asgelle

Holding power is the very definition of endurance, and we know endurance doesn't depend on the maximum force muscles can produce.

OBoile

This is just wrong.

OBoile

The more I think about this, the more silly of a comment I think it is.

If I go from being able to hold x watts for 1 minute to being able to hold x watts for 2 minutes, there's absolutely no way I can't do > x watts for 1 minute. At the very least, I could sprint all out for the last 10 seconds and marginally improve my average power.

rubiksoval

How do you reckon? And why a few minutes? You think your legs aren't strong enough to hold your one minute power for 1.5 minutes?

What about 10 minute power for 20 minutes?

rubiksoval

That's an extremely literal way of looking at that comment.

ZHVelo

In February you build the foundation.

ZHVelo

Maybe, but for sure not for the reasons you think. You try skiing even 2km while putting in max force on every push because you apparently don't know how to control the force when skiing and would need a gear to do that for you. Good luck.

asgelle

It's a bad analogy, but you've completely misinterpreted it. In cycling, the rider can reduce the force needed to move forward up a steep grade by choosing an appropriate gear. In skiing, lacking gears as you say, the skier must produce a certain minimum force or else they won't move up the steep grade at all. Thus it might make sense for the skier to train to increase maximum force.

rubiksoval

Sounds like general fitness...

Branko D

The science is still unclear on whether the ancillary benefits of strength training actually improve endurance performance or not and the issue is, if they do, training interventions which work on average might not give a positive impact on everyone (which is depressingly common with all sorts of workout interventions, where you get some who respond extremely well, some who respond negatively and all sorts of responses in between) so there's still a question of what works or doesn't work for you specifically.

Personally, I find doing a bit of strength training worthwhile, but while I did become able to move more weight I just don't see that it did anything for my 10s / 1 minute / etc power on the bike where you'd be expecting to see gains, hence I'd be quite reluctant to say that it was the weights which helped with 10, 20 or 60 minute power as opposed to simply riding more. I do feel stronger in a practical sense, that my durability improved and I get less aches and pains after running. I am inclined to attribute being able to maintain a lower position on the bike for longer as well to it, but that could be just due to more training.

That said, I typically only do about half a hour of weighs per week so it doesn't take away much from riding / running - I have weights setup and ready to go in my living room so I can do a quick session after an easy ride or run which acts as a warm up, without spending time going to the gym. If you're going to spend a hour driving to the gym and back and faffing about, that cuts a big chunk off available training time which is probably going to impact performance negatively as opposed to spending a couple of hours extra on the bike.

My training "budget" time wise is typically about 10 to 12 hours per week (a good chunk of it being the weekend ride which I find just to be enjoyable on it's own merits) so trying something quite close to polarized or pyramidal (like polarized except with more Z2 work near threshold and less Z3) works out for me and I can fit in some strength work in there on top. If I could do more hours I'd do more Z1, but also if I could only do six then probably I'd try for two interval sessions plus two longer easy rides and let the training time distribution land where it does.

Carbonfiberboy 

Thanks for the thread link. I scrolled down it about halfway before I decided it was a waste of time. It's just people arguing opinions, no facts. I saw two links to papers. One was a 404 and the other completely incomprehensible and having zero to to with cycling, plus the exercise being discussed is useless except for tendon rehab anyway.

I see the same thing here, too many people arguing opinion, those opinions formed 20 years ago before much at all was known about how to apply strength training to cycling. It's a niche subject, seldom studied, and even more seldom studied without researcher bias. What rather gripes at me is the people arguing the other side simply don't read the papers to which I publish links. That makes them not useful as interlocutors. It's like a parental ego relationship where that parent says, "I know how the world works and you don't, so do what I say." Except that's how it worked 20 years ago. Not that way anymore, folks. If you don't keep up, you fall behind. On top of that, you sneer at a penniless rider who has figured it out, has applied the science and found that it worked as predicted even though he doesn't have a gym or the latest equipment and makes do with what he has. That kind of nonsense just drive me nuts.

If anyone wants to discuss strength work further, I'll only discuss this with people who give enough of a crap to actually do the work. I've spent a couple decades studying and applying what I learned. It works like a charm if you do it right.

asgelle

Deleted - not worth the bother.

ZHVelo

A cyclist also requires a minimum amount dictated by the lowest gear. Thus it might make sense for the cyclist to train to increase maximum force.

asgelle

Except we know the maximum force required to ride the steepest paved grades* with readily available gearing is less than what you need to step up on a normal staircase.

