[Closed] How to increase leg strength / power

Short term use of Creatine?

Sounds like the obvious would be the best solution !

Interval sessions to increase speed.

squats - lots and lots of squats either with weights or without.

get on the weights and the protein.

but i'm lacking in power to pick up the pace and feeling weak on long climbs.

Do more climbing? 🙄

What are the benefits (and drawbacks??) of using creatine?

I could easily introduce some squats into programme.

Over the winter I’ve been trying to develop lag strength - been using the turbo (tacx excel) and using power based workouts – seems to have been quite successful as I ride I’m finding my local hills significantly easier to get up then last year

What exercises might I include in a power-based workout?

When you're out, try riding out of the saddle as much as you can.

Wall sits?

Longterm creatine use? Weight gain (more water in the muscles) and chances of ripping your ligaments (too much muscle power)/strain.

get yourself a single speed

Paceman, after the gym session/ride do you eat within an hour? Its important for muscle recovery.

How about interval training?
10 mins warm up
30 mins sprint and 30 mins rest x 5
5 mins rest/spin
repeat 30 mins sprint and 30 mins rest x 5
10 mins warm down

Have a protein shake in the 20 mins immediately after exercise - not an hour!

£6 for a big drum of protein mix from Holland and barrett

Hora

Yes I do eat after exercise.

I think I may have been focussing too much on my cardio-fitness over the last few months, as my legs feel drained pretty quickly out on rides now. I need to get that poer back a.s.a.p.!

"racing_ralph - Member
How about interval training?
10 mins warm up
30 mins sprint and 30 mins rest x 5
5 mins rest/spin
repeat 30 mins sprint and 30 mins rest x 5
10 mins warm down "

I make that somewhere in the region of 10.5 hours, is that the sort of training I should be doing rather than 2 hours twice a week?

singlespeed and beast the local hills, worked for me last year

turbo trainer power sessions are good too

like a couple of people have said, make sure you refuel adequately too!!

Harry Too

I think RR meant 5 mins rest x 5??

Sprint intervals. Find a steep hill and power up it a few times.

as my legs feel drained pretty quickly out on rides now.

Different thing. Endurance and power/speed come from different metabolic processes, so you train for them differently and the proportions and timing vary depending on your goals.

For endurance, you need to ride fairly slowly for long periods. For speed/power, do stuff like sprint intervals and go hard. It's all out there on the net, or buy a copy of Joe Friel's book.

Creatine is a terrible idea, do not touch the stuff for cycling.

Intervals are the way, there is far more science to it than just sprinting up a hill for 20 seconds. Either buy a HRM or a powermeter. Work in zones to improve various aspects of your fitness, muscles tend to develop in harmony with the rest of your system for a particular task.

Some intervals functional threshold HR/Power, 20mins On – 10mins Off (slow) – 20mins On

Some high intensity – 5mins On – 2mins Off etc…

Some killer – 20seconds On – 3mis off etc…

As for supplements; A good energy drink like high5 without Aspartame, and a good quality protein powder (100g per day spaced out) like Reflex instant Whey.

Best advice; Ride 3 times a week with a rest in between, that’s two hard rides and one easy ride. Easy ride = 30-40 MTB miles, mega slow, take some lunch and a camera, walkers should be passing you. Hard Ride – Near death experience, start slow and build up, should last no more than 90 mins. Finally; if it isn’t nailed down eat it.

big gear, high intesity sessions (turbo trainer is good for this). change your 2-3 hour rides for 2x 1&1/2 hours but ride some of it as fast as possible. try singlespeeding in hilly terrain.
do some squats and lunges.
cut down on running and when you do, go up some hills. don't try all of this on top of what you allready do, just change things now and again.

There isn't much of a substitute for riding - 4 - 5 rides a month isn't that much. It's only a short ride each weekend. You need to be doing more than that.

Do you have a turbo? Interval sessions - like the Russian steps approach - can be very useful on a turbo.

Start steadily - you shouldn't increase your training workload by more than about 10% a week.

And make sure you have your protein - NB don't mix with milk; mix with water - within 20 minutes after you finish exercising.

I don't think weight training would be of much benefit - I used to squat 140kg when I was into weights but since I got into cycling I've cut out leg exercises completely and am a better cyclist for it.

Either buy a HRM or a powermeter

Hah, the OP surely wants to drop £900 just like that on a powermeter...

He wants base fitness, for sure. So it's long steady rides.

Stop thinking about it and go and ride your bike?

I think I may have been focussing too much on my cardio-fitness over the last few months, as my legs feel drained pretty quickly out on rides now. I need to get that poer back a.s.a.p.!

If you've only been riding four or five times a month for a couple of hours, then what do you expect? It sounds like you just need to ride more. Brutal I know, but adding intervals onto, well, not very much basic fitness, isn't going to turn you into a hill-climbing machine if you're only riding once a week. Just try to get out more, lots more.

