Increasing muscular endurance when cardiovascular fitness isn't a limitation

1

After 51 months of training on the bike (after almost 20 years away after racing as a kid), I feel that I need to start taking structure a bit more seriously in order to squeeze out the final gains before age catches up with me. I’m 42 later this month.

Quick stats: 203cm, 100kg, FTP around 450-460w. Strong 4-8 minute efforts. Zone 2 runs up to about 340-345w, depending on the day (I had a nice 37 minute stint at 347w and 146bpm last night, at the end of a longer ride - this is the top of my zone 2).

Out of curiosity, I did a home-test for lung capacity yesterday, as I’ve always suspected that it’s abnormally large. This consisted of blowing up a balloon with the fullest extent of my lungs and then submerging it in a bucket with a scale on the side.

Given that you can only exhale 80% of your actual capactiy (known as vital capacity), you have to make an adjustment.

My vital capacity is 7 litres, and my actual lung capacity is 8.4 litres. This is 40% higher than average for a man, but then I am quite tall.

How this manifests on the bike is that I never actually get out of breath. Well not really. My legs are always burning long before I start to puff, and my CV system is never the limiting factor.

I would like to bring my muscular endurance up towards where my CV capacity is, ideally.

I tend to be bit of a grinder on the bike, with cadence typically 85-88. I hate to spin. I have read that spinning a bit more might help wiht lactate clearance.

Is my lack of muscular endurance down to lack of time on the bike? Just over 4 years is a fairly long time, but it’s not near to where I would think I am fulfilling my natural potential.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. I’m hoping to drop a little bit of weight prior to three important gravel races in September (not more than a couple of kilos) and then a bit more over winter. I hope to come into the 2027 season at 95kg and 475w FTP, with that magic 5w/kg power to weight ratio. My ultimate goal is top 20 at the gravel worlds in my age group, and I think 5w/kg is required for that.

Thanks in advance!

2

That’s a great goal! Man, good luck, it sounds like you’ll have the numbers for it.

Personally I really love taking my endurance+ rides (74% FTP) down to the 70s or even 60s sometimes. I sometimes do this with sweet spot even but its a lot more work to hold it at the higher wattages obviously. The muscular endurance in my legs has become bomb proof as a result.

Of course I don’t always do this and I certainly don’t do entire 2hr rides down there but (I’ve gone on about this before) I just put a music playlist on and follow the cadence of the songs come what may. However the tempos of the songs and the wattages line up, well that’s what I’m doing. I end up with a LOT more slow cadence / high torque work.

I happen to love that stuff - I’m a grinder too and love climbing - but of course I try not to overdo it because it can be a lot of strain on the knees. But that strategy has worked for me to get my muscular endurance up dialed.

3

Sst is perfect for muscular endurance. Follow the SST thread here for some progression advice but to keep it simple can start at 4x10min @90% ftp and increase 10min per week. At some point you can move onto 20,30, or 60min intervals. No need to lower cadence, any cadence will work on the muscular endurance. Long rides (5+ hr) at 70-75% ftp also helps a lot.

4

Y’know another thing occurred to me to mention. A couple of months back I had this persistent saddle sore that wouldn’t abate. I didn’t want to lose too much fitness so I climbed on the trainer in just my shoes and regular everyday shorts, no shammy, and rode Alpe de Zwift out of the saddle. (regular shorts because I didn’t want to be tempted to sit down) Now normally I couldn’t be out of the saddle for more than 45 seconds without my quads screaming for pain even though I’m a fairly strong cyclist. Out of the saddle just wasn’t in my wheelhouse. Predictably I was in agony within 3 minutes. But I damn well wasn’t willing to admit defeat and got through it. It was horrible but a couple of days later, a week maybe, I did it again. I think I did it another 2 times and let me tell you, my quad endurance got up to speed fast. It was unpleasant as all hell initially but it seemed to reprogram my quad fatigue clock in a hell of a hurry. Now I can hang out out of the saddle more or less as I please and its really nice to have not only the extra muscular endurance that translates to seated riding but also the skill to ride standing up without dying.

5

Torque work is your friend here!

6

You just have to train it. And also FUEL LIKE CRAZY even on your endurance rides. You are doing a tremendous amount of metabolic work even riding in your endurance zones, so you’re gonna need to eat a lot and a lot more than most.

Lung capacity is what it is, have you had your VO2max directly measured ever? This is more of a curiosity than anything. When you talk about lung volume, great, but how much O2 is your body able to process at the cellular level is what really matters in this context. That said, you’re 4.5W/kg so that’s probably not a problem, though it might be a limiter for you. Not enough info to determine that.

But overall to your question, yeah you need to some long work below FTP, tempo, SST, etc. to improve your TTE. That’s what you’re driving at here.

Your cadence isn’t an issue as far as I’m concerned. 85-88rpm isn’t low, especially for a tall/long-legged type. I’d caution against dropping weight, unless you obviously have a bunch to lose. Gaining 25 watts and dropping 5% of your body weight are usually not going to be supporting goals. Make sure you do that weight loss at the right time (e.g. your very easy/long riding period in base where your intensity is probably just strength training.)

7

Good advice here, especially SST and some low cadence work. I’d also add to make sure your longer Zone 2 rides feel hard by the end, while still staying in Zone 2. To me, that means finding routes where there is very little pausing for stop lights, etc. And keeping your power consistently up with no spinning.

8

Thanks for all the replies folks! Lots of interesting and insightful points to think about!

