Strenght training tips needed

The first issue we need to address is why you need extra leg strength. Is it in the hope of improving your cycling or for another reason?

Secondly, where is the tear in your knee? meniscus, ligament, tendon etc. There may be a way to squat around the injury or rehab the knee.

Robert West said:

I need some avice, I love squats but i can't do them without knee pain. An MRI shows a slight tear. I don't for the most have a problem with my knee while riding. Anyway I have to find a different way to develope power/strength. I think using low cadence 53/11 intervals would do the trick is this correct??
Thx in advance

Do you need advice on improving your cycling ability, or improving your leg strength per se?? Two different things.

I believe if you improve your strength you improve your cycling ability? What I want is to improve my leg strength as to raise my power on the bike. As the winter season progresses I'll continue to work my abiltiy to hold my newly found strength.

Robert West said:

I believe if you improve your strength you improve your cycling ability? What I want is to improve my leg strength as to raise my power on the bike. As the winter season progresses I'll continue to work my abiltiy to hold my newly found strength.

Wrong. Increasing the muscle's cross-section (hypertrophy) does not equate to increased cycling performance (endurance muscle performance). It, in fact, decreases it.

If the events you are racing are any longer than 1-2 minutes (anything other than the track sprinting events, basically) you're far better off training exclusivley on the bike to maximise performance.

Then what dose low cadence 53/11 work do for you?

Robert West said:

Then what dose low cadence 53/11 work do for you?

Improves endurance muscular performance. Trains your body to perform at a high level for long periods, basically. To perform at a maximal level for very short periods, weight training will be beneficial.

dose high level mean high power/watts.

Robert West said:

dose high level my high power/watts.

do you mean "does hi-level equal high power/watts?"

Yes.

Then dosn't my origonal question make sence? minus the weights. Thx

Robert West said:

Then dosn't my origonal question make sence? minus the weights. Thx

Yes...some specific low-cadence, high-gear hill efforts will improve your endurance cycling power output. It will not, however, increase your leg strength through hypertrophy in the same way a squat program will.

ed073 said:

Wrong. Increasing the muscle's cross-section (hypertrophy) does not equate to increased cycling performance (endurance muscle performance). It, in fact, decreases it.

If the events you are racing are any longer than 1-2 minutes (anything other than the track sprinting events, basically) you're far better off training exclusivley on the bike to maximise performance.

Then why does known coaches with years of experiences such as Joe Friel and Chris Carmichael recommend strength training? Just to make us perform worse?

Maverick said:

Then why does known coaches with years of experiences such as Joe Friel and Chris Carmichael recommend strength training? Just to make us perform worse?

because they don't really understand exercise physiology.

my feeling is that issues such as e.g., weights for ECP are only just being started to be well understood by some coaches since the advent of power meters. There's now a tendency for these and other coaches to move away from the more strength = better cycling mantra. on the other other hand sports scientists (of which i am one, and also a high level coach) and exercise physiologists have understood that weights don't do much or anything (or are even detrimental) for quite some time.

ric

Better warn the Postals/Discoverys lads then. They spent quite a few hours in the gym during the first training camp together. Poor souls. That is, IF they did strength training in there, who knows, maybe they only stopped by for a cup of coffee or something.

Robert West said:

I believe if you improve your strength you improve your cycling ability? What I want is to improve my leg strength as to raise my power on the bike. As the winter season progresses I'll continue to work my abiltiy to hold my newly found strength.

This is a common thought. Many people erroneously assume power and strength to be the same thing. Power (which can be defined in several ways) is the rate of doing work, e.g., you cycle up a hill on day 1 and it takes 100 kj of energy ("work"😉. you complete the hill in exactly 5-minutes, that would be an average power output of 333 W. On day two, you cycle the same hill, and as the road hasn't moved overnight you still expend 100 kj of work. However, this time you're cycling with a riding buddy and you both put the smack down. You crest the summit in 4-mins, 30-secs. Your average power is 370 W.

On the other hand strength is well defined as "the maximal force or tension a muscle or group of muscles can generate". You go into a gym and lift a 100 kg weight once.