[i]30 mins sprint and 30 mins rest x 5
5 mins rest/spin
repeat 30 mins sprint and 30 mins rest x 5[/i]

I think you mean 30 second sprints then 30 seconds rest. Bradley Wiggins 30/30's. I'd like to see someone do 30 minute sprints 😉

singlespeeding works well. If you've not got any big hills handy, stick a 36 tooth ring on it.

I'm normally riding a 36:16 round here. Not cos I'm rock hard or owt, just because it makes little hills seem bigger 😉

Traditionally one builds base fitness and endurance, power comes when you combine the speed with that fitness.

It sounds like you are trying to do that backwards !! I am sure you have reasons for the schedule you have followed.

Intervals and turbo sessions are all well and good but you might find you will do a race and show improvement, but it will burn out fast.

As people who prolly know more than me have said, there is no substitute to getting out and riding.

Pick some events that suit your strengths.

Hill reps and pyramids work well at improving power, I've found. I think squats/leg press exercises helped me.

[Swiss Tony]I find cross training helps, horizontal, riding, breast-stroke and diving all with a beautiful woman of course[/Swiss Tony]

molgrips - how much is a HRM? Not £900.

If you are serious about getting fit, a Powermeter is going to yield greater benefits than a set of carbon wheels or light set of forks. Of course a PM is not necessary but a helpful addition.

Thanks for all the advice, i've started commuting to work this week to up my riding time (13 flattish miles each way) and will try to build in some intervals. I also plan to start doing some squats / leg-presses etc. 😉

molgrips - how much is a HRM? Not £900.

Clearly. But you did say powermeter.

If you are serious about getting fit, a Powermeter is going to yield greater benefits than a set of carbon wheels or light set of forks. Of course a PM is not necessary but a helpful addition.

Those things aren't the same type of spend at all. The OP didn't come on and ask how best to spend £900. Seems to me that he's a relative beginner and hence wouldn't really be keen or dedicated enough to spend hours of self-immolation staring at a few numbers.

First step - get riding more; second step - do base in the winter and speed in the summer; third step - get a HRM and a book; fourth step - get a coach; fifth step - get a power meter, I reckon.

First step - get riding more; second step - do base in the winter and speed in the summer; third step - get a HRM and a book; fourth step - get a coach; fifth step - get a power meter, I reckon.

I've definately worked on my base fitness over the winter so thats the second step covered, now time to up the riding, and up the speed in the summer. I'm not sure I need steps 3-5.

Molgrips, molgrips, molgrips, stop point scoring, the purpose of this thread is to help the guy increase his leg strength which is (as covered) linked to your overall fitness. As stated previously HRM’s and PM’s are great training tools. Everyone who wants to see the best results given time constraints (4-5 rides a month as stated in the OP) should invest in a HRM or a PM… it’s up to them which one they choose. In brief; getting out more is definitely the answer, as is mixing it up… but, assuming you don’t have time for 3-4 rides per week, intervals with a HRM or a PM are the most effective form of exercise for those with 3-6hrs a week.

Ride you bike more, but if you don’t have time… ride it more effectively.

I'm not point scoring, I'm saying talking about pretty specialist training aids when someone's clearly just starting out with the training is a bit daft.

Intervals are not neccessarily the best form of training, HRM or no. You need to work out what areas you want to train (base, speed, power etc) and work on that. From what he said I thought he needed base fitness, and doing intervals won't help with what he asked. There is no substitute for hours if you want endurance, there's no short cut. Speed can be gained for sure in short workouts, but not endurance.

im with markenduro and terrahawk was gona write the same till i read there.get a single speed i ve only had mine a month and im already miles stronger on the climbs and hooking bigger gears.i think if nothing else it stops you sh*ting out and droping to the granny ring when you dont need to

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

STOP IT, STOP IT PLEASE

<arms flail>

1) HRM's for new cyclists are not daft. £30 that is all you need to spend, but if you wish... given the freedom of choice bestowed by our forefathers... you can buy a sodding powermeter if you sodding well like because they are better. RIGHT??

2) If you have a limited training time... CONTROLLED INTERVALS ARE THE BEST FORM OF TRAINING. As described in my previous post intervals needn't be 30 second blats up a hill but 2 x 20 at FTP (Functional threshold power/HR -- maximum sustained speed). Simply riding you bike lots in the grey area is NOT the best way of improving cycling performance.

3) YES THERE ARE SHORTCUTS, see above, these are not shortcuts for people who know what they are doing, rather an unfair advantage over those who prescribe riding your bike more as being the most effective training method.

Try developing a "training loop" about 10 - 12 miles incorporating road and off road ( from your house is ideal). When you get used to doing it try to vary your saddle height, drop it 2 - 3 " and feel the burn 🙂 Your legs will soon develop

No real advice but know what you mean, I hadn't cycled since about October and despite lots of running and feeling fitter than before, when i got back on the bike at xmas my legs were totally ****ed. I guess my advice is just to ride more, its the best thing thing for getting better at it.