*excepting perhaps some highly exceptional cases over 25-28%.

rubiksoval

Maybe you're not familiar with the "people". Some world-renowned scientists and coaches are in that thread. I.e., the people that get paid a lot of money to ensure that the most talented individuals in the world are successful. And they've got quite a track record.

Just because it's not published in a peer-reviewed paper, doesn't mean it's not legitimate. Those papers are produced by academics, not the actual coaches doing the work.

asgelle

And then there's Frank Day

ZHVelo

But skiing is harder than going up stairs?

rubiksoval

Well... yeah. That's... yeah.

Carbonfiberboy 

My HS biology teacher turned me into a scientist and that's how I still am. I think we know by now what happens when people don't believe the science. Now we know that many people not only don't believe it, they ignore what they don't believe. It's a sad day.

rubiksoval

That has absolutely nothing to do with anything and is fallacious as you can get. Undoubtedly your elementary, middle school, and high school teachers did not publish any research, yet at least a few of them must have known how to teach and could then teach you things.

Like I said, academics in universities write research papers, not coaches in a lab or on the road testing and training their riders. Would you tell Shane Sutton or Tim Cusick that because their work isn't published, it isn't legitimate or worthy of replication?

ZHVelo

Don't you think this is biased? Shifting goalposts?

Then you might as well call the endless base miles "general fitness", too, given as the season starts volume goes down and intensity goes up. You said above something along the lines of "what do the pros do", well, apparently they do do gym, at least some. This isn't a question of "should you do squats the day before a TT to get faster", but whether you should do gym at all.

Nor does your argument "the question is not what is your max power but how long can you hold x power" necessarily imply that doing gym isn't beneficial in that regard. I am not saying it is. I am wondering if it is. [One idea being that if you can lift 100kg then 50kg will feel easy. But if you can only lift 60kg then 50kg will feel a lot harder. Obviously at some point in cycling endurance becomes dominant but no one here has linked a study or a physiological analysis of when this happens and how and to what extent or if strength training in the off season can keep your legs strong]. But you, despite of any real evidence, seem pretty set that the answer is no. That all you need is bike work. And yet when giving your reason for that (what pros do) and I give you a counter example you shift it to "general fitness".

OBoile

Basic human physiology.
I mean come on. You're a smart guy. I'm sure you've noticed that events that are significantly anaerobic in nature tend to feature bigger stronger athletes than ones that are longer in duration. One only needs to compare 400m runners with 10k runners to see this (or track sprinters with pursuit riders with grand tour riders).
This seems nonsensical to me. If I could hold my one minute power for 1.5 minutes, then it wouldn't be my one minute power would it?

Branko D

Well, in the last 10 years most published research has shown there is some benefit of strength training for endurance performance in well trained endurance athletes (cyclists and runners both). This is not yet definitive, especially as most studies are published by a handful of researchers (Ronnestad being one of the prolific ones: his lectures are certainly interesting). I haven't seen one study which claims that benefits to endurance performance come from an improvement in maximum strength - I don't know why people beat that horse anymore; it's dead.

So, in doubt I would do it and see if it helps you - but training interventions which are helpful on average do not have to be helpful for every subject. One more reason that different approaches to coaching can all be valid with an athlete who is a good fit for the coach.
​​​​​
Ultimately, if you try and aren't getting faster, it doesn't work for you. That's the best test there is when it comes to how to coach yourself.

OBoile

Looking at it in a non-literal way: here endurance improved far more than here high end power. This happens when you get old, and as per the professor of sport science in the video I posted, a loss of muscle mass is on of the reasons we see this in older athletes. Wouldn't it have been cool if she had been able to improve both?

OBoile

There really isn't any debate about strength training improving power over short durations. One need only compare the riders here: with those in the World Tour to see it. Of course, these people are doing considerably more than 1/2 hour a week of strength training. Like anything else, you have to put real effort into it to see significant progress.

At longer durations, the correlation between strength and power decreases. At some point, it likely goes to 0, at least from a practical sense.

I doubt lifting would make you noticeably faster at the intervals you care about. But it probably is a good idea for general health. Increased bone density and increased muscle mass are both pretty important wrt being functional as we age.

Of course, doing what you enjoy is also important. I doubt more Z1 would make much of a difference for you, but if that's what you enjoy... well being happy is a pretty important thing.