The over looked upper body

[megale3]

A lot of cyclists over look their strength training in their upper body. Holding onto handle bars and keeping your torso quiet while riding takes some upper body strength. What’s your science on training your shoulders lats, triceps, biceps pecks and neck for those long climbs?
Meg

[sandy]

Every week for 15yrs, Back and Bi's one day, Chest and Tri's,another, Shoulders by themselves, abs here there and everywhere. Neck never...which is maybe one of the reasons its my achilles heel when riding. I forgot Legs, only train when cycling season is over.

[RaffCycles]

Besides 12 oz curls, I do an entire upper body circuit. Bench, military, lats, triceps extensions and curls are the mainstay of my workout.

I start out with light weight and 12 reps, decrease by two down to six (12, 10, 8, 6) while addind weight. One minute rest between sets. Then finish with two back to back sets of 12 with the first exercise matching the previous 4 sets (and less weight) and a second set of 12 using a different exercise that works the same muscle group.

For example using dumbells for bench press:

12 X 40 lbs (warm-up)
10 X 45 lbs
8 X 50 lbs
6 X 55 lbs
12 X 50 lbs
12 X 30 lbs dumbell flies

Intensity of each set builds from 5 to 10 on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being I couldn't do one more rep without assistance.

I do this twice a week to maintain and three times with more weight during the off season.

[megale3]

Nice guys
I went and got the pod cast from Bicycle Magazine this month and low and behold it has exactly what I am talking about on it. Go there and download it and tell me what you think. It is a whole 9 minutes long. Saleen Yager has the mike on this one.
Meg

[kszspin]

Pull ups! ;)
I have a love/hate relationship with them. But they work. :)

[kszspin]

ooh, I also love dips. I use a dip bar, but gotta watch my ROM for my left shoulder.

[megale3]

ooh, I also love dips. I use a dip bar, but gotta watch my ROM for my left shoulder.

I like dips too. I also do planks! What is up with the shoulder?
Meg

[kszspin]

Wish I knew. My left one doesn't like as much load. :roll:

[Todd S]

Holding onto handle bars and keeping your torso quiet while riding takes some upper body strength.

It doesn't take much strength in relative terms, though.

I think weight training is great, but not because it will make you a better cyclist. In fact, it will probably make you a less effective cyclist due to added muscle mass that's not needed/doesn't contribute to turning the pedals. If upper body muscle actually made one a better cyclist, most pros wouldn't have third world refugee physiques.

I'm a bit unconventional in my approach to weight training. (surprised? probably not...) I've been lifting almost continuously since I was a teenager and I'm an ectomorph by nature (6'1" and 145 lbs when I was a senior in HS) with a high metabolism and not much body fat. I'm just hoping to maintain most of the strength I developed in my 20's and early 30's as I age. I do very little leg work (my legs are close to being fried all the time anyway from cycling and a bit of running) and very little traditional 'core' type work. I usually only do only one exercise per day, 6 - 8 sets of that exercise, 4 - 6 reps per set, and I'm done in 20 - 25 minutes. I rarely take a day off. I focus on the prime movers - the major muscle groups and stick primarily to traditional, free weight type exercises.

A ten day cycle would look like:
Day Exercise
1 Barbell Bench Press
2 Pull Ups (Pronated Grip)
3 Incline Barbell Bench Press
4 Seated Military Press (Barbell)
5 Seated Rows (Wide and Narrow Grip)
6 Dumbbell Bench Press
7 Pull Downs (Varied Grip)
8 Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
9 Seated Military Press (Dumbbells)
10 Seated Rows (Wide and Narrow Grip)

The idea is to work major muscle groups in multiple planes and combine pushing and pulling type movements. I can't remember the last time I did a curl or a tricep extension.

I don't know that I would recommend this to anyone else without knowing more about their training history, etc., but this works for me. But it does hurt my power to weight ratio on a bike as I figure I carry about 15 lbs of 'unnecessary' upper body muscle that I would try to lose if I ever wanted to compete in an endurance type event again. Now, post heart surgery, I compete only against myself with my power meter keeping score.

