I can't stay out the saddle for long

vs

Imposter wrote:

Tom Danielson, incidentally, didn't have an 'efficient' core - which is why he started core training. Hence the book.

Yes, but he obviously did a huge amount of cycling, I'm guessing much more than most reading this, therefore, by your reckoning, he should have had an efficient enough core for cycling, simply by cycling...but he didn't.

imposter2.0

vs wrote:

Imposter wrote:

Tom Danielson, incidentally, didn't have an 'efficient' core - which is why he started core training. Hence the book.

Yes, but he obviously did a huge amount of cycling, I'm guessing much more than most reading this, therefore, by your reckoning, he should have had an efficient enough core for cycling, simply by cycling...but he didn't.

If you read up just a little bit more, you will find that Danielson suffered a back injury some years ago, which affected the way he rode. He never had core issues before then.

apreading

I think if we all stop trying to hard to disagree, we can find some points of agreement here:

If you have a good core and are able to train out of the saddle then spending more time training out of the saddle would be of most benefit.

If you dont have a good core or are unable to sustain long enough out of the saddle to spend more time training like this then some core training or some other method to build a base level that can then be extended by more time training out of the saddle could help, at least in the first instance although may or may not be beneficial once you reach that base level (I guess this last part is the one that we still dont have agreement on).

Is that a reasonable summary?

sigorman85

Had a go today on a 8.5 ride and it felt like my outer muscles on my quads were cramping up this was with in 15 seconds of getting out the saddle on a flat .... I was about 5 miles in gave up then gave it another go 5 mins later and managed it fine .... What's going on?

slowbike

warmup ...

sigorman85

5 miles in this weather I was warm ....actually I was pretty wet

Father Faff

I think we should get Imposter on that series "Complainers"....

Anyway for what it's worth, and pure anecdote, I didn't think I could climb out of the saddle until some Ironman encouraged me to go to some cycle-specific intense spin classes which concentrated on out of the saddle efforts in a focused way and at different power levels. The effect on my real world out of the saddle climbing and sprinting ability was almost immediate and quite dramatic. You can no doubt achieve the same thing on the road but it is much easier to get where you want to quickly with specific intense spin sessions. You could probably do the same with a turbo and good instruction video. And of course such sessions are time efficient.

slowbike

sigorman85 wrote:

5 miles in this weather I was warm ....actually I was pretty wet

Different muscles - the out of the saddle ones weren't warmed up...

antfly

Why stand up anyway, apart from in short bursts for a little respite or to race up a short climb ? It uses more energy and tires you quicker.

drlodge

antfly wrote:

Why stand up anyway, apart from in short bursts for a little respite or to race up a short climb ? It uses more energy and tires you quicker.

As a generalisation yes, but standing also uses different muscle groups than sitting so standing can actually be useful to rest certain muscle groups. I find it easier now to stand on very steep hills (> 15%) rather than sit.

bernithebiker

I think it depends a lot on your physical make up, and maybe weight.

I tend to stand a lot, probably as much as 50% of a climb like Alpe d'Huez.

Others maybe only 10% or less. Depends what you're comfy with, although I suspect it could be trained up as a useful skill.