super sick of hearing thereās no study to show strength training doesnāt increase FTP.
fine how are you gonna make a study to show that?
literally tens of thousands of studies to show strength training benefits everything in every sport
but not cycling
donāt buy it. i donāt really care what any study shows or doesnāt show. itās impossible strength training doesnāt help FTP.
iām not talking about body building and adding huge amounts of mass.
how can being a stronger person NOT help FTP?
at worst case, itāll keep you on the bike more / help balance out imbalances cycling causes / keep your fat % down / improve your mind to muscle connection.
i dunno. I dontā get it.
sometimes thereās not a study on EVERYTHING and you can just use your brain and see
Iām sure you already know this, but two riders can have the same FTP but one could be much stronger than the other for various reasons (better TTE, higher anaerobic capacity, better repeatability etc etc)
Strength training could be a factor in all of those other reasons, and no one is saying otherwise.
What Iād like to see is a study that looks at a group that trains 3-6 hours per week on the bike split up into 3 cohorts: Add 3 hours of strength training, Add 3 hours of Z2, Stay at 3-6 hours of cycling, and compare the results. (Actual hours could be flexible, but low - medium ish volume)
Then look at a higher volume group where you canāt just add hours, or adding hours puts you up against what you can recover from:
Look at a group that trains 10-12 hours per week on the bike (or more). One cohort stays the same, another subtracts 3 hours of cycling time and replaces it with strength training, another adds 3 hours on top. Compare.
The fact of the matter is, itās a trade-off. You canāt just unilaterally add more hours, so thereās an opportunity cost to everything you do. If you want anything like this to be a āfairā comparison, you should compare the added time lifting to added volume on the bike.
More intensity seems to be his position. And specificity. And there arenāt huge cycling performance gains from strength training. But same can be said about riding just above versus just below your lower aerobic threshold, but one is going to generate more stress on your nervous system and more fatigue.
So the debate comes around to marginal gains if you ignore the other benefits of strength training. So back to specificity, and go chase marginal gains on your bike instead of the gym.
In the real world some of us care about the other benefits of strength training. Or maybe you are an elite or pro that has exhausted all the other marginal gains, so off to the gym to chase those marginal gains.
FWIW some of the marginal performance gains from strength training are hypothesized to be from increased size of slow twitch fiber, and possibly some fiber conversion. Those are stuck in my head, maybe there were more. And you can get those from training on a bike. Time crunched and young? Ride your bike!
Iāve been a fan of leg strength training for cycling since 1994 so my mind has been made up for quite some time, not because itās good for general fitness, rather, because of significantly increased power at all durations from sprinting to 5 minute efforts to 20 minute climbs to repeated pulls during 3 hour group rides.
I agree the question to be raised is would higher intensity training in place of weights be better? I would not ever suggest that intervals etc. shouldnāt be done, but I would note that doing a hard interval or threshold workout expends a lot more calories than does strength training and incurs a lot of systemic stress. During say October through March I might find weights to be easier to tolerate while putting in bigger miles, whereas intervals and threshold might leave me wiped out, physically or mentally or both.
Genetics, age, time, equipmentā¦ itās going to vary from one person to the next.
For my personal experience, after stopping the gym for ~2 years to focus on cycling volume (basically when I started TR) I developed a valgus collapse in my right leg while pedalling and while it doesnāt bother me indoor, hard efforts outdoors give me lower back strain.
I feel like if I keep going with just lots of cycling and no strength training these things will worsen or more will pop up.
I am doing specific rehab movements too.
Iāll be adding in my 3 days a week of weight training again soon, so this is of interest to me. I usually do 45 mins to an hour on an endurance day.
Plan is to start stupidly light as I know what my body is like after a significant time without weight training. Post that I usually donāt struggle to add in volume / intensity.
I wont be doing anything that rips my legs to bits though (so Bulgarian split squats out), I donāt want to negatively affect my turbo sessions. Will try to avoid anything that significantly stresses the CNS too, but Iāve not really put in any time researching the best bang for buck exercises on that front yet.
A) studies are driven by $$$$ i.e. selling something as a result. whatāre you gonna sell here? lift or donāt lift?
B) I really donāt care about how one group does vs another. I care how I will do vs myself if I am strong or not strong.
it is impossible to study how one person does vs himself.
someone extremely weak and frail will likely benefit more from a few months of strengtheningā¦where someone who is already strong is of course not going to improve his/her FTP THAT much by lifting more.
like where does it stop with what does and doesnāt help FTP? is the point to never do anything that isnāt proven by some scientist to help FTP? are you not gonna brush your teeth since itās not proven to help FTP? are you not gonna have some sort of meditation practice because itās not proven to help FTP? are you not gonna work on your anger issues because thatās not proven to help FTP?
