From Bodybuilding to Triathlon???? (Page 2)

Here is something I found interesting ( I love analyticcycling.com)

Power/weight/speed

What it boils down to

@ 75kg (165 lbs) a rider needs 250 watts to maintain a certain speed (16.6 mph) over a given slope and road condition

under the same conditions a 90kg (198 lbs) rider will have to generate 287 watts to generate the same speed

 every 5kg of body weight requires 13-15 more watts to move at the same speed all environmental factors being equal

also at the elite level muscle can be dead weight. Even LA admiited he benefitted

by losing muscle mass after his cancer and that eventually led him to be a tour winner

. he lost about 15-20 lbs from 175.

Not sure what Lance has to do with the discussion at hand, don't remember him being a powerlifter or a body builder prior to cycling.

I'm 5'9", 195 pounds these days, and don't come from a weightlifting backround (unless you count 12-oz curls). By your rationale, you should be able to out-cycle me.

Taking the minority, uninformed stance is always difficult.

If a bodybuilder's strength was an advantage, the ranks of triathletes would be overrun by an influx of bulked-up guys. You just don't see that. Unfortunately, in this sport fifty pounds of useless muscle offers nearly the same disadvantage of fifty pounds of fat.

Raul, good luck with your endeavor. This site really does offer tons of good advice, though occasionally you have to filter through it to find what is useful and what is accurate.

Hi Mike.  Thanks for thinking of me.

Lifting X weight for Y reps will ultimaltely result in your being able to generate more power (Y watts) when you lift weights.  It will, however, have very little impact on the watts you are able to generate on the bike (or while running or swimming) for an endurance event.  You don't need a lot of "strength" to ride a bike (even to ride it fast).  You need a lot of endurance in order to generate a relatively modest amount of power for a long time.

Raul, some good advice for you in this thread.  Good luck with your pursuits.

I don't want to wade into the technical issues that are being debated, but to just offer some personal comments/observations/experiences from a former bodybuilder/weight lifter:

• My upper body mass is about useless in triathlons and is basically dead weight to lug around.  Being able to bench press 300 lbs is of little or no benefit except for loading my gear in the back of the car.  Plus a big chest and wide shoulders are not very aero on the bike.
• A have short, thick, very strong legs & calves.  They were developed to be nice little jackhammers for football and running 40 yard sprints.  As my pedaling technique has developed, I still find that I am either recruiting new muscles all the time, or having to re-train my muscles to be used in new ways.  I have learned the hard way that I need to keep my cadence in the 85-90 range or I blow up my legs on the bike and have nothing left for the run.
• I have large traps & delts.  These restrict the range of motion of my shoulders which hinders my swimming stroke.
• Genetically, I am relatively short (5'-7" ), with short arms and legs, but with a long torso: great for bodybuilding, but not so much for triathlons.  Even after doing very little weight training for the past three years, people look at me and assume I'm a weightlifter and seemed shocked and in disbelief when I tell them that I'm a triathlete.
• I have struggled to lose weight since I cut back on my weight training and focused on primarily aerobic training.  For that reason, I am working some weight training back into my program, focusing on moderate weights/high reps and core, maybe one day a week.
• Since I started training for triathlons in Feb. '04, my resting heart rate and blood pressure have dropped significantly, my aerobic endurance has increased significantly and I have had fewer problems with my lower back.  All good things from a health standpoint.  I want to lose at least twenty pounds, primarily for health reasons, but I am hoping that it will also benefit my cycling and running performance significantly. 

FWIW,

Mark

I don't have a cite handy for this, but I could find one if necessary. Maximum power (which is what watts measures) is produced using around 50-60% of a one repetition maximum. It therefore follows that increase your one-repetition maximum, i.e., increasing strength, will increase power. However, as JohnnyKay explained - and I'm actually going to agree with Johnny - whether one-rep max strength transfers over to power on the bike is debateable, with many saying that there's no carryover.

"Debateable", in this case, may be generous. 

Raul,

I don't have a dog in the technical fight here and I don't have much experience with endurance sports. Have fun and don't try and do too much at one time. It could lead to injury and you never getting a chance to find out if you like endurance sports or not.

Common sense tells me that once you start putting miles on and spending time in any of these sports, your muscles are going to get long and slender. Not sure that you can have both, but maybe you are an athlete enough to improve on the sprint events and keep some of your mass.

Competetive to me would mean that you would have the potential of winning any event that you entered. I think some folks take offense to that when they figure you are planning on only working 3 days on it and they have devoted some serious time. I can play ANY sport average to above average, but this endurance stuff whips my @$$, but that is the fun of it for me. I can't just walk in and do it. I have to work at it.

Start slow, build a base and see what works for you. It will become amazingly clear what you need to work on. We are all different and need different programs. Don't over analyze, "tri" it out and read up.

Have fun injury free. Good luck.