Cycling specific weights/strengthening.

Donnybrook

Hi all,

The question I have for any cyclists here is: can you build up the leg muscles and specifically the vmo for cycling endurance through a cycling specific weights programme or is it a case of just doing mileage or a combination of both?

I get severe cramps/spasms along hip flexors/inner thigh VMO’s -medial Quadriceps after c 60km on Sportives – usually on a hill climb. I am very diligent with electrolytes, hydration and nutrition. I have use foaming rollers and flexibility programmes and have had a bike set up. I am also trying to activate glutes and hammers during cycles

I am now thinking the problem is simply going too hard and some of my muscles are not able for the fatigue and maybe I just need to strengthen these muscles. Option B is just cycle a lot slower even though my cardio fitness is very good but my legs appear to let me down.

I would be very appreciative of any advice.

Cheers,
Lambretta.

vorsprung

Donnybrook wrote:

Hi all,
... my cardio fitness is very good but my legs appear to let me down.

Use a smaller gear and spin faster. You might like to get a cadence meter and try and deliberately up your rpm

t.m.h.n.e.t

Mileage.

dw300

Is it definitely cramps? If it's muscular then see above ..

If you want to train to make those muscles stronger then a Front Squat would hit them more intensely rather than a traditional Back Squat.

Tom Dean

Do a search for weight training / strength

phil s

Oh, Jesus wept, not this sh1t again.

P_Tucker

phil s wrote:

Oh, Jesus wept, not this sh1t again.

vorsprung

phil s wrote:

Oh, Jesus wept, not this sh1t again.

Look girlfriend it's an idea and it's out there

Deal with it

Donnybrook

Thanks very much for first few replies guys - appreciate the information - will research this = Didn't notice any threads on VMO specific cramping and strength - but not worth responding to your comment Phil S

Herbsman

Donnybrook wrote:

not worth responding to your comment Phil S

Oh the irony. That is a response to it

Alex_Simmons/RST

Donnybrook wrote:

I would be very appreciative of any advice.

You need improved cycling fitness, not gym strength, to resolve your issue.
You may also need a good bike fit.

P_Tucker

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

Donnybrook wrote:

I would be very appreciative of any advice.

You need improved cycling fitness, not gym strength, to resolve your issue.
You may also need a good bike fit.

Do you ever get bored of saying the same thing over and over (not that you;re wrong, obv)?

Barbarossa

Donnybrook: you obviously didn't read the forum rules. It clearly states that this forum believes that weight training has no benefit for cycling

jgsi

If you believe it is going to do you some good, then do it.
Personally I cannot see the correlation between the classic 'muscular endurance' goal at around 70% of 1RM and >12reps and 3 sets/2/3/4 time per week and the need in cycling
an example
a concerted effort to accelerate uphill holding a big a gear as possible, creating a 100 metre then 400 metre gap.. and then pushing on until you have established a break or decided to call it a day.
I am not saying it is counter productive to do strength training, just that your time would be better spent building up aerobic endurance.

Again I am happy for people to contribute to a thread who have a passion for weight training and its effect on their cycling.

napoleond

For cramps try taking magnesium supps before bed time.

For building strength on the bike, press the pedals harder and faster.
You may well benefit from a good bike fit at somewhere like www.cadencesport.co.uk as you may be exacerbating existing issues by riding with a bad fit. It's expensive but very much worth it.

Pross

'Strength' used in cycling is slightly misleading as a term, it is about more than just pure muscle strength. It sounds more like your legs are just getting pain from working harder than they are used to. There's not much gym based you can do to reflect the repeated effort of riding a bike for a couple of hours. If you are able to ride more often then that is the best thing to do, you'll find you still get the pains but they will be after longer / harder efforts.

iPete

If it is just a specific muscle group causing you pain a few sessions in the gym could help.

I used to get groin pain, it was running or cycling can't remember, so I did a few sessions on "the machine that you sit on and squeeze your legs together", I think that's the technical term. Only had to use it 2-3 times, the muscles got stronger and the pain has never come back. So perhaps a few isolation exercises for the weaker muscles may bring them level with everything else.

As for strength training in general, whilst I enjoyed it, doing squats and other core work that involves the legs had a negative influence on my riding, largely due to lack of rest from riding 5 days a week.

jgsi

iPete wrote:

If it is just a specific muscle group causing you pain a few sessions in the gym could help.

I used to get groin pain, it was running or cycling can't remember, so I did a few sessions on "the machine that you sit on and squeeze your legs together", .

adductors

keef66

To those suggesting a bike fit, the OP says he's had a 'bike setup'

To the OP I'd recommend:

Warming up thoroughly by doing high cadence spinning for the first 10 mins at least, then gradually increase the effort.

