When designing a training regimen it’s sometimes hard to decipher the facts from fiction, the fads from the science. Educating yourself on how training methods
influence your overall performance can help you maximize your training time and help you achieve your goals.  In December I attended the annual East Tennessee State University Strength Science Symposium. This annual program has become a staple in my continuing education as a cycling coach as it always proves enlightening. The conference is headed by Meg Stone, a two-time Olympian and strength coach and co-hosted by her husband, Mike. Mike Stone is probably the most recognized name in strength training, science and research, having published hundreds of studies, papers and several books on the subject. The Stones bring in only the best and brightest stars in the strength and conditioning world to present topics ranging from how to design a training plan to identifying the most efficient lifts to support specific athletic movements.
Once again, Lance Dobbs, my associate coach at Everybodysbikecoach.com, and I were the only cycling coaches in attendance. The rest of the audience was made up of coaches from soccer, football, tennis, powerlifting and other sports.
It seems weight training, squats and other strength-based exercises have been going back and forth in the cycling world as good or bad, productive or counterproductive, useful or a waste of time. This symposium was a real eye opener. We learned why the trends and fads happened in the weight training world as relates to endurance sports and it all made sense at last. It seems our aversion to weight lifting as a way to train cyclists and build power comes from a lot of mistakes and misinformation. The reasons weight training has been abandoned by cyclists and coaches (and often I was just as guilty as anyone) are many. The primary culprit, however, is that cyclists tend to focus on extreme examples.
 
1. “If a bodybuilder rides a bike with those huge muscles, he is less aerodynamic. He also can’t generate a lot of force over a sustained period of time. So I’m not going to lift weights. I will just ride the bike, because it’s more specific.”
2. “When I lift weights I get stronger in the gym, but, when I ride the bike, I’m no faster than I was before AND I’ve sacrificed saddle time for gym time. The guys who have just ridden all this time are now faster than me.”
3. “Core strength is best built on an exercise ball or a bow flex where I have to stabilize all the little muscles, and since it’s so hard for me to control, it must mean I need lots of work to build all the little stabilizers to get better core strength.”
 The list could go on and on. The problem with all these arguments is that they are either short-sighted or misleading.
 The truth of the matter is this: Weight lifting exercises such as squats, clean-and-jerk and the snatch, push-ups and plyometrics not only build strength, they build power -  explosive power that will show up as greater force to the pedals and increases in wattage generated.
The most obvious place these gains will appear is in our maximum power outputs. And FTP (Functional Threshold Power) is a % of maximum power output. So, increase your maximum power outputs, and with the same % of FTP, your overall power goes up, BY LIFTING WEIGHTS, and without spending 3 to 4 hours on a group ride. By substituting about 30 minutes in the gym, you have much more energy in the tank and the rest of the week for riding the bike and transferring these gains straight to the pedals. Yes, you must do both to make the gains sport specific. This is why weight lifters aren’t automatically good cyclists; they don’t cycle.
Do the gains begin to disappear in the Spring and Summer? If you don’t do at least one day a week of maintenance lifting, YES. This is why cyclists arrived at the conclusion that weight training and plyometrics didn’t transfer to the bike. But those who commit to one maintenance day each week can easily keep all the gains from the 2 to 3 day a week routines they were putting in during the offseason.
Bulky muscles and poor aerodynamics? Please.
How big can we possibly get? How many cyclists are muscle beach material? Practically none, and it’s because we aren’t lifting, eating and training for bulk.
When our weight training is focused on power, with higher weights and lower reps, we build power with very little bulk.
Just look at chimpanzees. They weigh about 80 pounds and don’t have muscle-bound arms, yet they can toss a 300-pound wrestling star around like a rag doll. Strength and bulk are not dependent on one another. You can have one without the other.
Stability ball and core strength?
I’m guilty. I have always thought this was the best core work you could do. I am now rethinking this.
It seems it takes more core strength to lift a barbell with 80% of your 1 rep maximum weight from the ground to the sky and back down 2 to 3 times than it takes to balance on a ball. It might not feel like it, but the studies don’t lie. Simply lifting weights and doing some jumping type, explosive plyometrics will far outperform the ball exercises no matter how weak and lame they make us feel as we wobble around on the floor.
Bowflex and other machines vs. iron dumbbells and barbells.
No contest. Machines isolate muscles. So we do whole sets focused on a tiny little muscle or two. Barbells and iron dumbbells force us to control the weights and work whole families of muscles.
Boxflex is progressive, so it’s not as hard at the beginning of the lift and gets harder the farther away we push. This may sound like a good thing, but it isn’t. It takes more muscle, more control and more explosiveness to push a piece of metal weight from the bottom all the way to the top, JUST LIKE A PEDAL STROKE. Pedal strokes, afterall, don’t start out easy and get harder near the bottom.
One might say, “So Ive done all this lifting and my buddies who have been doing only riding are faster than I am…”
Give it a few weeks as the strength gains begin to show up in power to the pedals. The early season and early spring races aren’t your main objectives. We are interested in the important mid to late season races. Let the scoffers enjoy their tiny jump start. If you bring a focused weight training routine into your regimen, their early season advantage won’t last.