What it shows is a group who were already doing a significant amount of training on the bike improved their perfomance over a control group by doing a small amount of strength training off the bike (interestingly the improved performance was noted to come despite there being 'no concurrent increase in body weight or maximal oxygen uptake'.
On the bike strength training
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What it shows is a group who were already doing a significant amount of training on the bike improved their perfomance over a control group by doing a small amount of strength training off the bike (interestingly the improved performance was noted to come despite there being 'no concurrent increase in body weight or maximal oxygen uptake'.
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50000tears
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Selective reading to fit your own contentions? The only difference between the two groups were the low rep squats. If we are to argue that such an activity does not benefit cycling then it should have made no difference.
Before you completely sign off can I ask you once again to provide a link that supports your assertion that stronger legs have no bearing on an endurance cyclist? You do understand I assume that in conditioning your legs you are in effect making them stronger?
My original question was as to whether doing the type of work on the bike to deliberately overload the leg muscles was worthwhile. Is there nothing you can produce to show it is not rather than just "because I say so".
ayceejay
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Whenever the subject of the value of strength training for cyclists comes up elsewhere the ongoing discussion is described as a debate which I take to mean 'the jury is still out' and no verdict has been reached, for me this is the only sensible way to approach it.
When Percy Wells Cerutty had his trainees lifting weights and running up sand dunes he was called a crackpot, then when his runner Herb Elliot was winning everything people changed their tune. Cycling has never been very advanced in its training techniques being a little bit held back by the drug use as the main way to enhance performance and by comparison with other athletic endeavors has a way to go.
When Percy Wells Cerutty had his trainees lifting weights and running up sand dunes he was called a crackpot, then when his runner Herb Elliot was winning everything people changed their tune. Cycling has never been very advanced in its training techniques being a little bit held back by the drug use as the main way to enhance performance and by comparison with other athletic endeavors has a way to go.
Citius
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Bear in mind that study only looked at cycling economy (ie conserving power) anyway, not sustainable power - which is the main issue in performance cycling. But who is to say that the control group would not have experienced similar improvements had they committed a similar amount of extra hours to cycling? This has been discussed in other threads, so no point in flogging it any further here. To be fair, you did say that science had moved on, so I was really hoping to see something new, not a 5 year old study which you just found on google. Most of us with an interest in stuff like this had seen that 5 years ago.
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Citius
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So one group does an extra work out, while the other group lays up. That's not selective reading, it's a genuine observation.
You want me to agree that something which we aren't calling 'strength' makes your legs stronger? The onus is on you to understand the topic - it is not for me to educate you. The info you require is all out there in the public domain - much of it is linked to in the other threads which I keep mentioning. Go find it.
It's not because I say so. It's because a lot of others say so and have provided the evidence for why they think that, and I'm inclined to agree with them rather than you. Like I said, go educate yourself - it's all out there.
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50000tears
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Citius you have a rep on here for rubbing people up the wrong way but it is in my nature to treat people as I find them and make my own decisions. It seems to me that you demand proof from others you are never prepared to present yourself whilst being 100% close minded to anything that does does not fit into your "known facts". If it is all out there then why cannot you produce one shred of evidence to support it? It is not about agreeing with me but the multitude of evidence out there that you see fit to dismiss for reason (a) or reason (b).
Your post above shows how you will distort the facts to suit your stubborn held beliefs because you are unwilling to learn anything new. To say that guys doing a few sets of squats is extra training so of course they are fitter when holding the view that the activity would not make you fitter is a ludicrous contradictory statement.
You dismiss any other argument you don't agree with as people been uneducated which is insulting in itself. You are unwilling to debate or look at a question objectively. It is no wonder you rile up so many with such a poor attitude. Perhaps you you like to contact the trainers at Sky, Saxo-Tinkoff and British Cycling and tell them that they are uneducated and training their guys wrong.
Now for one final time, link me just once to anything that I should be educating myself on in that strength is not needed in cycling. If it is all out there it shouldn't be too hard.
Your post above shows how you will distort the facts to suit your stubborn held beliefs because you are unwilling to learn anything new. To say that guys doing a few sets of squats is extra training so of course they are fitter when holding the view that the activity would not make you fitter is a ludicrous contradictory statement.
You dismiss any other argument you don't agree with as people been uneducated which is insulting in itself. You are unwilling to debate or look at a question objectively. It is no wonder you rile up so many with such a poor attitude. Perhaps you you like to contact the trainers at Sky, Saxo-Tinkoff and British Cycling and tell them that they are uneducated and training their guys wrong.
Now for one final time, link me just once to anything that I should be educating myself on in that strength is not needed in cycling. If it is all out there it shouldn't be too hard.