The forces involved in endurance cycling performance (any event > ~ 90-secs) requires low to moderate forces that must be sustained many thousands of times. For e.g., untrained, sedentary, healthy, age, and gender matched people can easily, on average, generate the same forces and powers as elite TdF riders. they just can't do it for the same amount of time.

During an all-out maximal sprint effort, you require about 50% of your maximal force generating ability (i.e., half strength). during a climb or hard effort on the flat (pro riders) you may be required to generate a force of ~200 Newtons (~ 20 kg) between *both* legs. most people can do that.

As regards low cadence work, adaptations occur from training that are specific to the joint angle and velocity at which they are trained. in other words, riding in 53 x 11 at low cadence will make you better at riding in 53 x 11 at low cadence. You will however, be generating a larger force than riding at the same power output at a higher cadence (e.g., in 53 x 17). However, as any sports psychologist who works in the sphere of motor control skills etc will tell you, you should practice movements as a whole. In other winds if you want to train low cadence (or high cadence) you should do them at the powers you expect to use them at while racing (i.e., do low cadence work when going hard uphill, -- because that's where people run out of gearing) and do high cadence work when working at high powers on e.g., the flat. removing the high power component makes the exercise futile.

ric

Maverick said:

Better warn the Postals/Discoverys lads then. They spent quite a few hours in the gym during the first training camp together. Poor souls. That is, IF they did strength training in there, who knows, maybe they only stopped by for a cup of coffee or something.

Perhaps. who knows?

anyway, suggesting that we do something because the pros do (which is what i think you are inferring) isn't a great idea. how do we know they are good because of their training or in spite of it.

ric

So What I reap from this is I should do sub threshold work most of the time and mix in some 5 min interval work and progress it as the season moves on. I want to work on going faster on the flats. Low cadence work will not help right?

Robert West said:

So What I reap from this is I should do sub threshold work most of the time and mix in some 5 min interval work and progress it as the season moves on. I want to work on going faster on the flats. Low cadence work will not help right?

assuming by "sub threshold" you mean sub TT efforts then yes, plus TT efforts themself, and quality endurance work, and shorter intervals (of around 4 - 5 minutes) and maybe short, very high intensity ones (e.g., ~ 30-secs) depending on *exactly* what your goals are and when they are.

i can't see a good reason, why low cadence stuff would be useful. that's not to say that i wouldn't use them either for myself or the people i coach, but i would prescribe them for reasons other than "going faster" (e.g., because the grade of a hill is very steep and you may not have a choice or because if you're stuck on a trainer for long periods of time in inclement weather it maybe some variety for you).

ric

Thx to all this has been very informative for me. I would have believed that I needed low cadence work to enable me to push a bigger gear while time trailing. I have been doing nothing but intervals for several years now and I'm not seeing the improvements I would like. I guess I just have to be more patient.

Yes, it's correct that the idea of improving leg-strength isn't what's linked to cycling performance. Besides, squats are an entirely different movement. I don't think Joe Friel recommended his weights program on the assumption it would make your legs stronger.
When I first started riding I had the same idea that initially seemed logical. The feeling is that if your legs are stronger, there will be a reduced amount of effort to push the pedals which, in turn, will lead to reduced cardiovascular load (and, therefore, less exhaustion). There are a number of problems with that line of thought. One obvious hitch is that the average set of squats or leg-presses only lasts a couple of minutes whereas the average cycling load may go on for 4 hours or more. Another problem is that the mechanics of a squat aren't identical to the driving a crank so we have 2 entirely different movements.
What Joe Friel is driving at is the idea of weight work on the basis of periodisation. When U.S. Postal do their weight cycle, the idea is to simply prepare them for the tough cycling season that lies ahead. What I don't actually know (and would be interested in finding out) is whether Lance gains actual muscle during his weight season or whether his weight stays the same.
One way of avoiding squats if they bother your knees is maybe to do what Miguel Indurain apparently did. It's said he used to climb mountains with a 10 lb weight tied round him and, for an endurance rider, he had had pretty good quads.

Maverick said:

Then why does known coaches with years of experiences such as Joe Friel and Chris Carmichael recommend strength training? Just to make us perform worse?