lol. What we’re trying to say is these are the basic strength requirements, not that you ARE something. If you are a climber and have “Sprinter’s strength” you probably don’t need to get any stronger at all unless you have other goals.
I don’t think there is such thing as having too strong of a body for any time of sport… well, except darts of course, in which you measure your strength in pints.
It feels like many people misinterprets these benchmarks and/or try and poke holes in them.
Thanks to @chad and the Trainer Road team for these. They are interesting and good to know. I am still surprised at how low they are. I am not a strong person at all, but the “Sprinter” weights are quite doable.
So it does make sense that people should be able to hit these weights at a minimum for basic health; I can’t imagine struggling with a 40kg squat
Yes, I know I said people try and poke holes in this and then I proceeded to tangentially do the same
Is there an article on podcast that elaborates on the statement “Don’t pigeon hole yourself as a specific type of rider”? I’m a lightweight and I’m okay at climbing but I do terrible with “real racers” on the open road. So I’ve kind of pigeon holed myself I guess. I’d love to hear an expert tell me I can someday complete with my local racers.
There are guys winning bunch sprints on the pro tours in the 65-70kg range (Cavendish, Ewan, Viviani for example), and there are some really tiny guys like Contador and Quintana who are in the ~60kg range who have national TT titles under their belt, so lightweight doesn’t have to mean that all you can do is climb. I regularly get beaten by guys much smaller and with fewer watts than me, even on flat races, because they have better tactics and timing on the day.
Pigeon holing yourself means deciding you’re a climber and then training and racing like a climber. Not bothering to train your short power. Not working on your sprint technique and timing. Not bothering to work on being more aero. Maybe calorie restricting yourself to stay light (though that might not be a good idea for climbing either!). Not entering races unless there’s a lot of climbing, or if you do enter them sitting at the back of the pack because you feel you have no business being at the front or in a break.
Not pigeon holing yourself means going out and working on all those things. Working on your sprint. Getting more aero. Figuring out how to apply power as effectively on the flat as you do on the climbs. Hitting the gym and doing some strength work, maybe putting on a few pounds of muscle. Doing some flat races where you try and get in a break, or sit in and wait for the sprint. You may never win a bunch sprint (most people don’t!). But if your local racers are somewhat comparable to you in age and training commitment then there’s really no reason why you can’t at least get to a stage where you can hang with them to the finish and see the race unfold. Of course if they’re all 20 years younger than you and doing double the training volume, then that’s a different matter…