Bigger & stronger thigh muscles!!!

Tino4444

Hi All,

I have set myself a goal to get bigger, stronger and more powerful thigh muscles before the start of the 10 mile TT season next May and would like a bit of advice regarding the best methods of doing this.....

At the moment I am currently 13.5 stones in weight, 6 foot tall and I am able to complete a fairly hilly 10 mile TT in just under 28 mins, but would like to be competing with the faster cyclists who can get round in sub 24 mins!

I am getting myself a turbo trainer to use over the winter months, as well as jogging and squats. Is there any other excercises that I could be doing to get stronger?

Thanks,

Tino

Infamous

Ride your bike?

Tino4444

Infamous wrote:

Ride your bike?

Wow thanks for your help mate!

Tino

Infamous

you're welcome.

Seriously, it's the best way to get faster, running and weights are supplementary training and I doubt many of those faster sub 24 guys do any at all.

Do 350 miles per week. Thank me next year.

Anonymous

To build up stronger leg muscles, introduce some low cadence/high resistance intervals to your workouts.

ded

Tino4444 wrote:

I have set myself a goal to get bigger, stronger and more powerful thigh muscles before the start of the 10 mile TT season next May and would like a bit of advice regarding the best methods of doing this.....

Why? Surely what you actually want to do is get faster? Are you absolutely sure that bigger thighs are the way to go???

Basically I agree with Infamous - ride your bike! Inside, outside, whatever. Do some intervals that mimic/exceed the intensity of what you want to do for the TT. Your legs are only one component of you - why not train all of them at once? Conan the Barbarian has enormously thighs but I've never seen his name come up in TT results...

dennisn

Bigger thigh muscles are probably going to require some serious weight training. Sounds
like you "sort of" want to be a bodybuilder.

Et Tu Titus

Got to agree - the only way to get better is more miles on the bike and quality training. I've been working on my leg strength for better climbing / cadence throughout this year with the help of a mate (who also happens to be a professional coach !). One of the main things he has me working on is interval sprints (on the flats and up hill) to increase my strength and also my recovery period. Also try looking at your pedalling stroke as if this isn't right, you are just wasting energy and not maximising your wattage output.

Cheers.

shockedsoshocked

Forget the jogging, get plenty of miles in and interval sessions through the winter. If you're going to do weights get proper advice of someone who knows about strength and conditioning. Deadlifts, squats, lunges etc can be beneficial when done properly.

dennisn

dennisn wrote:

Bigger thigh muscles are probably going to require some serious weight training. Sounds
like you "sort of" want to be a bodybuilder.

Just to add something. "Bigger thighs" is not something you want to really strive for in
cycling as big is just big(great if you're a bodybuilder) but strong and lots of endurance, now there is something to go for.

SBezza

I would forget intervals until the new year, unless you want to be going like a rocket in April and May, and then shagged for the rest of the summer.

I will do lots of base endurance and tempo work until about Jan/Feb, and then start ramping up the intervals. I would aim to be fully on song for about June/July/August time. If you can do hard intervals throughout the winter, and not get run down, then go for it, but there is no point being on fire at the beginning of the season, it you really want to do good times, the faster days will be in the latter half of the summer.

For TT's you don't need big muslces, you need a good lactate threshold, and this is where the intervals come in, they are painful, but over time they help increase the power you produce. The only downside is they are very taxing, so unlikely you could do them throughout the winter without burning out early season.

I will do squats and step ups, with a few weights to correct some muscle inbalances I have managed to pickup this year, but I will not be interested in putting on weight.

inseine

There's some solid advice above. If you think you need big legs to ride fast I think you need to research more basic training methods. Unfortunately cycling is mainly about being skinny with a good CV system.

freehub

It's nice to have big legs though

hopper1

My lgs are fairly powerful, but not 'big'... I can press 400kgs, yet a lot of my club mates leave me for dead after a few miles.
As most have said above, if you want to get faster on a bike, ride the bike. If you want big legs, hang your bike up!
I know that if I train my legs just once a week, I'll probably only cycle twice, because it takes so much out of you.

Bhima

hopper1 wrote:

I can press 400kgs

Pretty impressive.

I occasionally go to the gym and see what sorts of weights I can lift with my legs and it doesn't seem to be getting any bigger, yet I know my cycling power is slowly increasing from borrowed powermeters, hill climbing times and TT performances.

So, I've come to find that the weight-lifting ability of my legs does not change in a linear way with power increases on the bike. I know this is probably stating the obvious, as it's a totally different dicipline, but it's taught me that doing any kind of leg weights must be pointless now, as it doesn't seem to be very bike-specific and there's no link between the weights and cycling.

Toks

Tino4444 wrote:

Hi All,

I have set myself a goal to get bigger, stronger and more powerful thigh muscles before the start of the 10 mile TT season next May and would like a bit of advice regarding the best methods of doing this.....

At the moment I am currently 13.5 stones in weight, 6 foot tall and I am able to complete a fairly hilly 10 mile TT in just under 28 mins, but would like to be competing with the faster cyclists who can get round in sub 24 mins!

I am getting myself a turbo trainer to use over the winter months, as well as jogging and squats. Is there any other excercises that I could be doing to get stronger?

Thanks,

Tino

Hi Tino, the "Do I need big muscles to ride faster" debate has done the rounds quite a few times on various cycling forums. As someone with 'stick legs' I originally believed squats etc were the way to go. However, as surprising as it may seem faster times on your bike will be best achieved by riding your bike.

The key factors when its comes to endurance cycling are "increased lactate threshold and vo2 max". These are developed by training them specifically for your chosen event. In short - ride your bike at intenisities close to, @ and slightly above competition intensity for good results. Anyway check the link below by Ric Stern (Alex's Simmons coach). Its a great article that covers the topic perfectly.
http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/fitness/ ... engthstern

Monty Dog

If you want to build up your leg strength, don't forget your core body muscles - no point in having strong legs if the body they're attached to is 'soft'. A seriously good and complementary exercise for bike quad-strength is inline speed skating - trouble is finding somewhere decent to train

Tino4444

Thanks very much for all your replies, very useful.

Tino.

Toks

Tino4444 wrote:

Thanks very much for all your replies, very useful.

Tino.

You're welcome, if you're still not sure this debate should help

http://www.cyclingforums.com/cycling-tr ... power.html