Hey Jesse , i found strength training definitley improved my time to exhaustion , posture and general well being , i think getting the right dose is the difficult part .
I recently started doing weight training , running and hilt workouts. I notice that I can ride at tempo much easier , climbing hills with ease . My heart rate does stay in zone 3 ,hardly ever going into zone 4 . Had to readjust my heart rate settings on Garmin and Strava. Weight training do have some benefits to cycling. Just do it two days before your ride .
strength training is a good way to increase power and power to weight. the trick is making it work within the training plan. inevitably it will interfere some but i think the return is worth it. think about increasing a squat from 150 to 250. to acheive that the person may have to lift 1-2 times a week, after the strength is achieved maintenance can be done will much less volume and even skipping some weeks with weights most of that strength will not be lost. the reason this works is because of diminishing return, its easy to plateau on the bike so trading one ride a week or like 5 percent of riding to add weights makes sense.
On strength training and FTP, people are always obsessed with finding ways to increase their FTP, but cycling is so much more than that. Everyone has an FTP ceiling and gains become marginal. Better to work on other stuff or extend the period you can maintain FTP power
From what I understand the purpose is to improve the body's ability to recruit more(previously unused) muscle fiber, increase movement efficiency, cell signalling etc. It's quite important if you have an imbalance, but as you say it might not directly increase your FTP much. In the end, it doesn't matter that you got stronger if you don't have the aerobic capacity to deliver oxygen to or uptake more oxygen in those stronger muscles. Anyways, I would assume those are some of the sole benefits as a cyclist probably won't experience much hypertrophy due to not being in a caloric surplus.
I disagree with off-the-bike work not increasing FTP, it depends on sport. I know a sub 2:30 marathoner who also participated in-door rowing and rowed 10k in ballpark of 34-35minutes (which was very close to national record). So guy had really good aerobic machine from decades of running and also muscular endurance with large range of mobility in his hips and knees from rowing. He jumped on (cyclocross) bike as he wanted to compete in triathlon and did pretty much from the get-go 30km/h rides for 100+km, and he developed fast, in couple months at around 33-35km/h. Guy didn't use watt meter so i don't know his wattage, but speeds alone were impressive as it was pretty hilly terrain and partially gravel roads. He thought that rowing does help with cycling and i agree based on my personal experience and (minor) understandment of biomechanics: joint angles are similar so there is tons of carry over between these two sports. I've hopped into both ways and noticed that getting from cycling to rowing works as well quite well, back muscles being main issue. Running not so much, joint angles are so limited that there is no similar quad and glute engagement. Getting muscles used to cycling motion will be harsh. And latest Zwift world championships was won by a rower if i recall correctly.
A sub 2:30 marathoner getting on the bike and doing 30km/h for 100km is actually very un-impressive. For the amount of training he would have done to get to that level of running fitness, that's a poor translation to cycling. No doubt he would have progressed fast once he started training for cycling, I made that point in the vid. To be aa ELITE level runner, then hop on the bike and be going B grade club speed isn't that impressive IMO. Which is my point, the amount training you'd need to do in another sport to gain cycling fitness is extremely in-efficent. And that former rowing who is now a cyclist, yep he's a weapon. But he would have already been using cycling as cross training, and had to training for cycling specifically to become world champ. Didn't just jump out of the boat and was suddenly a World Tour level cyclist. The original questions was what impact does off bike training have on your FTP, and my answer is not much. It can give you big potential, but minimal direct FTP gains in and of itself.
If gym work doesn't improve FTP, then how come the most muscular riders tend to put out the largest absolute power numbers? If muscle had no effect, surely Ganna and Kung would shed a load of kgs and then go dance off up the mountains with their increased power to weight? As someone the same height as Kung and Ganna but nearly 15kgs lighter, I'm wondering whether having a super low BMI is hindering me.
Having more muscle CAN result in more absolute power output. But it still needs to be trained, and needs to be aerobically efficient, slow twitch muscle. Go to any gym and test the FTP muscle bound gym rat, it will be terrible. But it's not a direct link of more muscle > higher FTP.
I think strength training benefits people who, due to work & lifestyle might have deficiencies in an area. E.g. desk workers often have inactive glutes. Strength training to strengthen these and activate them will help significantly. Can’t see the same benefits for people who don’t have big deficiencies.