From what i saw before i put him on ignore , he never actually adds anything to a discussion . Just takes it of course into his own argument and then the threads die as no one can be bothered to argue with him any more .
Its a shame the mods allow it .
Its a shame the mods allow it .
Citius
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You're right - it's not hard at all. In fact it's very easy, which is why I can't understand why you can't do it yourself. But anyway....
http://www.aboc.com.au/tips-and-hints/why-we-dont-use-strength-endurance-anymore
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/fitness/?id=strengthstern
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19826297
Enjoy. I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts on them. And yours too, Cuchilo, …
EDITED BY MOD - No need to be rude.
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You are of course right. I should have reference an article that uses research from the 80s and 90s as you did.
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50000tears
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I did try and find them but obviously used the wrong term in Google when searching.
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50000tears
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Well I have read the links now and apart from the 2nd one, which was not dated, they were pretty old. What was also evident was that the links either were one trainers opinion or the basis of single studies. The first one spoke about no muscle mass gains!! To even think there should be some in what amounted to super high rep resistance training suggests that he may have missed the point entirely.
The problem as you know Citius is that as has been said before, the evidence is perhaps still not clear of whether strength training on or off the bike has a benefit or not. I for one cannot see myself doing gym work as I choose to do or my training on the bike. I don't see how pushing/lifting weights would benefit cycling but am open to being proved wrong if science shows otherwise in the future.
However if pro teams and British cycling are using specific strength training for their endurance athletes then it is reasonable to assume that they ARE convinced of the benefits.
This thread is sadly going knowhere although I will repeat again that for every link showing that resistance training plays no part in cycling performance I could produce another 5 studies that shows that it does. It is not about educating ourselves when there is a wealth of studies out there that do not all reach the same conclusions.
The problem as you know Citius is that as has been said before, the evidence is perhaps still not clear of whether strength training on or off the bike has a benefit or not. I for one cannot see myself doing gym work as I choose to do or my training on the bike. I don't see how pushing/lifting weights would benefit cycling but am open to being proved wrong if science shows otherwise in the future.
However if pro teams and British cycling are using specific strength training for their endurance athletes then it is reasonable to assume that they ARE convinced of the benefits.
This thread is sadly going knowhere although I will repeat again that for every link showing that resistance training plays no part in cycling performance I could produce another 5 studies that shows that it does. It is not about educating ourselves when there is a wealth of studies out there that do not all reach the same conclusions.
Citius
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I never claimed 'science had moved on' - you did. Still waiting for you to post something up-to-date.........
ayceejay
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I think I have a problem, my common sense tells me to let this go but that little demon sitting on my shoulder insists I do this:
The links posted above as evidence (tee hee) of Citius's stand are
1) a commercial site with a particular point to make based on one coaches opinion
2) is one half of a debate so obviously not 'peer reviewed' but peer contested
3) comes from the same journal as that quoted by adscrim above and publishes alternative views with that same seriousness and references but with different conclusions, further evidence of the debating nature of this subject.
There is an old Chinese saying that goes something like - to advance understanding first define what your words mean. and one of the problems with threads like this and it seems the links used to back up arguments is that the meaning of 'strength', 'improvement' and so on shift about causing confusion. So that one statement that says quite categorically that strength training plays a part in making a cyclist ride faster is contradicted by another that says in highly trained cyclists weight lifting plays NO part in making them faster. So when someone claims that 'the science' universally accepts one narrow interpretation this is simply not true.
The links posted above as evidence (tee hee) of Citius's stand are
1) a commercial site with a particular point to make based on one coaches opinion
2) is one half of a debate so obviously not 'peer reviewed' but peer contested
3) comes from the same journal as that quoted by adscrim above and publishes alternative views with that same seriousness and references but with different conclusions, further evidence of the debating nature of this subject.
There is an old Chinese saying that goes something like - to advance understanding first define what your words mean. and one of the problems with threads like this and it seems the links used to back up arguments is that the meaning of 'strength', 'improvement' and so on shift about causing confusion. So that one statement that says quite categorically that strength training plays a part in making a cyclist ride faster is contradicted by another that says in highly trained cyclists weight lifting plays NO part in making them faster. So when someone claims that 'the science' universally accepts one narrow interpretation this is simply not true.
Citius
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I'm guessing you probably mis-read that.
Do that then. As far as I am aware, they are all flawed in some aspect, in as much as they either use un-trained subjects, or unbalanced training regimen, or focus on producing peak power (in endurance cycling, average power is a far more useful metric), or attempt to show other benefits which don't really relate to endurance riding. So make sure you read them carefully before you decide they are actually relevant.
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