Among the best solutions to measure athletic and fitness improvements has been a bike computer.
A bicycle computer allows us to track bicycle fitness levels by improvements inside our cadence, times and intensity.
But something else can help: Strength training.
The investigation carried out to date on the effects of weight training on cyclists has had mixed results. Case study produced by Ben Hurley with the University of Maryland had 10 healthy men occupy resistance training (bench presses, hip flexions, knee extensions, knee flexions, press-ups, leg presses, lat pulldowns, arm curls, parallel squats, and bent-knee sit-ups) for 12 weeks, while eight other healthy men served as controls. After 12 weeks, the strength-trained men improved their endurance while cycling at an power of 75 % V02max by 33 % plus lifted lactate threshold (the only best predictor of endurance performance) by 12 %.
However, these men were untrained prior to the study and didn’t execute regular cycling workouts throughout the research, therefore the applicability of those findings to serious athletes is questionable
Case study completed by R. C. Hickson and the colleagues with the University of Illinois at Chicago was significantly more practical. Because investigation, eight experienced cyclists added three days a week of resistance training with their regular endurance routines more than a 10-week period. The resistance training was incredibly simple, emphasizing parallel squats (five sets of five reps per workout), knee extensions (three sets of five reps), knee flexions (3 x 5), and toe raises (3 x 25), with fairly heavy resistance. Really the only progression employed in the program involved how much resistance, which increased steadily as strength improved.
Nonetheless, the resistance training were built with a profoundly positive influence on cycling performance. After 10 weeks, the cyclists improved their ‘short-term endurance’ (their ability to keep working at the high intensity) by about 11 %, and in addition they expanded how long they could pedal at an power of 80% V02max from 71 to 85 minutes, in regards to a 20-% upgrade.
For the negative side, we’ve got research, completed by James Home and the colleagues with the University of Cape Town in South Africa, seven endurance cyclists who averaged about 200 kilometers of cycling a week incorporated three resistance training sessions to their normal routine. The strength program was relatively unsophisticated, comprising three sets as high as eight repetitions of hamstring curls, leg presses, and quadriceps extensions using fairly heavy resistance.
After about six weeks, the resistance training had produced rather impressive gains in strength (increases averaged a bit more than 20 %). However, actual cycling performances were not improved; actually, these were worse than prior to resistance training was undertaken! 40-K race times slowed from 59 to 62 minutes, along with the strength-trained cyclists reported feeling ‘heavy’ and tired throughout their workouts.
Why did Hickson’s study uncover clear advantages linked to resistance training for cyclists, while Home’s work revealed overturn?
No person knows for several, this means it’s time for the personal observation. This indicates most probably that this resistance training completed by Hickson’s charges improved fatigue resistance of their muscles, permitting them to persist longer both during high-intensity tests of endurance and prolonged efforts at the submaximal (80% V02max) intensity. Meanwhile, it’s likely that Home’s added resistance training sent his athletes into the overtrained – at least ‘stale’ – state. The feelings of fatigue which originated right after the start of resistance training suggests that the athletes were simply doing an excessive amount of work.
Home cyclists were averaging 124 miles of weekly riding if they started their strength training, while Hickson’s athletes were logging considerably fewer miles, so one could possibly be tempted to declare that resistance training can produce major benefits for low-mileage cyclists but does a smaller amount for experienced, higher mileage competitors that have already piled up considerable strength merely by riding. That certainly wouldn’t be an unreasonable thought, nonetheless it doesn’t explain why resistance training by itself would actually decelerate endurance performances, because it appeared to do for Home’s performers (not one other study has demonstrated this). This indicates most likely that Home’s added resistance training was this can be the straw that broke the camel’s back; it wasn’t the resistance training which slowed the cyclists but the exact amount of training they had to perform.
Another issue which was not kept controlled inside studies was nutrition and supplementation this would’ve a serious impact. It is my personal feeling after three decades inside physical training world that weight training pays to in most sports when done properly and associated with the correct nutrition.