Limiting factors

stonechat
stonechat Posts: 4
edited April 2016 in Training, fitness and health
I have been training for a while - just to improve my form, though I am not racing or anything, well done 1 25 mile TT.

Impression I get is that most people expect cardio fitness to be a limiting factor

To me it seems to be legs that can't do more. When I have done strenght work and some heavy rides, I had to ease off for a week.

Should I have done weight work? Not really keen. I have enough strength but wondering if it would help

Comments

  • cazhadfield
    cazhadfield Posts: 15
    By no means an expert but my guess would be that the reason your legs cant do anymore is because your body can no longer supply oxygen to them quickly enough to sustain/increase power.....ie. cardio fitness!
    Before cycling I used to do lots of weight training/power lifting, im pretty confident I could squat significantly more than Chris Froome, but muscles and strength are only of any use to cyclists while ever the CV system can keep supplying them with oxygen!
  • stonechat
    stonechat Posts: 4
    Could be

    I never really seem to be tired in myself, just in legs

    Anyway preparations for Velothon continue, and I am out again today
  • webboo
    webboo Posts: 6,087
    How quick you recover would bepend on your fitness and how long you have been training. If you are fairly new to cycling or have had a long lay off,you are going to struggle to recover fast.
    It takes time to build the ability to train hard for most people.
  • Vslowpace
    Vslowpace Posts: 189
    Is it possible you are pushing too strong a gear with a low cadence. If so drop down the gears up the cadence, this should take some pressure off the legs and make the cardio earn its cake.
  • buckmulligan
    buckmulligan Posts: 1,031
    cazhadfield wrote:
    By no means an expert but my guess would be that the reason your legs cant do anymore is because your body can no longer supply oxygen to them quickly enough to sustain/increase power.....ie. cardio fitness!

    That might be true if the entire process of muscular bioenergetics could be simplified down to "oxygen in = power out" but unfortunately the situation is somewhat more complicated than that.

    A whole host of physiological factors will ultimately determine how hard you can push the pedals and how long for. These include, but are not limited to, muscle fibre composition, lactate clearance capacity, ATP/phosphocreatine storage capacity, muscle cell mitochondrial density, muscle capillarisation, cardiac stroke volume, VO2 max etc etc etc...

    The latter of these might fall under the umbrella of "cardiovascular fitness" but if you can identify which of these are your limiting factors in a given event, then you can tailor your training to improve those.

    And no, weight training will not help with many of those (with respect to making you a faster cyclist) :wink:
  • cazhadfield
    cazhadfield Posts: 15
    BuckMulligan wrote:
    cazhadfield wrote:
    By no means an expert but my guess would be that the reason your legs cant do anymore is because your body can no longer supply oxygen to them quickly enough to sustain/increase power.....ie. cardio fitness!

    That might be true if the entire process of muscular bioenergetics could be simplified down to "oxygen in = power out" but unfortunately the situation is somewhat more complicated than that.

    A whole host of physiological factors will ultimately determine how hard you can push the pedals and how long for. These include, but are not limited to, muscle fibre composition, lactate clearance capacity, ATP/phosphocreatine storage capacity, muscle cell mitochondrial density, muscle capillarisation, cardiac stroke volume, VO2 max etc etc etc...

    The latter of these might fall under the umbrella of "cardiovascular fitness" but if you can identify which of these are your limiting factors in a given event, then you can tailor your training to improve those.

    And no, weight training will not help with many of those (with respect to making you a faster cyclist) :wink:

    As I said....i'm by no means an expert, which compared to me you clearly are :D
  • imposter2.0
    imposter2.0 Posts: 12,028
    Vslowpace wrote:
    Is it possible you are pushing too strong a gear with a low cadence. If so drop down the gears up the cadence, this should take some pressure off the legs and make the cardio earn its cake.

    Outside of the relative high or low extremes, cadence will not be a major factor. As others have indicated, the limiter is the ability to sustain the required aerobic power for the duration required. Difficult to suggest how that might be addressed without knowing more about what kind of training you are doing, and how often.

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