Rowers can make fit cyclists (I used to row, transited between sports). But it still needs training. When I moved to cycling, my FTP was about 320 watts at 80 kgs, and I was a highly trainer rower who had already done some cycling as cross training. I could have easily gotten to 320 FTP years ago if I was just cycling. That's my point, using another sport to increase your FTP is extremely inefficient
Before I got a power meter and a coach I would just ride around and if my legs felt up to it I'd go chasing KOM's. Some days I might have gone for 2-3 sorter segments others I'd go for 1 long one. Definitely was good training. Got me all the way to a grade
Would you do a video of popular training/nutrition/recovery conjecture, and then debunk it with some systematic review of randomised control trials? Just an idea
Seeing the really fast runners (or rowers, for that matter) branch into triathlon or cycling, the idea that running perspective correlates very little with cycling performance seems very stretched. The underlying machinery is pretty similar, just requires a bit of retraining to perform.
Endurance sports will always have carry over, the central cardiovascular adaptations are the same. But that doesn't mean someone can just go and do running training and expect to get on the bike and be flying, there will need to be a transfer period to get the appropriate peripheral adaptations for the each discipline. The other thing to note is that it may appear there is good crossover, but a lot of runners and rowers have done cycling in the past. So they "move" sports and appears to be very good, but chances are they've already been doing years of cycling as cross-training.
FTP building off the bike. Maybe with cross-country skiiing (skating) and speedskating it is possible. I know some pros dot here in Skandinavia. Mayde not in Australia thou 😁
Of course, they increase some areas of your cycling performance like time to exhaustion, ability to hold power, even power itself; they are countless studies that proves the list of not marginal benefits, or injuries prevention but realistic benefits on the bike to get faster and pro just don't do it because it look cool on Instagram they do it for hours in the off season because they couches put them into that and of couse they throw some Instagram content in the process.
I'd prefer to not ride my bike than be forced to do it on a trainer, takes the whole enjoyment out of riding your bike, especially when we're blessed in Australia to be able to ride our bike outside pretty much every day.
Hey Jesse , i found strength training definitley improved my time to exhaustion , posture and general well being , i think getting the right dose is the difficult part .
I recently started doing weight training , running and hilt workouts.
I notice that I can ride at tempo much easier , climbing hills with ease . My heart rate does stay in zone 3 ,hardly ever going into zone 4 . Had to readjust my heart rate settings on Garmin and Strava.
Weight training do have some benefits to cycling. Just do it two days before your ride .
strength training is a good way to increase power and power to weight. the trick is making it work within the training plan. inevitably it will interfere some but i think the return is worth it. think about increasing a squat from 150 to 250. to acheive that the person may have to lift 1-2 times a week, after the strength is achieved maintenance can be done will much less volume and even skipping some weeks with weights most of that strength will not be lost. the reason this works is because of diminishing return, its easy to plateau on the bike so trading one ride a week or like 5 percent of riding to add weights makes sense.
Huh didn't know about always finishing an interval by lowering power if needed. Thanks
On strength training and FTP, people are always obsessed with finding ways to increase their FTP, but cycling is so much more than that. Everyone has an FTP ceiling and gains become marginal. Better to work on other stuff or extend the period you can maintain FTP power
From what I understand the purpose is to improve the body's ability to recruit more(previously unused) muscle fiber, increase movement efficiency, cell signalling etc. It's quite important if you have an imbalance, but as you say it might not directly increase your FTP much. In the end, it doesn't matter that you got stronger if you don't have the aerobic capacity to deliver oxygen to or uptake more oxygen in those stronger muscles. Anyways, I would assume those are some of the sole benefits as a cyclist probably won't experience much hypertrophy due to not being in a caloric surplus.
I disagree with off-the-bike work not increasing FTP, it depends on sport. I know a sub 2:30 marathoner who also participated in-door rowing and rowed 10k in ballpark of 34-35minutes (which was very close to national record). So guy had really good aerobic machine from decades of running and also muscular endurance with large range of mobility in his hips and knees from rowing.
He jumped on (cyclocross) bike as he wanted to compete in triathlon and did pretty much from the get-go 30km/h rides for 100+km, and he developed fast, in couple months at around 33-35km/h. Guy didn't use watt meter so i don't know his wattage, but speeds alone were impressive as it was pretty hilly terrain and partially gravel roads.