Work on using a higher cadence and do longer rides at lower intensity than those that induce the pain.

Do some stretching afterwards.

Forget the weights.

P_Tucker

JGSI wrote:

If you believe it is going to do you some good, then do it.

Terrible advice FFS. It will either help or it will not, and whilst the science isn't unequivocal its pretty firmly in favour of the notion that it will not.

jgsi

P_Tucker wrote:

JGSI wrote:

If you believe it is going to do you some good, then do it.

Terrible advice FFS. It will either help or it will not, and whilst the science isn't unequivocal its pretty firmly in favour of the notion that it will not.

Its not advice as such just an internet suggestion ffs :roll:
Are seriously thinking that someone who actually thinks that weight training is going to help is going to be convinced by your 'argument' not to go and weight train?
Don't get on at me... people are going to do what they want to do. and they come on here more or less convinced anyways... and end causing flame wars as a result.
Made my point clear enough for you?
So all we can do is actually repeat ad nauseam that working on cv endurance will pay back so much more than squatting with 50kg bar on your back.

Donnybrook

Thank you very much for all the advice here. Very much appreciate the different points put forward here and will check them out in more detail.

P_Tucker

JGSI wrote:

P_Tucker wrote:

JGSI wrote:

If you believe it is going to do you some good, then do it.

Terrible advice FFS. It will either help or it will not, and whilst the science isn't unequivocal its pretty firmly in favour of the notion that it will not.

Its not advice as such just an internet suggestion ffs :roll:
Are seriously thinking that someone who actually thinks that weight training is going to help is going to be convinced by your 'argument' not to go and weight train?
Don't get on at me... people are going to do what they want to do. and they come on here more or less convinced anyways... and end causing flame wars as a result.
Made my point clear enough for you?
So all we can do is actually repeat ad nauseam that working on cv endurance will pay back so much more than squatting with 50kg bar on your back.

Based on the original question, this appears to be one of those rare occasions when someone was genuinely asking a question rather than looking for someone to agree with his/her preconceived views.

Muffintop

What about your posture on the bike? Could poor posture/spinal alignment lead to fatique on the muscles? I know you say you had a bike fitting but if your cores crap or on long rides you haunch your shoulders or start putting a knee out of alignment on the road it could exacerbate the hips - my theory anyway.

I do weight training (various squats, core and stuff) for the bike which helps with stability and kicking up over hills not for a specific problem.

Mx

monkeydan

"Maximal strength training with emphasis on neural adaptations improves strength, particularly rate of force development, and improves aerobic endurance performance by improved work economy."

Says so on the internet so it must be true :-)

Personally I feel that weight training is of benefit regardless of what sport you partake in. Weight training can significantly improve the amount of glycogen stored in the muscle, improves neural efficiency and will obviously help with maximal force development (which is handy for sprints, hills and suchllike). Didn't realise that this was yet another BR topic which had been discussed ad nauseum or that there were such strong opinions!

monkeydan

P_Tucker wrote:

JGSI wrote:

If you believe it is going to do you some good, then do it.

Terrible advice FFS. It will either help or it will not, and whilst the science isn't unequivocal its pretty firmly in favour of the notion that it will not.

Interesting... can you hit me up with some links? From memory (and it has been a while, I admit), most studies I've looked at with regard to strength training for endurance athletes has proven that it is beneficial.

briantrumpet

monkeydan wrote:

Interesting... can you hit me up with some links? From memory (and it has been a while, I admit), most studies I've looked at with regard to strength training for endurance athletes has proven that it is beneficial.

Worth reading this thread for all sorts of reasons.

t.m.h.n.e.t

In particular this post

P_Tucker wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

The bit that the "power" folk have never been able to adequately explain to me is which part of "power" they work on.

Power (whether people like it or not) is the product of torque and cadence. You don't MEASURE power - you calculate it.

I'm going to avoid using the word "strength" because it gets people all hot'n'bothered with some (to me at least) meaningless definitions. But, the only ways to increase power is to rev harder (the Formula 1 approach to power) or to increase the average torque applied.

Revving harder is easy to measure - it's simply an increase in leg cadence and I can see why the heart and lungs would be key to this approach - but there's a limit to this approach.

The other side is to increase the force applied to the pedals - either by applying it for more of the stroke or by simply applying more. The "applying more" force bit is what many people call "strength". For sure, this side also needs the heart and lungs to supply the muscles - but it also needs the muscles. Strong muscles aren't necessarily big muscles either.

If one of the "power" proponents could articulate how they develop more power (through these two aspects) I'd be far more open to taking this on board. But normally the first reaction is to deny that power is a product of cadence & torque at which point they lose me completely because it just is.

