Lol no.
Force from pushing on a pedal has to go somewhere or else you’d fall over sideways. Keeping your pelvis/torso/abdomen strong allows that force to be managed and controlled without creating instability. The stronger you are, the more force that can be managed. Any movement that involves moving your body starts with your hips and core (as opposed to like a leg press or bicep curl or something like that)
I’m still not following though. How is a strong gut making you faster? I’ve never worn out my abs or back riding a bike.
Like…I get what you’re saying, that because legs are outboard of our centerline, that creates lateral tension.
But what makes people think that normal, inherent, non trained strength is not enough to overcome this tension?
This kind of strikes me as saying you’ll be a better cook by lifting weights, because you’ll be able to wield a knife better…
Maybe it is, to a point. If you’ve never felt your core get tired, do a 5 hour day at 75%. Or a 100 mile gravel event. Or a triathlon. It’s also dependent on pedaling form - better form is pedaling from your hips, not your quads. More power in your hips.
Hah, I dont actually do any of those things, so it seems weight training might not actually be worthwhile.
no one talks about it and i dunno the answer but I would assume having bigger muscles (especially quads) must give you some sort of more capacity to grow aerobic fitness through training…but it wouldn’t necessarily give it to you? I dunno the answer.
This is what makes sense to me…Yes, you need the aerobic engine to do the work. But if the work you are doing is far below your muscle capacity, it’s easier to do those 4000 reps, yes? I can spin in the lowest gear for hours, or lift a pencil for 10,000 reps…but if I want to spin more than a few times in a higher gear or lift a 50 lb crate more than once then I need a commiserate amount of muscle to make that happen, yes? There comes a point where your cadence increases become unsustainable, you have to increase the gear, and you need the muscle to turn that gear, no amount of heart-lung combination is going to let you generate 1800 watts if the only way to do it mechanically is to spin at 250 rpms.
So I dunno, seems like there has to be a role for building muscle, though maybe it’s far more efficient to do it on the bike than with focused lifting.
Weight lifting will undoubtedly increase FTP. Anyone saying otherwise are either doing it wrong, don’t understand exercise physiology or are straight up inputting speculative opinions because well they’ve tried and have done it poorly.
It’s very cut and dry. Weight training will increase and activate more muscle fibers. Increase in active muscle fibers increases power output. This will in turn increase your ability to push and raise your threshold. Weight training is a two part deal. You still have to work your endurance however you now have a better threshold. Weight lifting will allow you to push higher watts at threshold but again you need to continue your 4x8 , 3x10, or whatever threshold work you’re doing to benefit.
Weight lifting has to be done at a very heavy load and anything less you’re better off on the bike. You really need to be strength and muscle building range NOT high rep and even sub maximal weights. It has to be both max weight and somewhere between 4-6 reps and no more.
Welcome to the forums, although I suspect that your time here will be short…
I don’t know what you’re talking about about. From where I’m sitting, the Internets are awash with people ogling the massive, jacked physiques of Pogacar and Vingegaard cranking out huge watts as we head into the start of the tour.
I may need to break out The Legendary Arms of Froome picture, but not yet…
Interesting study:
Participants were around 5W/kg at 20 minutes. Young and well trained.
Results:
How much bone density does weight training also add? I would assume this would bring FTP down (relatively) as weight goes up due to the increased density. But again, increased bone density is just better for general health rather than being cycling performance specific. I choose at the minute to lift & ride but often have the conundrum of how much quicker id be if i lost some body mass. But then i might be more fragile/injury susceptible and also lose some enjoyment if i focused too much on the bike. Weights can at least be done in a nice dry gym, without too much getting ready when its grim outside.
Ppl often overestimate the effect of bone mass on total body mass.
Bones are very strong compared to what they weigh.
I’ve love for them to suss out why a few of those riders seemed to be hyper responders to various protocols. Looking at 20 minutes, one rider in the control group got a huge boost just doing cycling. A couple riders got outsized responses to the weight training and one rider’s response was very flat.
I’m surprised that there were a couple of people who actually got worse on the cycling+core group 
I’m busy googling “Ronnestad protocol” now…
I’m not. Very easy to have strength training negatively impact your cycling if you don’t do it right. Both from an opportunity cost perspective, and impacting your bike workouts. I’d more expect that from leg workouts, but really anything can do it.
10 weeks of heavy strength training improves performance-related measurements in elite cyclists:
for a visual of the 4 exercises, see the video I posted above:
the link I gave will start at 7:11 and you’ll see demos of the 4 exercises at 7:45.
So does this study show that weight training improves cycling, or that 12 weeks of 12 hrs per week of Z2 cycling is likely not enough stimulus to improve the performance of cyclists already around 5w/kg? Said differently, it seems like you need to control for the increased stimulus of the strength training between the “cycling and strength” and the “cycling only” group. Wonder what would happen if that group did 6 x 30s max efforts 2 times per week?
So the group that did 12hrs z2 + strength ended up overall better than the group that did only 12hrs z2? Unless I’m missing something, that’s not all that surprising considering that they trained more.
I would be more interested to see the results if the groups had equal total workout time but allocated differently between cycling and strength training.
IMHO there are a lot of things we can wish for that are unlikely to happen, so my answer is “learn to experiment on yourself” (with or without help).
Fully acknowledge that is easier said than done, and often I need to go by feel and gut reaction.
For example I’ve been fully committed to a couple StrongFirst plans (buy a few books) this year. These plans focus on power / strength endurance, and power is generally the first to go as we age.
Over the last 3 months as my technique improved, I added weight and explosiveness to the moves. I’ve added a fair bit of upper body mass & strength, much stronger posterior and anterior chains, and some leg mass. About same size as summer 2020 when I was lifting with barbells/dumbells and doing plyometrics.
This year I feel no impact on the bike, and although its not ideal (new job) have no problem going directly out for a workout or group ride after a 40-50 minute StrongFirst GPP session in my home gym.
The big difference versus 2020-2021 is back then the strength training interfered with cycling, both in terms of how I felt on the bike and power output. It also appeared to cap my ftp, as if I was more glycolytic and legs would feel the sting way too early. Started May 2020, and kept doing that training for almost a year. My power numbers really didn’t move much except for short power which I attribute to neuromuscular improvements from practicing accelerations and sprints.
