rubiksoval

Indeed. 2 to 3 hours of sweetspot is very steady. And feels like death the last part.

Carbonfiberboy 

Argghhh! So sorry. Should have said, "wishing it were over."

redlude97

long slow distance for 2-4 hours is a bit ambiguous. It doesn't mean long easy distance as you've both pointed out. Most people couldn't hold 2-3 hours of sweetspot intensity but tempo or upper zone 2 for 3 hours is a killer workout and is "slow" relative to your "fast" under 1 hour pace.

JeffOYB

...and for the working Masters w little kids who can get out 3-4 times a week for like 1.5 hrs?

redlude97

Your question doesn't seem to be an age thing, but rather just a time thing. If you can only get out 3-4 times a week with a max of 1.5 hours I'd probably do 3 1.5 hour sweetspot days and 1 1 hour threshold session. Save VO2max work for right before the start of the race season 4-5weeks.

rubiksoval

Yep! I'd do that! And a sprint day when I'm too tired/unmotivated to do sweetspot. 'Cause I like sprinting.

work4bike

Weight training in my view is crucial for health, especially as we age. Many say that if you want to improve your cycling, you just need to ride more, but that's just not true, despite it sounding totally logical.

Cycling is not a full-body activity, so you need to do something that exercises those muscles (and all other parts of your musculoskeletal system, i.e. connective tissues...) and weight training can fill in those gaps. Also, it's a total myth that if you cycle, you don't need to do lower-body exercises using weights -- cycling does not exercise all parts of the legs equally and can lead to muscle imbalances over time.

rubiksoval

Well sure it is. As evidenced by the vast majority of very fast bike racers throughout the decades.

If you want to lift weights, do so. But asserting that it's necessary to improve at cycling is simply made-up and ridiculous. There are 101 ways to train for endurance sports; weights, running, general fitness activities, yoga, or any of another dozen activities may or may not be a part of that. Do what you enjoy and have fun with it. Don't make something up to try and justify it, though.

work4bike

You need to look at my whole post, not just the part you quoted. I started off by addressing the issue of health, not just cardio, but a healthy musculoskeletal system -- take note of how many old people are troubled by joint/bone issues, as well as other musculoskeletal system problems.

Does one need to lift weights...No. However, it is an activity that can help so many.

As for cycling improvement, I know it has improved mine, but I agree it's not absolutely necessary, but again, for many it would help.

BTW, I'm 54 and I noticed my body falling apart after years of cycling (over 30), simply because there were areas that were not used nearly as much as others. Maybe this is one of those things where youth is wasted on the young...I wish I had it all to do over again...


https://www.bicycling.com/training/g...in-like-a-pro/

Carbonfiberboy 

My bolding. Quite so, ridiculous. OTOH asserting that it's unhelpful flies in the face of scientific research and pro training practice. I do note and applaud that you are not saying it's unhelpful. Is that a new position?

Sagan's directeur sportif:
Sagan does squats at 80-90% of 1MR with focus on speed.
Peter Sagan shows how he boosts his power with gym work | Cyclingnews.com and other similar sources.https://sa1s3.patientpop.com/assets/docs/22597.pdf

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8bd...a7e789cf78.pdf

When I felt I'd maxed out my on-bike training volume, i.e. found my recovery limit, I started weight training 2 days/week and made further gains in climbing and sprinting power.

burnthesheep

I started my structured training off two years back by buying that book. It was on the shelf at a local B&N we walked through.

It worked for me to get me used to a plan and suffering.

I don't think the specificity was very good for a low level racer or beginner. It was a "rising tides" approach on 6 hours a week. I say the specificity wasn't good because the efforts in a 30min Cat 4/5 crit or road race aren't anything you've been doing in training.

I think the under/overs and 3x3min VO2 was good to raise power but left me with a big sweetspot hole that made hammer rides or a race really just clinging on. My like 2 hour to 3 hour ride average powers were always well below 200w.

Now, in between doing things, I'm sure to do some tough SS. Start at a power I can do 3x12, then 2x20, then 1x40, and finally 1x60 after a few weeks. Some of that is erg mode, some is gravel grinding. I call that part of my training "consolidating my gains".

I discovered the British cycling plan website. Shows you stuff for free, but have to buy to download to TP or whatever. I can take a look at it and get ideas.

Seattle Forrest

All of this. We're people first and cyclists second.

redlude97

The OP has like 5 hours a week to train. They should all be on the bike and all at intensity, especially training for cyclocross. Context is important.

Carbonfiberboy 

S'true.

rubiksoval

It's a position that recognizes that people do what they want to do and it really doesn't matter in the grand scheme.

Lifting weights is not only unhelpful for me, but it's actually detrimental. I've said this numerous times.

And if performance is your goal and you're on a limited schedule, I'd assert the same for most anyone else. A pro can and will do just about anything (and everything, legal or not). It's all they have to do. Someone with 7-8 hours? I'll back the cycling only for every day that ends in "y".

