Weight traing specifically for tri (Page 2)

Just to keep it going . Seems Mark Allen disagrees that strength trianining is not beneficial. To be clear I do not do strength training other than what I have to do in the military. This tread got me curious so I did some searching to see others take on it.

http://www.active.com/triathlon/Articles/Mark_Allen_s_12_Best_Strength_Exercises.htm

Then there is this study: http://www.rappstar.com/pdf/StrengthTrainingEnduranceAthletes.pdf

Thanks for taking the time to look those up.  I am curious to the "expert's" comments on the study.

All of my thoughts on this topic have been anecdotal so I could naver say for certain.  I just know that I used to lift weights a lot and have very strong legs.  When I jumped on my bike for the first time I was near FOP in speed.  It's not from years of biking, it was because I had very strong legs from weight lifting.  Biking a lot helped me condition my legs to have more endurance, but I had the base strength there to start with.  

Now the question that I don't know the answer to is if I started out with spindly weak legs would I get faster gains by just biking every day or a combination of lifting and biking with lots of protein to grow the muscles?

I do enjoy this topic and recognize that it's challenging to prove it either way.

Please define "near FOP in speed. " In my experience that's 24-25mph+ an a fairly flat course. If you're doing that out of the gate a little training will get you to Cat 2.

Yes I have read some of Allens views on training and agree some of the ideas are strange. The thing that really caught my eye was the 3rd paragraph in that link. I am not sure that is possible.

My personal experience is that strength training makes me a faster runner. I've had several incidents where I started up strength training after an absence or increased strength training from what it was and found my run faster just a few weeks out with no changes to how I was training my run.

I also find that working on my core muscles helps with everything. Since I started as a couch potato, I had work to do there that maybe someone more fit wouldn't have. Now I can ride my bike long distances without getting a sore back in particular.

I do strength training that emphasizes functional fitness more than lifting weights though I do own some weights for Olympic lifting at home. My coach runs group workouts where we do a lot of Russian Kettlebell workouts, some Crossfit-based workouts and some other stuff I can't remember the name of (Danish something or other). It's fun stuff with lots of variety (which is important to me).

I really emphasis this kind of workout in the Winter when the weather prevents a lot of outdoor s/b/r workouts. As the season progresses, I slowly cut it down to 1x a week because there just isn't time to do that and also "go long." I just do enough during the height of the season to maintain.

This has worked for me so I'm going to keep it up.

Im no guru but I like the different work outs sometimes it just feels good to lift free weights. I used to lift a lot before I started my Tri experience and im not going to be a pro at this so for me its fun to visit my old hobby. Now I don't see heavy lifting as beneficial due to bulking up more but muscle endurance is important.

To the OP, I found this article to give a pretty good discussion on weight lifting for cyclists.  I love how it starts:
"Want to start an argument?  Go to a group of cyclists and ask whether a cyclist should train with weights or not."

http://epicidiot.com/sports/weights_cycling.htm