MTT I don't want to start an argument or get you annoyed or anything, but I still disagree I'm afraid. Two long FTP intervals will be great for those 10 mile TTs but you'll still end up being knackered after an hour of riding I think. If short high intensity sessions are all you do, your muscle memory will be trained to ride like that and it's all you'll want to do when racing or out riding. Then when you come to an endurance race you'll set off at that pace and die after 4 hours. It's exactly where I was in 2003.

I thought he didn't have enough base fitness based on the comment about getting pretty tired on longer rides - and doing short sessions won't do anything for that. Base fitness is important, and there's no shortcut for that.

As for HRMs, they are nice, and cheap indeed, but they are of limited use unless you know your zones. And I don't think much of the generic recommendations, they are far too vague. As for power meters... It takes a certain sort of dedication and commitment to ride this way. First of all you have to splash a ton of cash one one - more than many people's whole bikes - but even if you have the cash they have a habit of sucking all the fun out of riding which is a length to which most people are not prepared to go I think. You find yourself seeking out flat open road rides so that you can keep up a good constant power, and it's bloody murder. Bloody boring murder at that. I didn't think it was worth telling the OP about that kind of training!

Anyway, I'm off out for a 2.5 hour constant power tempo session on suburban dual carriageway and flat A road. In the dark 🙂

Ho hum....

The powermeter and heart rate monitor thing crops up every now and then, and I'm sure they can help you wring out the last drop in terms of performance, but the thing is..... [u]you still have to ride your bike[/u]. Time in the gym, rowing or whatever, only makes you good at rowing or whatever. Cycling is a very, very specific sport, and to get good at it takes lots and lots of cycling. There is no other way, there are no shortcuts, there is no magic to it. You can measure it however you like, use power, use heart rates, use time, use speed, use hours spent away from your family, but you stll have to actually go and do it, and if you're not doing it as much as you can, buying training tools is a waste of money, which would be better spent on a road bike and a decent waterproof and some flowers/chocolates/vibrating object of choice for t'other half.

I've been through this, I've got 3 HR monitors gathering dust. What made me get faster was getting my butt kicked in every race I did, on every chain gang, every sunday.

Hard work is the key, not training aids.

Hard work is the key, not training aids.

I dunno why you think it's either/or. No-one's saying training aids are a substitute for hard work. What I'm saying is that training aids AND hard work are better than unfocused hard work. Put another way, you have to know how to use training aids to get an advantage.

If you just look at your power and heart rate and think "oh, look at that" then that is a big fat waste of money, yes. I use a power meter for more than that tho. I get a blood lactate test every now and then, and that tells me at what levels of exertion certain things happen in my body. So I know that for instance, to train my fat burning metabolism and increase endurance (base training) I need to be sat around 210W. I could just go on a long ride at any old pace, but I wouldnt get as much endurance benefit.

I do base rides, I also do general rides and speed rides. Some I enjoy more than others, but there's no doubt that the power meter has helped me but ONLY because I am a scientific geek and that's how I want to do my training. Most people probably wouldn't be happy doing what I'm doing, and that's fine.

I'm still a fairly rubbish racer tho, but that's a different issue. I suffer from temporary motivational black spots which means training doens't get done. So yes, that messes things up a bit. But the challenge of training to get fast is for me about more than just pushing the pedals.

Take a look at this [url= http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=serious+training&btnG=Google+Search&meta= ]book[/url]- I've found it very usefull - for the last 33 weeks have based my training on the principles

I understand the attraction of 'sports science', and I see the undoubted advantages of training in a measurable and scientific way, but the fact remains, and you have indicated it yourself, that hard work is what counts, not the tools or the measurements.

In the days I used to go out training with the local chain gang, the people ripping it up at the front after 60-70-80 miles were the old ex-pros, the guys who were out at every opportunity, the fellas who always rode hard, and who never bothered with anything that didn't make them faster.

So many cyclists look for the magic beans, look for the Holy Grail, and ignore the obvious; it's a hard sport, and the people who do best are the hard ones.

There's this lad I know very vaguely. He rides a huge amount, and does 5 hour rides at his tempo pace, which is a lot faster than my tempo pace and I can ony manage 2.5 hours. He sets off on 24 hour solo races and streaks into the lead but a good 75% of the time completely blows up after about 14 hours or so and retires. If he manages to stay in, he wins or gets a podium. If he trained a bit smarter with that much time commitment and natural talent, he'd be unstoppable.

Just because it's mostly hard work doesn't mean that science doesn't help. So don't knock it! And besides, some people like to understand their bodies.

I concur about the Rob Sleamaker book, its an excellent training book , there is also a website where you can get a excel spreadsheet that automatically works out the figures for you here <www.geocities.com/kenbhart/train.xls>