Bodyweight Squats

commuterlegs

What would be an optimal number of squats to be completed to test your bike strength? Would this be the most effective non-bike test available?

Is it as simple as saying that if you're a certain weight you should be able to complete x squats and therefore be categorised as a poor/mediocre/good cyclist?

The reason i ask is that I am okay at riding on the flat (avg 17mph) but as soon as it goes slightly uphill i start to suffer. I am not particularly heavy so i assume it must be a power issue? I don't have many accessible hills near me so want to find additional ways to increase this power output?

Hope that makes sense.

Cheers

imposter2.0

CommuterLegs wrote:

The reason i ask is that I am okay at riding on the flat (avg 17mph) but as soon as it goes slightly uphill i start to suffer. I am not particularly heavy so i assume it must be a power issue? I don't have many accessible hills near me so want to find additional ways to increase this power output?

You are right, it is a power issue. So it's not a strength issue. Work on ways of increasing your sustainable/threshold power, or power/weight ratio. Without knowing more about the kind of riding/training/hours you already do, it's difficult to advise further.

TonyJams

The few hills you have got near you - find one of them and do seated hill repeats.
Don't get out of the saddle, don't drop down to the granny ring if you have one.
Just keep going up and down that hill 5 or 10 times in a session until you feel like your quads are going to explode. Then keep going because these are the climbs that are going to count and lead to adaptation.
If it's not your quads and it turns out its your glutes, arms or back that give out first well then you know what to work on to help.

WhiteSocks90

Save any off the bike strength work for the winter months. Between now and then, utilise the few hills you do have, and practice overgeared seated efforts, too. Lower cadence, higher gear.

commuterlegs

Imposter wrote:

CommuterLegs wrote:

The reason i ask is that I am okay at riding on the flat (avg 17mph) but as soon as it goes slightly uphill i start to suffer. I am not particularly heavy so i assume it must be a power issue? I don't have many accessible hills near me so want to find additional ways to increase this power output?

You are right, it is a power issue. So it's not a strength issue. Work on ways of increasing your sustainable/threshold power, or power/weight ratio. Without knowing more about the kind of riding/training/hours you already do, it's difficult to advise further.

Excuse my ignorance but what is the difference between power and strength?

For background, most of my riding is done via commute (15km e/w / 3-4x a week / entirely flat). The only time i get to see hills are if i get out on a weekend ride (maybe once a month - young family) so when i go out I'd like to make the most of it and enjoy the climbing. Trying to work out if there is a better way of training to enjoy that rare long ride?

On the commute i tend to take it easy in the morning (unless running late) and give it some beans on the way back, my legs certainly seem to feel it after a few days so must be doing something!?

imposter2.0

Power is the rate at which work is done, or the rate at which energy is transferred. Strength (in physiological terms) is typically regarded as your 1xrep max lift capability. It's well worth doing a search for some of the many other 'strength v power' or 'leg strength' threads on here as most of the questions you may have are probably already covered extensively there.

fat daddy

Strength ..... can you squat 140kg
Power ..... can you do it 10 times in a row.

you have the strength to get up the hill .. where you lack is to do the movement repeatedly at speed, so you need to work on the endurance side of apply that strength

commuterlegs

Thanks. That seems to make sense although doesn't the fact that i cycle at (what feels like) a fairly good intensity on the flat that I should have decent power? Is power a slightly different concept on a gradient?

The closest thing i have to a hill near me is 2km long at 1.4% average gradient. Other than that I would have to ride out for an hour to get to the edge of the peaks. Would that hill be sufficient to build power on if i do it enough?

frisbee

Gradient is different to flat, on the flat you have a very brief window of the pedal stroke to put power in, on a gradient it is more of a constant effort.

sungod

the other thing to look at is your gearing/cadence

if you are in too high a gear when climbing, your cadence will be lower than necessary

the lower your cadence the harder you are pushing to deliver the same power, if your legs can't handle hundreds (or thousands) of reps at this force then your power output will drop, in the limit you grind to a halt

if you were in a lower gear, the force per rep would be lower, your legs would not fatigue as fast and you'd get up the hill ok

on a slight gradient you can effectively steepen it by using a high gear

imposter2.0

CommuterLegs wrote:

Thanks. That seems to make sense although doesn't the fact that i cycle at (what feels like) a fairly good intensity on the flat that I should have decent power? Is power a slightly different concept on a gradient?