Apparently very few people on this forum ride purely for performance, though, so again, it really doesn't matter what they do.

rubiksoval

Missed something like the fact that he doped juniors? Or built his coaching empire off the lie that he coached Lance Armstrong?

rubiksoval

Sagan one day got off his couch, got on his bike, and started putting out more power than I can when fully trained.

What a professional does or does not do in training really matters less than anything. Their bodies respond to training like nothing I can even fathom. Nate Brown moved to my city (when he's not in Girona or riding in... the Giro ) and to see his training and then the power he puts out from that is utterly mindboggling. And apparently he has teammates that quite literally just do nothing in the off season and roll up to camp and start slaying people within days.

Talent matters more than anything possible when it comes to performance training. These guys could have the worst training plan imaginable and still destroy everyone else by virtue of their other-worldy physiology. It simply doesn't matter until they start racing at a level where lots of other people are similarly talented. Then little things start mattering a whole lot so all sorts of marginal and imaginary gains are gotten.

Hermes

I think Greipel might snicker at Sagan's weight training and technique. Some of it looks very gymnastic like to me. I think Sagan does the video for his female fans.

JeffOYB

not much call to swing from an older 5 hr/wk rider to Sagan when discussing the least possible yet still effective training method...is there?

Carbonfiberboy 

I was simply pointing out that an assertion upthread that strength training is a waste of time isn't necessarily true, and that in fact many, most?, all? of the world's top competitors use some form of it. Ate you a world's top competitor? No. Would it help you? You don't know.

My practice has been to develop a year's training program, implementing it in the fall, trying to stick with it as much as possible unless it turns out to be obviously stupid. At the end of the season I look at where I was weakest and try to come up with a program for next year which addresses that issue. And so on, every year. For the self-coached, nothing but experience can teach you how to plan your training. OTOH, each year you get one data point. If you have a coach, that coach already has 100s of data points.

Since everyone's different, my opinion is to accept no dogma but rather experiment to see what works for you. Of course you have to start somewhere but my advice is not to mistake the beginning for an endpoint.

On a slightly divergent tack, one of my riding buddies rode 20K-30K miles every year for several years. One year he climbed 1.5 million feet. He was in his 40s, married, 40 hr/week IT job, with two sub-teen kids. He didn't do any program, no intervals, nothing except ride his bike. He was one of the strongest people I ever rode with.

Hermes

I use a coach and have been for the last 10 years. I know what works for me. I went the coach route since I did not want to waste time reading books, planning and trying to figure out what works for the time I have available.

BF members love to debate training protocols and really love to debate strength training and its impact on cycling performance. I find it interesting and sometimes it provides confirmation bias to what I already believe to be true and works or does not work for me.

IMO, the most effective and efficient use of time is an indoor solution. I have no personal experience with Peloton and its training protocols, but I met a couple on a cycling tour who used it and were very pleased. They were solid cyclists and the man did a race that I have done in the past and did very well - podium.

The husband founded a company and has purchased a couple of Peloton bikes for his employees at work and has one at home. He subscribes to their workouts. He is able to use the bike at work and home and it is very efficient use of his time. It takes me 20 minutes just to get dressed and out of the house and then start riding assuming I do not have to load the bike in the car and drive somewhere. If all I had to do was turn on a stationary bicycle and put on bike shorts, that would be a huge time saver.

So if you want simple, state of the art, maximum time on the bike with minimum overhead, then a Peloton style solution is the best. Everything else will take more time. And with an indoor solution, one does not have to deal with falling off ones horse, weather and the myriad of other costs and issues that accompany outdoor cycling and training.

The guy who used the Peloton said it translated well to the road.

Finally, it is easy to become fit on 5 hours per week. In fact, that is a lot of time. It is not a lot of time to become competitive at any sport at a higher level be it cycling, golf, tennis, running or anything.

Indoor solutions for limited time are the best.

Carbonfiberboy 

Totally. That's what I've been doing also. I just throw my road bike on my resistance rollers and I'm at it. I do have to put on bike shorts, make a bottle and pump tires (latex tubes). Beautiful sunny day out but I need to do Z4 intervals and would have to ride some distance to get a long enough clear road, even flat. It's 45' to the nearest clean 500' climb, 75' to the nearest 1000' climb. I do a lot of rollers. Big fan, bare chest. It's quality time and I want a certain proportion of high end, not so much low end. I'll go to the gym, 5 minutes away, after the rollers and do 50' of heavy.

Off to see Eric Moen in a few minutes for the first bike fit of my life. Finally going to a pro about my short right leg.

redlude97

LMK how it goes with Eric, had a bike fit last year that works well but he's a PT and I kinda want to address a 54/46% power split due to an old ankle injury

rubiksoval

Between that and "Grease"... It's all

Seattle Forrest

He's got a great reputation.

I saw a PT about this kind of stuff and found it very worth the while. Different person, covered by my insurance, but it's a very different approach to bike fit, and comes with off the bike homework. I would for sure do it again.