Strength Building

crashoveroid

Hi All

Looking to build strength in my legs can any offer some advice ?

coach

hi there. have you looked at www.bodybuilding.com?

As a quailified strength coach and PT, my one piece of advice for building good legs is to do compound exercises. Change the routine often and eat to fuel your body.

regards
michael

Quigs Snr

crashoveroid wrote:

Hi All

Looking to build strength in my legs can any offer some advice ?

Well that depends, if you want strong legs for General purposes, go to the gym. If you want strong legs for cycling, get on the bike. I ride with a bunch of guys doing the RAS, they don't strength train in the gym, but have legs like horses. Personally I train in the gym with weights over the winter, it gives me far less power than the guys who are outdoors on the bike but hey, my legs look more defined !

Seriously as its the cycling forum and you want to build strength, a tip I got from Paddy Doran who is an international cycling coach was the following.... find a hill (steady as opposed steep) between 5 and 8 minutes long put the bike into one of the highest gears and then grind your way up. Your legs will be turning very slowly. A lot of guys use it in winter to build strength. Theres loads of other things you can do.

If its not bike specific training then into the gym, do a few squats, thrusts, power cleans, quad extensions or whatever, ask your instructor, although most are useless and geared towards 40 year old women who want to lose weight only.

A debate rages in cycling as to wether weights are any use for speed on a bike. Some respected coaches like Ric Stern say no, others like Lance Armstrong do some strength work. Me, I like to do a bit in the gym, but mostly core and upper body stuff. Too many cyclists underestimate how important it is to have a strong core, I learned the value of that as a rower many years ago...

crashoveroid

Quigs Snr wrote:

Well that depends, if you want strong legs for General purposes, go to the gym. If you want strong legs for cycling, get on the bike. I ride with a bunch of guys doing the RAS, they don't strength train in the gym, but have legs like horses. Personally I train in the gym with weights over the winter, it gives me far less power than the guys who are outdoors on the bike but hey, my legs look more defined !

Seriously as its the cycling forum and you want to build strength, a tip I got from Paddy Doran who is an international cycling coach was the following.... find a hill (steady as opposed steep) between 5 and 8 minutes long put the bike into one of the highest gears and then grind your way up. Your legs will be turning very slowly. A lot of guys use it in winter to build strength. Theres loads of other things you can do.

If its not bike specific training then into the gym, do a few squats, thrusts, power cleans, quad extensions or whatever, ask your instructor, although most are useless and geared towards 40 year old women who want to lose weight only.

A debate rages in cycling as to wether weights are any use for speed on a bike. Some respected coaches like Ric Stern say no, others like Lance Armstrong do some strength work. Me, I like to do a bit in the gym, but mostly core and upper body stuff. Too many cyclists underestimate how important it is to have a strong core, I learned the value of that as a rower many years ago...

well This sounds good i need to build strength for racing as its where i suffering at the mo but will try to mix them up and see what happenes thanks

rubadub

I read on a site about people doing hack squats, and also read about that cycling up hills too. Most pro cyclists are endurance racers. People spend 1000's shaving off a few grams from components, so I am sure they do not want to carry excess muscle either. Think of pro endurance runners, all really lean skinny lads, then think of pro sprinters, built like tanks, full of muscle for explosive power over a short distance.

I would imagine a short distance cyclist would want more muscle than a long distance one.

Also do not forget upper body strength. If your arms are loose on the bar your downward force on a pedal is limited. If you have upperbody strength you can pull up on the bar and exert huge forces on the pedals.

I would recommend squats. I have found I have a lot more explosive power since taking up weight/strength training. I would imagine it suits MTB riders greatly, where you need sudden huge bursts of power and then go into a freewheel for a while.

hunnymonster

I was looking at the track racing on tv at the weekend. They are what you would call short distances but the riders were not muscle bound. If anything they had less muscle than the TdeF riders. I don't know enough about cycling in isolation (I'm a triathlete more than anything) so I can't properly comment any more than this observation.

Membrane

hunnymonster wrote:

I was looking at the track racing on tv at the weekend. They are what you would call short distances but the riders were not muscle bound. If anything they had less muscle than the TdeF riders. I don't know enough about cycling in isolation (I'm a triathlete more than anything) so I can't properly comment any more than this observation.

There must be something wrong with your telly, have you seen the stilts on Chris Hoy at standing starts? Muscle definition capable of scaring little children!

Sprinters typically have bulging "short" muscles, climbers have much leaner "long" muscles. Afaik most of that is down to genetics, much less so down to type of training.

Tour de France riders come in various types, from sprinters like Sean Kelly or Chipolini, to true mountain goats like Marco Pantani. Real climbers invariably do poorly in tour team or individual time trial stages, in turn the sprinters have serious difficulty getting over the moutains. TdF winners typically seem to be something in between those two extremes.

rubadub

hunnymonster wrote:

I was looking at the track racing on tv at the weekend. They are what you would call short distances but the riders were not muscle bound. If anything they had less muscle than the TdeF riders. I don't know enough about cycling in isolation (I'm a triathlete more than anything) so I can't properly comment any more than this observation.

They still cycle for a fair length of time compared to people in a 10second sprint. I wonder if pro MTBers are built more, they would be the sort who would be need massive leg power for 10 second bursts.

Mucco

Get a fixie with impossible gearing.