On a flat road, power is pretty much the only consideration (other than drag). On an incline, gravity and weight also become factors, so whatever power you were pushing out in order to ride at 17mph on the flat, is going to need to increase in order to maintain that speed while overcoming gravity on the ascent. Similarly your weight, which is not really an issue on a flat road, becomes a major factor in slowing your ascent.

Consequently, the best way of improving your climbing is going to be improving your sustainable aerobic power/FTP or reducing your weight (if you have any to lose) or both..

commuterlegs

Thanks, I think i get the difference now.

I rode home last night in as hard a gear as i could realistically manage (50x14) and felt pretty good and did the same this morning. My legs are feeling pretty shell shocked so hopefully it's doing something. Not many opportunities on the commute to do sustained efforts but trying where i can.

Will have a couple of days off and then do it again. If I do say 3 sessions like this a week (c40 mins each) would that be enough to see progress (appreciate it is subject to how much of that is sustained effort)?

imposter2.0

CommuterLegs wrote:

Thanks, I think i get the difference now.

I rode home last night in as hard a gear as i could realistically manage (50x14) and felt pretty good and did the same this morning. My legs are feeling pretty shell shocked so hopefully it's doing something. Not many opportunities on the commute to do sustained efforts but trying where i can.

Will have a couple of days off and then do it again. If I do say 3 sessions like this a week (c40 mins each) would that be enough to see progress (appreciate it is subject to how much of that is sustained effort)?

Don't get too hung up on riding in a hard gear or deliberately over-gearing yourself. Concentrate on riding at a higher intensity, but there's no need to push stupidly big gears and punish your leg muscles when the improvements you need to see are in your chest (ie your heart and lungs).

joey54321

There isn't much difference between riding uphill and riding on the flat. If you are talking about racing/pros/Tour de france competition then yeah, be specific, go train on the big long mountain passes, but for your average amateur I don't think there is much in it.

Where there is a difference is what is slowing you do, on the flat its drag and on the hills its weight (speaking simply). If you have good aerodynamics but are heavy for your power you will find flats easy (and by comparison hills harder). If you have good weight but are not very aero for your power you will find hills easy (and by comparison flats harder).

You can make good gains by matching the effort duration of the hills you do then training that duration.

Hill takes you ~2 mins to climb? Go do 2 min intervals. It will be training the same energy systems and pathways for the most part.

The other thing to consider is going uphill feels slower, sounds obvious but some numbers (using CyclingPowerLab):

On the flat, with no wind, it takes ~120w to ride on the hoods at 17mph. On a 5% gradient for the same power, you'll be doing about 8.5 kph. 8.5 feels pretty slow on a bike, and that's only at 5%. You're likely response is to push harder to try and maintain speed, get more fatigued, then wonder why you are tired.

Edit:

As it happens I try to do 20-40 full body weight squats each day, nothing to cause any sort of DOMS or fatigue, but just to keep all the muscles awake and to maintain the flexibility to do the movement.

burnthesheep

The "fake" Strava wattage on segments and rides can be quite accurate for the slower hills. Less wind or aero math to muck up the wattage.

You are seeing the difference between your gross power for FTP and the adjustment to a ratio for your weight (w/kg). On the flat and in sprints your weight only affects acceleration, not actual speed. A heavy rider can and might out sprint a light rider.

But, once the hills start. The advantage is gone.

If you want to climb faster you have to gain power AND lose weight in the formula.

But squats.....no. Use the fake Strava watts on sustained hill efforts. Make sure your body and bike weight is accurate in your profile.

commuterlegs

Thanks for the responses. I could certainly stand to lose a bit of timber so will try to factor that in although hopefully not compromising my ability to do the overgrazed efforts 3-4x a week.

I went all out up that 2km climb so I have a benchmark time for improvement, will also try to set one on my nearest cat4 climb and then see how i get on over the next couple of months. If progress is good I'll report back, if not I will sell all my bikes and go back to living a boring existence.

On the plus side, knocked a whole minute off my commute home doing overgeared last night so even if I'm still crap at hills at least i burn it home after work!

