Cadence

[ayceejay]

No you're winding me up sorry

No I'm not. more strength gives you a longer time to exhaustion is not clear to me so I am asking for an explanation, that's valid isn't it?
It may interest you to know that I started to say that I agree with you and then I thought: what does he mean exactly? So I asked.

 

[Rob3rt]

The term strength is misleading when applied to cycling. You should be more concerned with power. Strength and power are not the same!

 

[50000tears]

The term strength is misleading when applied to cycling. You should be more concerned with power. Strength and power are not the same!

Agreed. The mistake made is that in peoples minds they think of strength in the same terms that a bodybuilder does which is not what we are doing at all. A better way to think of it IMO is that what we are doing is conditioning our legs to be able to withstand the ride and delay the onset of fatigue. I won't go into a long description of how typical strength work trains the fast twitch fibers in the muscle, whereas we train the slow twitch ones which determine how much your muscles can take before getting tired. Your legs don't get stronger per se in that they can lift more weight, but as Robert says, you gain more power.

 

[Joshua Plumtree]

A little confused! Surely you can only maintain anaerobic effort for a limited length of time - last mile or so of a TT for instance - and it doesn't really matter which gear you're using, or how much power/strength you have in your muscles, or whether you're climbing a mountain or sprinting for the line, outcomes the same, you're gonna have to slow down.

The secret is to train yer body hard enough so that you can generate the speed you're looking for without having to go anaerobic.

 

[JasonHolder]

Pardon me aycejay, thought you were ill get back to you in a second.

Rob as always, words roll off your tongue like water off a ducks back good schooling
I make no mistake when I talk about strength, not talking about power, power is the rate of work after all correct? And strength isn't so yes you are correct but I'm not confusing the two.

I feel cadence is another good fad the magazines etc have decided to press on, along with economy, nutrition etc however, they focus too much on these small fads when the major benefaire is still power and endurance. People get tired of being told how to make power and they still have to sell issues.
I talk of muscular connectivity strength, the kind that either allows you either to push a larger gear or not. If you can grind a 53-13 but cant grind the 53-12 you dont have the strength to. which is one principle of power in my eyes. You TT at 70rpm, as that's where the power is, let me assume you're a naturally very strong guy. If you weren't you couldn't turn that gear as the cross over point from cadence to strength to make power has far since past at that rpm.

Higher strength does improve time to exhaustion as well as a great deal more, and Ive personally always found this to be the case, both running and cycling. With more strength, load is reduced in relation to your maximal strength. Its a case of having the legs or not having the legs.
I would recommend everyone who can, if they periodize, do a coarse of weights, not flaffing around in the gym, i mean focused squat, lunge, dead lift and press.

You come away feeling very very light going up hill!
how ever, because the body runs the way it does, you find muscular fatigue is delayed and rather than having a huge spike in power output as strength goes up (which can be done through your specific training) as that is what makes you faster.

Yes plumtree, intensity above AT can be sustained for a period. It depends what level above. Intensity at Vo2 max.Now thats 5 minutes of pain then you die.

I am so glad everyone over whelmingly is chiming Cycling is an endurance sport!! now lets drop these HIT workouts early on and build the fitness first
Good effort

 

[JasonHolder]

Plum tree, just to clear your unclear views up. The last mile of a TT is VERY far above AT.

Its above your VO2 as well normally. My AT is 168bpm but I can ride solidly at 180bpm for 30-40-50 minutes depending on various things.

 

[Rob3rt]

Some would argue that if you are finishing a TT with a huge burst of power in the last mile, then you didn't ride the rest of the race hard enough. Not sure I buy that one in the practical sense although theoretically speaking, it could be correct as you would theoretically gain more time by going a little harder over a longer duration than you would exploding in the last mile (where the power put in at ever increasing speeds has diminishing returns). Plus if you have the energy to go that hard in the last mile, you should theoretically have been able to eek a bit more out over the rest of the race and just be hanging on at the end.

It goes to show how much of it is mental really, I know that I always smash the last mile or so, getting more power out than any other point in the race, even when I feel like I am on the absolute limit for several miles leading up to that last mile.

 

[JasonHolder]

Nice one rob. I know Zero about TTs having only raced 1 as part of stages and never trained specifically for them ever. The mentality was put on your 54 chainring, disc, remove rear brakes, cages etc and ride your guts out. Totally out dated with what is available these days.

Power management is much akin to climbing I would guess from what I've learnt off you. In that its faster to ride hard enough through the climb than to go easy and dig hard where your diminishing returns you mention rear their head.

Its so very hard yo be clear on here without writting a Bible, there's such a huge variance between what you do in training vs racing vs recreational cycling.

 

[ayceejay]

In my opinion an endurance athlete can get all the strength they need from doing the discipline they perform in. Unless you need the explosive action that a track rider does then I don't think building strength in the legs will pay dividends. Having said that, and this is why I wanted Jason to expand on his thoughts, fatigue in cycling will come from other parts of your body and exhaustion in your arms (for instance) will effect your performance. Core strength is the biggie at the moment and this is an area that supports your position on the bike. even with a proper bike fit, weakness here will give you sore back and shoulders leading to fatigue that no amount of leg strength can overcome and will certainly effect your performance. Sean Yates had a problem with his triceps once upon a time and this was the part of his body that tired first he improved this with press ups. The necessity for stretching has been done to death so I don't need to go there other than to say that flexibility will help with endurance and help keep exhaustion at bay.

 

[JasonHolder]

They can get all the strength from riding absolutely. But you can get more from weights. And more strength only has pros attatched.

Core is another fad like cadence, economy nutrition, I'd add flexibility to it as well.

Its all about strong as fark legs. Weak tris and cores (read simply untrained not particularly weak) (for the return) are only worth spending the time building up if yourr peaking out your legs/H&lungs, and are looking for marginal gains of the slightest. More legs work better.

 

[ayceejay]

Then I guess we shall just have to agree to disagree.

 

[JasonHolder]

We agree just fine. Cadence works, flexibility definitely works, I stretch more than anyone I know. Nutrition works, and economy works as well as harder core etc. BUT they add a cherry on the cake. Having good core high cadence etc means nothing without good legs.

 

[Joshua Plumtree]

The reason you push as hard as you can for the last mile in a TT is because it's generally recognised that it's very unlikely you'll 'blow up' so close to the finishing line. Now whether that's anaerobic, VO2 or anything else, is a mute point - doesn't really matter. Point is, you're going flat out with whatever energy reserves you have left, and isn't really related to how hard you've pushed the previous 9 miles.

 

[Rob3rt]

The reason you push as hard as you can for the last mile in a TT is because it's generally recognised that it's very unlikely you'll 'blow up' so close to the finishing line. Now whether that's anaerobic, VO2 or anything else, is a mute point - doesn't really matter. Point is, you're going flat out with whatever energy reserves you have left, and isn't really related to how hard you've pushed the previous 9 miles.

Of course it is!

 

[JasonHolder]

You said "surely you can only maintain anaerobic effort for a limited length of time, last mile of a TT or so"

Can near enough hold maximum heart rate for a mile flat.