Weight / Fat loss

At a certain point you have to decide what sport you want to do, and focus your training towards that. Anything that favours a light build, you'd be wise to drop the load of your training, and focus on high repetitions/ intensity.
Hippy is of course some sort of freak, but that's beside the point.

A good example is Ed's driving force for his weight loss- the marathon.
He's been focusing on getting the physique specific to that goal, and it means that other areas may be neglected somewhat.
Its also why I rate swimming as the best sport for power gain with minimal weight gain.

Well my target is the Roubaix, and to enter some sportives and not humiliate myself.

And to do the BHF London to Brighton in ~2 hours 30 minutes in June.

I admit that big guns are pointless for all of the above, but I enjoy going to the gym.

Then the weight gain isn't a problem, and don't stop doing something beneficial because it may slightly effect performance!

If anyone needs some weightroom coaching, give me a shout. Can do a workshop for a bunch of forumengers.

What are a good series of (possibly compound) exercises to do that will rapidly increase leg strength?

My weight is creeping up- and it's muscle bulk, which is just weight I have to carry.

This is annoying, I'd like to lose a bit of weight but keep getting stronger.

Fenella mentioned muscle fiber activation percentages as an area where you can develop strength without adding additional bulk?

Low reps, big weight. Increase the neuromuscular response.

Lots of sets, lots of reps to failure give that puffy damaged, fluid-filled muscle look that bodybuilders wants before the diuretics kick in to dehydrate them again.

Do you actually want to be "strong"? It's as vague as saying "I want to be fitter". Strong enough to lift something? Once? Lots of times?

Or do you actually want to generate more power for a longer time whilst riding a bicycle?

And just squat.

What are a good series of (possibly compound) exercises to do that will rapidly increase leg strength?

Define leg strength.

And describe what apparatus you have available.

Its not something I know a lot about, but for the same muscle strength power is improved with better flexibility.

It also has lots of other benefits around injury prevention, I'd suggest spending some of your time working on improving this, it also doesn't add bulk, obviously.

This is annoying, I'd like to lose a bit of weight but keep getting stronger.

You need to work on your Qi

Feel so much better after knee stretches tonight, ate roast dinner tonight and had some ice cream for pud, just over for today's total. Weight is still going down though so I'm happy just got to keep on with it. 81.4 this evening fully clothed I was that weight a few weeks ago in boxer shorts!

Right, some boring figures from my last trip to Richmond Park*:

5 second power: 919 watts
10 second power 867 watts
1 minute power 436 watts
5 minute power 307
FTP 245 watts

For my weight that put's me as a solid Cat4 for 5 minute and FTP, but into the "untrained" category for 5 second and 1 minute power output.

To be a Cat4 across the board my figures would need to be:

5s 1,098
1min 568
5min 298
FTP 246

So I think that I need to work on strength to get my short interval power up.

I have access to a comprehensively equiped gym.

*My best lap was 20.34, so if I kept lapping at that speed I'd have done three laps at the same pace as Ed Scoble on a Brompton with tri-bars. Hurrah.

Fucks sake, I'm not sending you any more links.

If your goals are what they are wtf do you want to have a sprint for?

Sake of completeness?

True, it's not needed for my goals as they are.

EDIT: 1 minute sprint would assist in short sharp climbs (eyes Richmond Park challenge wistfully)

Specificity; your training must reflect the demands of the events you are targetting. Having a good sprint if you can't complete 5 hours of cobbles is academic.

True.

FTP is king, therefore.

Do you drop the weight as you go through the sets?
4-6 @ near max, 8-10 @ 80%, 40 @ 40-60%?

I tend to do 3 sets of 8, no rest between @ 80-90% max.
Try and do them 3 times in a master set.
Then do low weight, high rep sets on 3 major muscle groups.
I'm not looking for massive muscle gain though. Functional power ftw!

(having said this I've only been to the gym 2ce last week, swimming is taking over- planning on changing that balance next week)

Tends to be spread around different exercises, so legs day goes something like this:
Warm Up: 20 minute run to gym
Power Set: Squats: 4 sets of 4-6 rep 100kg+bar (120kg total)
Power Set: Romanian (Straight leg) deadlifts: 4 sets of 4-6 rep 90kg+bar
Muscle Sets: Inc Leg Press: 4 sets of 10 reps, 240kg

                  Leg Curls (machine): 4 sets of 10 reps 122.5kg
                  Front Squat: 3 sets of 8 reps, 40kg+bar 

Burn Sets: Inc Leg Press: 2 sets of 40 reps at 120kg

              Leg Curls (Machine) 1 set of 40 reps at 60kg

Result = inability to walk normally for several days
The burn sets are the real killer, should be done with a weight that allows you to get maybe 20 consecutive reps completed, then simply pushed through to 40 reps with mini rests that allow you to recover just enough for 1 or 2 more reps. Lots of warm up and stretching required before power sets, done to maximum effort with up to 2 minutes recovery between each power set. 30-60 sec recovery between each muscle set. Think the combination of different rep ranges really helps build "complete" strength, good power increases combined with decent power endurance gains, if that makes sense. I've certainly found far better results training like this than the standard 4x8 rep stuff and 14,12,8,6 rep pyramid training I was doing before.

So, officially tendinitis and bursitis and this time the other shoulder, not the one which I murdered some years ago. Codeine and diclofenac and nothing for a week - and I was doing well with my kettle bell.
Because of this I can't donate blood tomorrow, which also sucks.

I've got bursitis in both shoulders and a torn supraspanatus tendon in my left. Surgeon is very keen to operate (surprise surprise), but I've been having some good results with some physio, rotor cuff strengthening exercises and changing technique to neutral grip with dumbells for bench press, shoulder press etc. Results so far are very promising, and anything that keeps me off the operating table and on the bike, rugby field and off the couch is great at the moment.

^^^ With those figures, wouldn't you be much better off forgetting all about the gym and stuff and just getting out, riding more and harder? I thought you had to be way up there in ability before any off bike training benefited someone into road riding.

Me? Probably

^^^ With those figures, wouldn't you be much better off forgetting all about the gym and stuff and just getting out, riding more and harder? I thought you had to be way up there in ability before any off bike training benefited someone into road riding.

Yep I'd be interested to know whether this is true or not too. How fit do you have to be on the bike when lifting weights off the bike and other exercise actually makes a difference?

For most people isn't it just a fact of get out and ride more?

I'm operating on the assumption that having stronger legs cannot actually be a negative in terms of my goals.

I've noticed a definite improvement in climbing since getting back in the gym (weight has pretty much remained the same)

76.1kg this morning, after a run last night so may just be down a litre of water.

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/strength-training-for-cycling-at-all-levels-32189

That's the report I remember reading (among a few others that said pretty much the same thing). Bit wishy washy and may have been superseded since though.