Lets settle a definition here - strength is defined as the maximum force your muscles can generate at zero velocity. The most common demonstration of strength is lifting weights from rest. If I can lift a maximum of 150kg on the leg press and Andy Schleck can't, I'm stronger than Andy Schleck. Agreed? Good.

So tell me how often you use your maximum strength on a bike? How often are you generating the same amount of force with one leg that it would take to move a 75kg weight from rest? If you answered "never", you're not far off - all out standing starts on the track is the correct answer.

If this doesn't work, try the weights analogy again. I can lift 150kg with a monumental forehead-vein bursting effort. Can I do it again with 0.7 seconds recovery? Of course not. Could I repeatedly do it for say 1800 reps (20mins at 90rpm). Of course not. So why does strength matter at all? How does it limit me on a bike?

monkeydan

briantrumpet wrote:

Worth reading this thread for all sorts of reasons.

Jeez, that thread is a total clusterf*** isn't it? Thank god Alex_Simmons/RST was posting on that thread as he's the only one who actually made any sense and put his points across in a polite way.

Some random points I took from that thread:

1. That strength training is used to 'bulk up' the muscles - not true, training for hypertrophy and neural strength gains are different.

2. That some cyclists have skinny legs and therefore obviously don't do weight training but are still good cyclists - One can be extremely strong but not have large muscles. Per the point above, neural adaptations to strength training are separate from hypertrophy.

3. That neural gains in strength training are only made in the first few weeks of training and then you need to increase the cross-sectional area of the muscles to get stronger - again, this is not true.

4. That people think it's an either / or situation. I don't think anyone claimed that endurance training would not be required or that strength training would form the bulk of a training program.

5. That people advocating strength training (actually just people *asking* about strength training) think that strength is a limiting factor in cycling which is why it should be trained.

Anyway, meh. I am not in the slightest bit interested in turning this into another forum c0ck-waving contest.

monkeydan

T.M.H.N.E.T wrote:

In particular this post

P_Tucker wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

The bit that the "power" folk have never been able to adequately explain to me is which part of "power" they work on.

Power (whether people like it or not) is the product of torque and cadence. You don't MEASURE power - you calculate it.

I'm going to avoid using the word "strength" because it gets people all hot'n'bothered with some (to me at least) meaningless definitions. But, the only ways to increase power is to rev harder (the Formula 1 approach to power) or to increase the average torque applied.

Revving harder is easy to measure - it's simply an increase in leg cadence and I can see why the heart and lungs would be key to this approach - but there's a limit to this approach.

The other side is to increase the force applied to the pedals - either by applying it for more of the stroke or by simply applying more. The "applying more" force bit is what many people call "strength". For sure, this side also needs the heart and lungs to supply the muscles - but it also needs the muscles. Strong muscles aren't necessarily big muscles either.

If one of the "power" proponents could articulate how they develop more power (through these two aspects) I'd be far more open to taking this on board. But normally the first reaction is to deny that power is a product of cadence & torque at which point they lose me completely because it just is.

Lets settle a definition here - strength is defined as the maximum force your muscles can generate at zero velocity. The most common demonstration of strength is lifting weights from rest. If I can lift a maximum of 150kg on the leg press and Andy Schleck can't, I'm stronger than Andy Schleck. Agreed? Good.

So tell me how often you use your maximum strength on a bike? How often are you generating the same amount of force with one leg that it would take to move a 75kg weight from rest? If you answered "never", you're not far off - all out standing starts on the track is the correct answer.

If this doesn't work, try the weights analogy again. I can lift 150kg with a monumental forehead-vein bursting effort. Can I do it again with 0.7 seconds recovery? Of course not. Could I repeatedly do it for say 1800 reps (20mins at 90rpm). Of course not. So why does strength matter at all? How does it limit me on a bike?

Again, totally missing the point and referring to my previous post, no one is claiming that strength is a limiting factor in cycling.

There is some scientific evidence to suggest that strength training not only increases strength (duh) but also muscular efficiency and an increase in time to exhaustion at maximal aerobic power.

Basically strength is not important for cycling. Strength *training* seems to have some benefits for cycling, but as Alex_Simmons/RST points out, the science is equivocal at this point.

Davey C

I think the 'good' evidence is a little more pointing against weight training but agreed, let's not go down that route.

Let's take the example of the average poster on this forum asking whether weights will help his/her cycling.

If we take the 'average poster' as someone with a full time job, limited amount of time to train/recover the answer surely has to be no - spend the time cycling instead. Best case scenario with a weights session is you MAY (that's a big may) improve your cycling. Worst case scenario you are using a training slot that could have been spent working your FTP, will impede your recovery for a day and MAY not even help your cycling at all.

Of course if you want BUFF legs then go for it.