I just donāt get it. strength training minute for minute is the most beneficial thing you can do for your body. FTP is a function of how your body works. how can it not help?
Iām not gonna sit around and wait for a study that proves common sense.
If weāre doing N=1ās, hereās another view. Iām now closing in on +100W of FTP gains in the last couple of years, huge gains at every time interval with the exception of probably 30s and under, sitting at around 4.2w/kg (with 5-10# I could lose), and Iāve done it on the back of massively deprioritizing lower body strength training and focusing on my intervals, and pushing volume. Granted, I came in strongā¦
If I look at last year, I averaged close to 12 hours a week (on the bike) if I exclude 4 weeks off the bike (Vacation, Covid, 2 weeks after Leadville) but inclusive of all rest and recovery weeks. And thatās at 46 y/o with a full time desk job. I absolutely had times where I tried to work back in leg strength where it negatively impacted me on the bike and my ability to complete subsequent workouts - sometimes for as much as 3-4 days after. If someoneās doing 3 hours a week and not pushing their limits, thatās one thing. If youāre already pushing yourself on the bike, be careful. It can absolutely be a bad thing.
Iāll go back to this, it depends on your goals. Long term for me, a lot more lower body strength training is part of the plan, itās the right answer in almost all facets of life. Short term, my priorities are getting faster on the bike and raising threshold, and for me - it hurts more than it helps.
Hoping weāre back on the original topic a little - I am on board with this, injury prevention and being injury free is always more important than performance, face it - be healthy and happy first. You just have to be careful about what you do. Iāve got bad shoulders, and a back prone to ātweakingā and cramping up on me. I do upper body and core anywhere from 1x-3x a week (Usually 2x for 45 minutes). But, nothing heavy. Pullups, pushups, cable rotations, planks, flutter kicks, rows, shoulder raises, etc. And a couple vanity sets of biceps and triceps right at the end I am not looking to progress strength, itās maintain, stay injury free, keep muscle that I have.
The area I have to be extremely careful is the leg stuff. Like you, I get hit with DOMS in the legs pretty hard. But, I also really like Squats and Deadlifts for my back and core. Theyāre magic for me, even if Iām just focusing on ROM and not heavy. Starting at scratch if I havenāt been keeping up with them, Iāll literally do one set of squats with just the bar, and one set of deadlifts with low weight. Repeat that after 2-3 days rest for 3-4x before adding a set. I have to work up extremely slowly, it might take me 3 weeks of that to get to 3 sets light weight. Then Iāll leave weight constant for 2-3 sessions before going up a little. Repeat, but always monitoring how it impacts me.
I could go downstairs right now and do 3 sets of 10 of each at a really easy weight, feel fine like there was no issue, and itād hit me tomorrow and the day after and I wouldnāt be right on the bike for a weekā¦ Itād be 2-3 bike workouts Iād be compromising. On the bike, I am always recovery limited and performance limited by leg fatigue, itās almost never a cardiovascular thing.
Iām happy my attempts at nuanced discussions on strength training made such a lasting impression because that was definitely not my podcast.
As far as Iām aware, strength training is only shown in the scientific literature to have power benefits across the board, and in your n=1 anecdata, if someone hasnāt been training properly on the bike. The big reason it helps untrained people is neural drive, which would be equally effective by doing proper on-bike training. For my n>100, strength training doesnāt do shit for most peopleās power on the bike except for peak-1min and for a āsuper responderā (my phrase, blame me if itās a bad one) we might see an improvement in the 5-30min range but thatās highly atypical and in line with the studies done on strength training, which typically donāt show an improvement in vo2max at all.
I guess you missed my purpose in including the Coyle study too, which is that the original question posed was on what are the physiological changes with an FTP increase. That study goes into many of the changes with improved endurance performance, but the other one not really mentioned (since they controlled for it) is vo2max which sets the upper limit for FTP.
One more thing, thereās no such thing as āglycolytic strengthā since that system is a reaction to a rapidly dropping muscular energy state that canāt be covered aerobically. Improvements are actually due to reducing the feedback mechanisms that shut down contractile function during intense exercise.
The only thing Iāll claim is that strength work makes it feel easier on those 30-40 second power surges required to go up and over a freeway overpass.
Oh, and strength training makes it easier to hold aero position for hours.
I am not looking to progress strength, itās maintain, stay injury free, keep muscle that I have.