something and then it took off and there were no good entry points. Much like stocks that have run a lot, where the easy money has been made already. @Carbonfiberboy and others have done a great job debating and making points.

My little tweak to this thread which may take it another leg up is the role that neurology plays in the difference between cycling where one is using one leg at a time where the force varies while coordinating both legs firing muscles at a particular velocity to propel the bike. I am not sure if I said that perfectly but...

An example, comparing a pedal stroke to a leg press. The pedal motion is more circular versus constrained in a straight line by the leg press machine. So when I do a leg press, I do one leg at a time but the other leg just dangles. What about speed of motion? Fast or slow. Does one do fast reps with heavy weights or is heavy and fast problematic. Or does speed of repetition not matter? Maybe trying to develop a close proxy in the gym to the pedal stroke is a bad idea and not necessary. Do not know.

Jumping...When I started racing my first coach had me in his cycling gym doing a circuit to strengthen the pedal stroke. Lots of sets and higher speed repetitions but not a lot of weight. For what he called his stronger guys, he had them jumping. I used him again a couple of years later and he wanted me to jump. I have a bad back. I used a physiatrist at Stanford Hospital who was the head of the pain treatment center and he fixed my back with PT. That is a another story TLDR. So I decided to check with him figuring he probably send me to psychiatry from his office for proposing jumping.

No. He thought that box jumping would be good for my back. However, he said to jump onto the box and land like a cat. It was the landing that was critical but no slam dunking basketballs or jumping off the box. I should step off the box. And he said, that if my back did not like it, it would let me know. I can box jump and it does not affect my back. That is a big YMMV.

IMO, jumping has helped my cycling. Jumping is ballistic and creates that explosive strength. Also, it is very taxing aerobically and immediately increases my HR. The other benefit is that it uses the muscles eccentrically and the impact of the landing stresses bones. I use the plyo safe boxes that are padded and they also soften the landing.

Weight training on the bike...And then there is using the bike to increase strength. Trackies know all about strength training on the bike. It is called accelerations jumps and starts. At least a couple of times per week, when I am on the road, I warmup up and then do 3 x 7-10 second accelerations to 110 -120 rpm and then 30 second all out acceleration same cadence followed by a seated start and a standing start. The seated start is in the drops, 80 gear inches on a slight incline in the road. I roll up to a stop and stomp with my left foot while keeping my chest up and back flat (no rounding of the back). I used a count of 10. The standing start is in the drops same posture as the seated start but this time standing. The seated start is like a single leg leg press in the gym and the standing start similar to a single leg deadlift with the correct posture on the bike and neurology. I do the same when I am at the track. These with definitely make one stronger on the bike.

redlude97

You might find this podcast useful, especially in regards to speed of movement vs weight and power generation https://www.velonews.com/2017/11/pod...ht-room_452326

wphamilton

What's wrong with that? 5-10 reps to exhaustion, 3 sets increasing, is exactly what I did to increase strength as a "normal person". About 6-8 months, when I reached my goals and stopped. Other than a level of soreness that most people wouldn't want to deal with, there didn't seem to be much risk of injury.

Carbonfiberboy 

Coming back from being massively out of shape due to illness. Lifted yesterday, ran today, and yup, most folks would never want their legs to feel like this. Go to the doctor, probably. I'll be OK. Feels good to have these sensations, even if they aren't that pleasant.

Carbonfiberboy 

1:09 is a lot of podcast to sit through. I only listened to the first :30. Interesting, but what I heard was a complete lack of scientific results-oriented cycling trained experience. IOW I did not hear, "I had my athletes lift in an X and such program and their 40 mile TT times dropped by Y, whereas the athletes who did the Z and such program had their times drop by W (or not drop)." I don't want to hear about theory. See my sig. During the season, I lift 2 X 5 half squats, max weights for my old skinny legs. Works for me and validated in studies of cyclists. I've been doing box step-ups on leg day, after squats and leg extensions. I'll try Hermes' box jumps for warmups. The one world class powerlifter at my gym does box jumps. Unbelievably big jumps. Amazing to see this shortish squat guy jump ~4' straight up. Even on my heaviest lifts, I think bar speed because of this guy.

Was the next 40' more results oriented?

Interesting to hear Velonews saying that every performance-oriented cyclist needs to lift. Right out loud like that.

Here's that powerlifter on fiber recruitment and explosive lifting:

redlude97

If you are just looking for x results in y, then the podcast probably isn't for you, but issues being discussed also haven't really been addressed in a systematic way in the literature either with regards to force vs power. I'm not familiar with powerlifting but the focus on bar speed would seem to be helpful for cyclists, which the podcast does discuss. Concentric vs eccentric loading is also discussed in regards to injury prevention etc.