OMark

It took me a while to learn that strength does equal power. You can to be strong, but also raise your LT to have high power output.

mamil314

Decent strength for an amateur would be at least 1 rep of a single leg press at 130%-150% body weight
If you must bodyweight, do bulgarian squats, but deadlift is still king for posterior group, imo

TonyJams

CommuterLegs wrote:

Thanks. That seems to make sense although doesn't the fact that i cycle at (what feels like) a fairly good intensity on the flat that I should have decent power? Is power a slightly different concept on a gradient?

The closest thing i have to a hill near me is 2km long at 1.4% average gradient. Other than that I would have to ride out for an hour to get to the edge of the peaks. Would that hill be sufficient to build power on if i do it enough?

Silly question but have you got a multi-storey car park you can get to out of hours? 10 times up from the ground floor to the top should be enough to blow your quads out and give you something to measure.

JBrown23

mamil314 wrote:

Decent strength for an amateur would be at least 1 rep of a single leg press at 130%-150% body weight
If you must bodyweight, do bulgarian squats, but deadlift is still king for posterior group, imo

Fully agree with this! Bulgarian split squats are great for developing bike-specific strength/ power and also help to identify weaknesses between left and right (if present).

Alex_Simmons/RST

fat daddy wrote:

Strength ..... can you squat 140kg
Power ..... can you do it 10 times in a row.

Not quite, as already pointed out, power is the rate of doing work, not how much work you do.

Strength is the maximal force generation capacity of a muscle or group of muscles.

In this example if one can maximally lift 140kg, then that's strength, but power is how quickly one lifts that 140kg. Do it slowly and that's a lower power output than doing it quickly.

Power of course can be expressed as doing a certain amount of work over a given period of time.

fat daddy wrote:

you have the strength to get up the hill .. where you lack is to do the movement repeatedly at speed, so you need to work on the endurance side of apply that strength

Sort of.

The forces involved in cycling up hill are not even close to those involved with strength.

The limiter is our ability to generate and supply ATP in the working muscles for the duration of the task, mostly through aerobic metabolism.

Alex_Simmons/RST

OMark wrote:

It took me a while to learn that strength does equal power.

It most definitely does not.

For a start, they are a measure of quite different things. One is a measure of (maximal) force, the other is the rate of doing work.

One can generate very high forces without doing any work or generating any power. Indeed the maximal force one can apply is performed at zero velocity. Once there is movement the force we are capable of generating falls.

Being strong and being powerful are different things entirely.

sungod

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

...
Being strong and being powerful are different things entirely.

^^^this

part of my rehab after injury was doing single leg presses with a target of >= 150% bodyweight, 3 sets of 10 reps each leg

tbh i didn't think the physio was serious, but he was, it took me a long time to get there and even now it's hard to sustain

in doing so, much has improved, but it's made bugger all difference to my power output on the bike!

commuterlegs

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

fat daddy wrote:

Strength ..... can you squat 140kg
Power ..... can you do it 10 times in a row.

Not quite, as already pointed out, power is the rate of doing work, not how much work you do.

Strength is the maximal force generation capacity of a muscle or group of muscles.

In this example if one can maximally lift 140kg, then that's strength, but power is how quickly one lifts that 140kg. Do it slowly and that's a lower power output than doing it quickly.

Power of course can be expressed as doing a certain amount of work over a given period of time.

fat daddy wrote:

you have the strength to get up the hill .. where you lack is to do the movement repeatedly at speed, so you need to work on the endurance side of apply that strength

Sort of.

The forces involved in cycling up hill are not even close to those involved with strength.

The limiter is our ability to generate and supply ATP in the working muscles for the duration of the task, mostly through aerobic metabolism.

Sorry but what's ATP?

And to answer an earlier question, there is a multi-storey relatively close but i would not fancy riding my bike up and down it when it's quiet, unless i had White Lightning or Lambrini in my drinks bottle i would not fit in with that crowd!