I do really like sweet spot training, and I ought to incorporate more. I have to say that when I am pushing harder, I do like to have a hill to push against, and sadly, there aren’t many climbs in our area that are over 5 minutes and a consistent gradient. There are uphill segments though that are ten minutes plus at around 2%. I should use those.

I love a good zone 2 ride, but do sometimes find it tricky not to have a pop at a segment along the way. Being fairly strong these days, I am usually winthin reach of most of the KOMs if it’s not a headwind, and resisting the urge not to have a crack is tough! I cycled down to the seaside today to meet my family - 141km with a reasonable tailwind. 3.5hrs, just over 40kph (on the Aeroad) at 312w, 143bpm (which is a bit higher than it should be for that power, but I had a decent meal just before I went out, which upped the HR for about an hour). 5 KOMs :laughing:

In terms of consistent power and not having to stop - we are very lucky here in that the asphalt is incredibly smooth and there is almost no traffic. I didn’t have to unclip once on my ride today, and it’s quite normal when on road that I only have to touch the brakes for the first time when I pull back up to my house (after 100km, for example).

Not quite the same on gravel, which tends to be hillier and a bit more technical.

I haven’t had my VO2 max tested, but a bit of online research suggests it’s somewhere between 66 and 70. It’s artificially a little low as I still carry some gym muscle in my upper body. BF is around 11-12%, so I could shed 4-5kg without really touching lean body mass. I naturally carry quite low BF, but it’s stabilised at 11-12% as I am very diligent with my on bike fuelling.

I usually train/race with 100-180g carbs an hour, depending on intensity.

I love to climb out of the saddle, and will generally do so on any slope over 5-6%. I am in Norway next week with some climbs of over an hour, so I’ll see how long I last standing!

9

You’re very lean already, so unless you’re going to drop muscle mass in the upper body alone, your weight may not be the ideal target here. That said, if you’re truly “big” in your upper body there may be some weight to drop just by stopping or modifying upper body strength training.

All that said, those wouldn’t necessarily be goals I’d pursue due to the overall effect on wellness. Your stated goal being a very respectable gravel worlds finish, personally I wouldn’t be messing much with body composition (unless I had a larger BF% to shed, which you don’t), and just focus on power. I’ve seen the weight loss thing go sideways for people, especially people who are already pretty lean. You may find you race better at 100kg with 20 more watts than you would at 95kg, and the odds are stacked against you to drop 5kg AND gain 25 more watts. Hopefully that makes sense.

Re: SST work - these are wonderful on the trainer if you’re able. Lots of good stuff in the Sweet Spot Progression thread on this forum. With your goals, a progression out to 2hrs of total time (maybe even 2h30m, a 4 or 5x30 type workout) in zone and hitting a 1x90 would be serious achievements that would probably push you up a bit in your upcoming base season, especially if followed by some work that can really boost your threshold (like VO2 and/or focused threshold blocks).

Last, you might be a candidate for that focused VO2 block. Depends on your training history. If you truly have a large capacity to bring in O2, there may be some gains to be had in pushing more blood (O2) to your muscles for them to use. Stroke volume, capilliarization could be limiters, both of which are trainable (the former by focused VO2 intervals, the latter by a LOT of easy endurance volume) which could raise your ability to push more power over the course of time.

10

Thank you for the detailed reply :blush:

I am by no means “big”, but I guess for a cyclist, I carry a little more bulk than is optimal. To give you a relatable comparison, here I am stood next to Conor from GCN. He’s got 1cm of height on me but I have 10-11kg bodyweight.

j3G5hJzJlLFxMWkxC9cBzxOj9TYWm6QdJNL3OZimmeY-1153x2048
j3G5hJzJlLFxMWkxC9cBzxOj9TYWm6QdJNL3OZimmeY-1153x20481126×2000 346 KB

I did a lot fo gym work in my late teens and early twenties and got up to 131kg. I still do a bit of resistance training, so the muscle sticks around.

I don’t have an indoor trainer, and it’s not something I want to use unfortunately. I have tried indoor cardio training in the past (in the form of a Concept 2 rower) but I find very quickly that I lose the will to live. I have to be outside on the bike. I am very lucky that I live deep in the middle of a very beautiful landscape, so I have A-Grade gravel 2 minutes from my house. Being outside on the bike makes me happy, even when I’m pushing really hard, but indoors, I’m miserable when I train.

I do need to do more sweet spot though. I spend a reasonable amount of time in high zone 2 and tempo ((320-370w) and VO2 max (500w plus) but not much around 400w.

Speaking of VO2 max - we have a lot of punchy 2-4 minute climbs around us, which I really enjoy, so I already probably do too much VO2 max! :laughing:

11

Good feedback, and yes. The best way to train threshold is to ride at (or around) threshold. Agree that your “low-hanging fruit” appears to be just doing more of that (with Sweet Spot being in that same range as longer TTE work at/near threshold).

An underlying point I’d make here is that riding in the “VO2max” power zone does not equal VO2max training. It’s a misnomer put in place to simplify training zones. It’s better thought of as “supra-threshold”. So accruing 20 minutes of time in “zone 5” does not equal “VO2max” work necessarily. A lot of short efforts in that zone will just make you good at short efforts in that zone. How those efforts are structured matters tremendously when you’re concerned about training to put out more power aerobically vs. just putting out more power (implied: moreso via glycolysis).

There are ways to train your ability to put out maximal power utilizing more aerobic capacity than burning sugar. There are ways to train to increase capilliarization (ride lots at low intensity). There are ways to improve your heart’s stroke volume (moving more blood with each stroke, thus increasing the O2 present in your muscle cells to generate aerobic power).

None of those are very well achieved by riding random hills around your house at high power, sadly!