Hi all - quick question here. And before I go further, I did want to say that any answers won’t change what I’m doing currently as I’m not specifically looking for significant ftp improvements at this time, and am enjoying the weight training.
As noted, I’ve been doing some weight training. But everywhere I read in the forum here or otherwise mostly says that will not lead to an FTP increase. I understand how in the moment, the weight training is causing my indoor training to suffer a bit. But in the long run, if I’m significantly stronger, will I not start with a bigger base from which to train?
As an example, when I started working out in the fall, my split squat was about 25lbs / side (I’m still coming back from a back injury). I’m now up to 50lbs / side.
While my quads are not Chris Hoy level, they’re getting better. I’ve also been doing the Masters Plan low volume, and haven’t really lost any FTP, but also not gained.
Once I switch over to mostly full time indoor training, will my ftp not go up?
I’m not the best to address this, but I’m confident in the stance that raw muscular strength increases are not a direct line to aerobic fitness gains. FTP is about aerobic capacity and that is not significantly improved by strength training.
Further to others’ comments, it’s likely that the improved neural drive from lifting could help improve your muscular endurance and hence your TTE (time to exhaustion) at your FTP. Which arguably is even better than an FTP bump, assuming any event you’re doing lasts more than about 30 minutes.
Interesting - yeah I could see the increase in sprinting ability being something, and yes for me this has actually been a good journey of eliminating some left / right differences which were a result of my back issues. So yes regardless, much better for me.
FTP is primarily determined by your aerobic abilities. A person with lots of muscle mass who can squat 500+ lbs can have a lower ftp than a person who squats 100 lbs and has skinny chicken legs. Muscular strength can be valuable for lots of reasons, but does not necessarily translate to aerobic capacity on the bike.
I’ve been weight training very consistently (2x week) for the last 14 months and have seen no improvements in my ftp from it. Perhaps even reduced improvements because it’s hard not to get too fatigued from it. But it’s worth it for me for other health-related reasons.
The answer lies in physiology, rather than the vague terms we tend to use like “stronger”. So this is the various muscle fibre types, size and density, and to extend to aerobic concepts like FTP, the various elements of the cardiovascular system.
Strength training that you’re doing, low weight, presumably high reps, split squats are likely to help with stability and assistive musculature, stability, better posture - but you’re not even knocking on the door of the kind of aerobic stimulation you get from say a set of 3-4min vo2 intervals in a one hour TR workout.
If you lift heavier, I tend to do 5x5 or 3x5 barbell squats if say 55 to 100kg, you’re ripping it up with anaerobic stimulation - this fires adaptation in the muscle fibres that have little impact on ~45min efforts, but could contribute to the matches you burn in a final sprint. You also get the ‘stabilisation and core’ strength from firing the muscles little used in cycling.
There are notable others on this forum who can tidy up my wording…
Quick nod to the Chris Hoy reference given the sad news recently revealed against his wishes. A great man.
Weight training is about building a stable platform from which to put down power. The best in the world do it for reasons that have nothing to do with FTP. I heard a podcast describe weight training for cycling as trying to shoot a cannon from a destroyer, not a rowboat. I thought that was about right
Firstly, thanks for the news on Chris - hadn’t seen that, indeed very sad.
I suppose overall what you’re saying maxes sense. I suppose I had thought that with muscles that build a higher capacity to lift a heavy load would at least partially translate into pushing the pedals with less effort. So a 1 min effort becomes easier, and in real life when doing say a one hour ride, you’d end up working better overall given there would be multiple 1 min efforts (aka small rises etc) that then are also easier.
I suppose the fact that FTP is measured in Watts despite it being a measure of aerobic capacity is part of the confusion.
The ability to push the pedals hard enough isn’t typically a limiter for any extended effort (unless you are grinding a crazy tall gear). Aerobic work is aerobic work, regardless of whether the pedal stroke is a smaller or larger percentage of your max force/strength. The work still needs to be done by your aerobic system (at least in the context of threshold efforts).
if you pedal at 90 rpm at FTP…say you can ride FTP for 45 min. you’re pushing the pedal ~4,000 times. so think of it like a 4,000 rep max in each leg. even if you did 30 reps weight lifting (that’s like the upper limit I’ve heard of people doing when training), you’re not in the same zone.
no one talks about it and i dunno the answer but I would assume having bigger muscles (especially quads) must give you some sort of more capacity to grow aerobic fitness through training…but it wouldn’t necessarily give it to you? I dunno the answer.
I would think the weight lifting keeps you more injury free and on the bike longer.
There is some signal in the literature that weightlifting can improve TTE at FTP (whether it’s the optimal method to improve TTE is another matter). This has been my personal experience as well. I haven’t found that it really increases FTP itself in a noticeable way though.
My first post on this forum concerned strength training to improve pedaling power. It was quite long but the intention was to provide info so people could design their own effective programs. It was based on a program I designed for myself from October 1993 to April 1994, which resulted in a phenomenal increase in cycling power. The two studies below, the first from 1991, the second from 2017, show significant increases in lactate threshold and OBLA resulting from strength training. There isn’t much detail about the lifting protocol from the 1991 study, but there is decent info about the one from 2017, much of which comports with my stance that the glycolytic system, not the neurological system, should be the focus when lifting for the purpose of improving your cycling performance. The second one also involved trained subjects rather than untrained, and it required them to continue their endurance training during the study, again comporting with my stance that strength training does not replace cycling, it supplements it, so you should not reduce your aerobic training.
Endurance gains in muscle are a result of increasing the number of mitochondria, and how well they can completely use and process oxygen+fuel. Think of mitochondria as “engines”
Strength training involves increases in muscle size / cross-sectional area, neural muscular coordination, and maximal force production.
Back on endurance, there are studies looking at adaptation froms three types of training:
endurance rides or “long steady distance” (LSD)
HIIT or high-intensity interval training
SIT or sprint interval training
Here is a view of each and leg muscle adaptations:
