Lifting Weights - Good or Bad

Future 2050

I have heard different opinions regard lifting weights. A Joe Freil book I am reading now recommends weight lifting in winter to build leg strength. Make sense to me. particularly for core strength. Some people say that weights are a hinderence and will slow you down.

Can any body tell me what to do weights or not ??????? Thanks

Ryaner

Lifting weights at muscle mass which can slow you down in the hills. If you are a sprinter though, weights can definitely help.

At the end of the day, most people are very unlikely to notice the difference in extra muscle mass from a few months of weight lifting unless they take something "extra". So if it makes you feel better then go for it.

billy.fish

Ryaner wrote: »

Lifting weights at muscle mass which can slow you down in the hills. If you are a sprinter though, weights can definitely help.

At the end of the day, most people are very unlikely to notice the difference in extra muscle mass from a few months of weight lifting unless they take something "extra". So if it makes you feel better then go for it.

Don't mistake lifting weights with muscle mass gain. Rookie mistake.

Inherit to our sport is crashing. When you crash you go in all sorts of directions.

Many many injuries can be avoided through a period of strength conditioning before the season starts and some maintenance during the season.

Its not just for sprinters

Beasty

Apparantly Cavendish only trains on the bike - he does nothing at all in the gym

Future 2050

Surely it will make it easier pedalling also with extra muscle in the legs. So your saying muscle build up should be good in the long run as strength training in the winter. Obviously I will ease off coming into the summer

Any more input would be great

Ryaner

billy.fish wrote: »

Don't mistake lifting weights with muscle mass gain. Rookie mistake.

You need to be lifting stupidly small weights *not* to gain muscle mass, or be on a calorie restricted diet. If you are on a calorie restricted diet, weight lifting can help slow down the muscle loss.
With lifting small repeatedly, you can increase your endurance but usually most people doing this don't lift enough to cause any tearing in the muscle fibres and completely waste their time.

jwshooter

using weights .
keeping your reps high will help ,also working the core is so important.

even with out a gym, push ups ,sit ups ,skipping will be beneficial.

once you get into weight training its very addictive when you see your body starting to respond to it.

DirkVoodoo

I think the preoccupation with weight and cycling is fine if you spend most of your time racing in the alps.

For Ireland, it seems that the extra power gained from time in the gym offsets any extra weight gained as we don't really have anything that comes close to a proper "climb".

At least this is what I am hoping.

billy.fish

Ryaner wrote: »

You need to be lifting stupidly small weights *not* to gain muscle mass, or be on a calorie restricted diet. If you are on a calorie restricted diet, weight lifting can help slow down the muscle loss.
With lifting small repeatedly, you can increase your endurance but usually most people doing this don't lift enough to cause any tearing in the muscle fibres and completely waste their time.

Disagree with you there, and never mentioned small weights at high reps.

Unless you are doing a specific hypertrophy phase in weights your aim is not to gain muscle mass but to aim to utilise the muscle fibres better and the activation patterns better. its called neuromuscular adaptation, go dig in the book of Joe for info if your not aware.

So we aim for cycling to train the muscles to deal with high speed, high force contractions. The wonderful world of power training with weights is different to strength training for that very reason. You don't need to have huge muscles to move large resistances fast. However you do need very large muscles to move very large resistances slow. Using small weights actually teaches these patterns, where as power based motions (~60-70% of 1RM) will actually teach the body to move the mass faster.

Transferring this to the bike is another story altogether from my expericene working with athletes.

billy.fish

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

I think the preoccupation with weight and cycling is fine if you spend most of your time racing in the alps.

For Ireland, it seems that the extra power gained from time in the gym offsets any extra weight gained as we don't really have anything that comes close to a proper "climb".

At least this is what I am hoping.

+1

We don't have mountains here, sorry kids. The benefit you can get for repeat anaerobic performance on Irish hills can be supplemented by S+C in the gym. The ability to make a hard anaerobic effort and recover after it time and time again is what people lack, out and out climbing ability will only get you so far. Totally agree with you.

jwshooter

big muscle mass can move fast over short distances, look at sprinters and track cyclists ,chris hoy comes to mind.

i weight trained a lot in my younger days ,but ran, played squash, and kick boxed,hill walked.
its about a all round training Regine.

you not going to gain big bulk over nite ,even if you train for it.

armstrong trains alot in a gym off season. its no harm to him.

jimshady101

We work with alot of athletics people so I am mostly talking from a runners point of view.

I believe that any body from any type of sport can benefit from time in the gym and lifting weights. As mentioned a strong core is essential for getting power down.

Lifting weights is not going to make you huge and put on a load of muscle mass overnight. Weights can be used for making your legs, arms, shoulders, in fact your whole body alot leaner and greatly improve your endurance, reactions, and leg turnover speed.

petethedrummer

billy.fish wrote: »

The ability to make a hard anaerobic effort and recover after it time and time again is what people lack, out and out climbing ability will only get you so far. Totally agree with you.

This is what I always presumed cycle racing in Ireland would be like. A series of hard anaerobic efforts with short recovery rather than one all out slog, would this be correct in general?

Future 2050

looks like weights it is so lads and lassies is what i am reading. Pump iron to the summer. Any particular excercises recommended. Thanks

niceonetom

If you do decide that weights are a good thing, remember there's a big difference between training to get bigger (that's what most people are after) and training to get stronger. If there is any benefit to lifting for cycling it's in the latter. Hypertrophy will not make you faster.

article

I'm sceptical though. Unless you are already spending a lot of hours on the bike then I still think it's the place to train. Cycling is primarily an aerobic challenge and all the muscles in the world won't make up for VO2 shortcomings.

Shawn Marsh

Lifting weights helps to build muscle and shed weight. Weight training exercises are a healthy way to lose fat. Weight training can be done from the privacy of your own home by purchasing a few barbells and dumbbells and a weight bench; or purchasing a home gym system for example Bowflex.

Future 2050

thanks