38. HEAVY GYM STRENGTH TRAINING IMPROVES BOTH 1SEC AND 40MIN W/KG!

Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

For many years gym strength training was believed to make cyclists just heavier and slower.

However, in the last 15-20 years, many scientific studies showed the opposite: heavy gym strength training benefits cycling performance. In this KIW’s Research Note we have a look at one of the most important and explicative study in this area.

Does heavy gym strength training improve cycling performance?

A work published by Prof. Bent Rønnestad and Colleagues (Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences) on Journal of Sport Sciences in 2017 tried to answer this question. (1)

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HOW DID THEY TRAIN?

• They recruited 20 pro continental cyclists (mean age ~20, mean VO2max ~75)

• For the first 10 weeks of the preparatory period, they were divided into two groups (Gym + Bike vs Bike only). The two groups trained similarly (~12 hrs per week, almost all at low intensity) with the only following difference:

  • Gym + Bike (G+B): performed 2x week 45min heavy gym strength training sessions.

  • Bike only (B): they performed only ‘on the bike’ training.

• The gym schedule of the G+B group was the following:

  • Exercises which try to replicate cycling movements:

    • half-squat

    • leg press with one leg at a time

    • one-legged hip flexion

    • ankle plantar flexion

  • To replicate as much as possible cycling movements the knee angle range of movement during the exercise was between 90° and almost full extension.

  • The concentric phase was performed with the aim to move the resistance as fast as possible (max effort, approximately 1 s), while the eccentric was performed more slowly (duration 2-3 s).

  • What about sets and load?

    A progressive overload for intensity (weight) was used:

    • Week 1-3: 1st session 3x 10RM; 2nd session 3x 6RM

    • Week 4-6: 1st session 3x 8RM; 2nd session 3x 5RM

    • Week 7-10: 3x 6RM; 2nd session 3x 4RM

  *RM means “repetitions maximum”. 10RM means using a weight that permits to do maximum 10 repetitions.

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WHAT DID THEY FIND?