He thought that rowing does help with cycling and i agree based on my personal experience and (minor) understandment of biomechanics: joint angles are similar so there is tons of carry over between these two sports. I've hopped into both ways and noticed that getting from cycling to rowing works as well quite well, back muscles being main issue. Running not so much, joint angles are so limited that there is no similar quad and glute engagement. Getting muscles used to cycling motion will be harsh.
And latest Zwift world championships was won by a rower if i recall correctly.
A sub 2:30 marathoner getting on the bike and doing 30km/h for 100km is actually very un-impressive. For the amount of training he would have done to get to that level of running fitness, that's a poor translation to cycling. No doubt he would have progressed fast once he started training for cycling, I made that point in the vid.
To be aa ELITE level runner, then hop on the bike and be going B grade club speed isn't that impressive IMO. Which is my point, the amount training you'd need to do in another sport to gain cycling fitness is extremely in-efficent.
And that former rowing who is now a cyclist, yep he's a weapon. But he would have already been using cycling as cross training, and had to training for cycling specifically to become world champ. Didn't just jump out of the boat and was suddenly a World Tour level cyclist.
The original questions was what impact does off bike training have on your FTP, and my answer is not much. It can give you big potential, but minimal direct FTP gains in and of itself.
If gym work doesn't improve FTP, then how come the most muscular riders tend to put out the largest absolute power numbers?
If muscle had no effect, surely Ganna and Kung would shed a load of kgs and then go dance off up the mountains with their increased power to weight?
As someone the same height as Kung and Ganna but nearly 15kgs lighter, I'm wondering whether having a super low BMI is hindering me.
Having more muscle CAN result in more absolute power output. But it still needs to be trained, and needs to be aerobically efficient, slow twitch muscle. Go to any gym and test the FTP muscle bound gym rat, it will be terrible.
But it's not a direct link of more muscle > higher FTP.
I think strength training benefits people who, due to work & lifestyle might have deficiencies in an area. E.g. desk workers often have inactive glutes. Strength training to strengthen these and activate them will help significantly. Can’t see the same benefits for people who don’t have big deficiencies.
How about Rowing for increasing cycling performance?
Rowers can make fit cyclists (I used to row, transited between sports). But it still needs training. When I moved to cycling, my FTP was about 320 watts at 80 kgs, and I was a highly trainer rower who had already done some cycling as cross training.
I could have easily gotten to 320 FTP years ago if I was just cycling. That's my point, using another sport to increase your FTP is extremely inefficient
Before I got a power meter and a coach I would just ride around and if my legs felt up to it I'd go chasing KOM's. Some days I might have gone for 2-3 sorter segments others I'd go for 1 long one. Definitely was good training. Got me all the way to a grade
Would you do a video of popular training/nutrition/recovery conjecture, and then debunk it with some systematic review of randomised control trials? Just an idea
I'll leave for for Dylan Johnston, he's done that heaps. Not my style, prefer sharing experience and real world examples
@@nerocoaching roger that. Asmr sleeping pill
Seeing the really fast runners (or rowers, for that matter) branch into triathlon or cycling, the idea that running perspective correlates very little with cycling performance seems very stretched. The underlying machinery is pretty similar, just requires a bit of retraining to perform.
Endurance sports will always have carry over, the central cardiovascular adaptations are the same. But that doesn't mean someone can just go and do running training and expect to get on the bike and be flying, there will need to be a transfer period to get the appropriate peripheral adaptations for the each discipline.
The other thing to note is that it may appear there is good crossover, but a lot of runners and rowers have done cycling in the past. So they "move" sports and appears to be very good, but chances are they've already been doing years of cycling as cross-training.
FTP building off the bike. Maybe with cross-country skiiing (skating) and speedskating it is possible. I know some pros dot here in Skandinavia. Mayde not in Australia thou 😁
Definitely a good form of cross training
Rowing
Of course, they increase some areas of your cycling performance like time to exhaustion, ability to hold power, even power itself; they are countless studies that proves the list of not marginal benefits, or injuries prevention but realistic benefits on the bike to get faster and pro just don't do it because it look cool on Instagram they do it for hours in the off season because they couches put them into that and of couse they throw some Instagram content in the process.
Good advice, I like these vids
@11:15 - XERT enters the chat
I'd prefer to not ride my bike than be forced to do it on a trainer, takes the whole enjoyment out of riding your bike, especially when we're blessed in Australia to be able to ride our bike outside pretty much every day.
Derrrrrrrr
If you cant ride
You run
Not rocket science