But if cycling truly is your main gig, I'd lay off the weights except for a couple of months during fall and winter. On a bike, it's all about power to weight ratio. Using myself as an example, with my current functional threshold power numbers and current weight of 180 lbs, I'm at typical high Cat IV or low Cat III fitness. But if I were to stay out of the weight room, control my diet, maintain the same power outputs, and drop about 20 lbs of upper body mass - I'd be into the Cat II fitness range on the charts. The more specific you are with your events and goals, the more specific you need to be with how you train and how you manage your body.

[megale3]

Nice take on that Todd. I have heard that some have taken falls on their bikes and have broken bones a lot easier. Do you feel that a modified work out like you have suggested would be a good way to put some callogen back in the bones and help for those mishaps~ god forbid we have them?
M

[Todd S]

Nice take on that Todd. I have heard that some have taken falls on their bikes and have broken bones a lot easier. Do you feel that a modified work out like you have suggested would be a good way to put some callogen back in the bones and help for those mishaps~ god forbid we have them?
M

Probably not.

If you're a pro, your performance on the bike is what matters. Specificity is what it's all about. IMHO, they should save any energy they could invest in weight training for the off season.

[megale3]

Thanks for the infoTodd meister!
Mike

[lizardbiker]

I do a light upper body and upper back workout once or twice a week for tone, not to build mass. Abs & lower back twice a week (routine takes about 40 minutes) - haven't had any back pain, even on ultra rides since I've added that to my routine. No neck equipment at the gym, but found in an article an easy neck workout that's easy to do every day - press your head back into your car's headrest while driving. Press for so many seconds, relax, repeat. At stop lights you can turn your head slightly and press for working the neck muscles from another angle.

[Todd S]

Interesting discussions pop up all the time on the wattage list related to the value vs lack of value for weight training as it relates to cycling performance. Andy Coggan, PhD wrote one of the nicest summaries I've read on the apparent value of muscular strength as it relates to cycling.

-------------------------------------

Q: Is it your argument that there is no portion of the power profile curve that is substantially correlated to maximum leg strength (ie 1RM squat or leg press)?


A: Keeping in mind first and foremost that correlation does not mean
causation, and that the magnitude of any correlation coefficient
depends in part on the spread in the data and the extent to which one
controls for covariates, here's what I'd expect:

1) a modest correlation between strength and 5 s power. Consistent
with this, Stone et al. found that strength (measured various ways)
only explained ~25% of the interindividual variability in the time
required to cover 25 m from a standing start. (And since this study
used elite track cyclists and field testing, it's hard to dispute the
external validity.)

2) a lower, but possibly still significant, *association* between
strength and 1 min power. In keeping with this hypothesis, studies
using the 30 s Wingate test have generally observed a lower
correlation between strength and mean power than in the above study by
Stone et al., while also finding that aerobic energy production is not
entirely irrelevant even at this short duration.

3) no, or perhaps even an inverse, correlation between strength and 5
min power, or between strength and functional threshold power. I say
this because the force that must be produced during such sustained
efforts is far below the maximum that our muscles can develop (i.e.,
leg strength isn't a limiting factor), while the skeletal muscle
characteristics conducive to high sustained aerobic energy production
are antithetical to high force output.

------------------------------------

Q: Or is it simply that weight training is not the most efficient way to develop that maximum strength if the end goal is making a bike go fast or accelerate quickly)?


A: There is that to consider as well. For example, while I think it makes
little sense from a performance perspective for, e.g., a stage racer
to lift weights, it makes perfect sense for a sprint cyclist to do so
(because weight training is a good way of inducing adaptations
conducive to high peak power output, e.g., muscle hypertrophy). Where
things become muddier is in the middle, e.g., the points racer on the
track who gets their points by sprinting, not by taking a lap (which
really only works well at the local level...at the elite level, you're
competing against guys like Ignatiev, who just took silver in the U23
road TT at Worlds), or the criterium racer who must "free lance" the
sprints and try to "pop through" at the last second. For those
individuals, you have to taken into consideration the gain in body
mass, the fact that any minute/bit of adaptive energy spent lifting
takes away from time on the bike, that you can make tremendous gains
in neuromuscular power via appropriate on-the-bike training, etc.,
etc., etc.

[megale3]

Do you think that the reverse is better suited for people that want to get stronger at lifting things for reps? Meaning that fast muscle fibres would be better trained to become stronger with slow typeII a and b as a cross training measure? Better put what will happen to the mitichondrial numbers when high intensity training is employed?