Alex_Simmons/RST

CommuterLegs wrote:

Sorry but what's ATP?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate

In essence, ATP is what our bodies use to transfer energy. Our ability to generate/recycle this fundamental biological unit of chemical energy is a key factor in our capacity to sustain a given power output.

commuterlegs

Managed to get out last night (albeit in pouring rain) and set a benchmark time. Annoyingly I got cramp for some unknown reason after less than 10km which stayed throughout so think I could've done better but pleased with the result actually. Thought it was painfully slow going up (some weaving going on) and felt like i'd made no progress at all and then I uploaded it to Strava and voila, PR! Still not beating my mates but at least it puts me mid-table for once rather than bottom 10%!





Plenty of work to do but definitely a step in the right direction!

burnthesheep

I know we all need variety, but definitely re-visit some efforts from time to time to keep up with progress.

Also, once you get to know yourself on the bike more, plan your route on route builder. Then analyze hills and segments before the ride. Take a guess at how long at an effort level a hill might take. Then tackle the effort at that exertion level to see how you do. Pick which segments you want to put in more effort on and which you'll just roll thru or recover on.

On the group ride last night there's a hill I know how far it is. I know I've done it in less than a minute. I know then I can go up that hill if I want to at XXX watts. If I don't want a new PR or to go after a top 10 or KOM, but just make it over to continue my pace on a ride......I'll do it at XXX minus some watts. If I go all out I can do 525w to 550w for a minute. If I need to make it over and keep going, I'll only use maybe 400.

Once you can do that......you can really start to blow up some PR's and move up the leaderboards.

People decry this method of PR and segment chasing, but in reality, it's kind of the same kind of "surges" that real Crits or road races have. They surge up a mountain or bomb a descent or something at different attack moments as teams or individuals.

Planning your route around segments and how to tackle them is similar.

craigus89

burnthesheep wrote:

People decry this method of PR and segment chasing, but in reality, it's kind of the same kind of "surges" that real Crits or road races have. They surge up a mountain or bomb a descent or something at different attack moments as teams or individuals.

Planning your route around segments and how to tackle them is similar.

I don't think anyone has a problem with people using segments on Strava like this as personal benchmarks, but often people chase them because they want to look like billy big balls to everyone else on there. I think that is when people think it's silly.

fat daddy

Craigus89 wrote:

I don't think anyone has a problem with people using segments on Strava like this as personal benchmarks, but often people chase them because they want to look like billy big balls to everyone else on there..

ever think that its the segment chasers that have it right ? .... and its the other people with issues.

If it was about "personal" benchmarking, why have a public leaderboard to see how everyone is doing .. its designed round a bit of fun competition

Strava has been around long enough now that if you make it into the top 10 then you DO have big balls and if you get a KOM /QOM your name IS Billy/Billie

craigus89

fat daddy wrote:

Craigus89 wrote:

I don't think anyone has a problem with people using segments on Strava like this as personal benchmarks, but often people chase them because they want to look like billy big balls to everyone else on there..

ever think that its the segment chasers that have it right ? .... and its the other people with issues.

If it was about "personal" benchmarking, why have a public leaderboard to see how everyone is doing .. its designed round a bit of fun competition

Strava has been around long enough now that if you make it into the top 10 then you DO have big balls and if you get a KOM /QOM your name IS Billy/Billie

Not really. There are probably 50 KOM's around my area that I could go out and take if I could be arsed. Going out on a ride with the sole intention of taking a KOM when the wind is favorable and getting a leadout from a mate doesn't really interest me though. Nor would it be sensible for someone trying to take their training semi-seriously.

reacher

Craigus89 wrote:

fat daddy wrote:

Craigus89 wrote:

I don't think anyone has a problem with people using segments on Strava like this as personal benchmarks, but often people chase them because they want to look like billy big balls to everyone else on there..

ever think that its the segment chasers that have it right ? .... and its the other people with issues.

If it was about "personal" benchmarking, why have a public leaderboard to see how everyone is doing .. its designed round a bit of fun competition

Strava has been around long enough now that if you make it into the top 10 then you DO have big balls and if you get a KOM /QOM your name IS Billy/Billie

Not really. There are probably 50 KOM's around my area that I could go out and take if I could be arsed. Going out on a ride with the sole intention of taking a KOM when the wind is favorable and getting a leadout from a mate doesn't really interest me though. Nor would it be sensible for someone trying to take their training semi-seriously.

It's a amazing the amount of people who could beat everyone else if they could be arsed to train that you come across