The sports, training and adaptation continuums

[lylemcd]

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[AnatolyR]

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[lylemcd]

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[Zé Apelido]

But for the most part, the adaptations here are energetically based, few endurance athletes need big time increases in muscle size so increases in muscle size or what have you is a very secondary goal.

In some endurance sports, wouldn't increases in muscle size actually be a detriment to performance? Increased weight means more energy required, power output, etc...

Take cycling, of course some cyclists have big legs, but I'm guessing they are mostly induced via cycling specific adaptations. I don't think most cyclists would improve performance by being able to squat huge loads. I just wonder where the optimal point is in terms of muscle gain and type of weigh training.

[lylemcd]

Depends on the sport and weight training != muscle mass gains. All depends on how its done.

[longwar]

I have experience with being a cyclist with big legs. It's only a benefit if you consider intimidating your opponents to be of benefit. Seriously though, I have to work specifically at losing muscle mass which is frustrating, and takes time away from training other systems. I do a lot of fasted riding, and I've read that some fasted endurance training can help with certain aerobic adaptations. Anyway, specificity..specificity...specificity.

[lylemcd]

I suspect the 'cyclists with big legs' image is a bit of a illusion. Most cyclists are pretty scrawny but compared to their anorexic upper bodies, combined with very low body fat, the legs look big. But outside of track sprinters (and maybe sprint specialists on the road), it's usually not really the case.

[Zé Apelido]

I remember reading a cycling review study on looking at what the optimal cadence was for cyclists. they looked at theory vs practice...in theory the cadence is perhaps something like 60-70 rpm but in reality 90-100 rpm works best.

the reason the theory predicts a lower value is the cost of accelerating the limbs increases nonlinearly as you increase cadence. think of cycling with no resistance - spinning faster and faster takes up energy, with no power output. and if you have bigger legs, this cost is going to be higher.

but reality is different. to go at a 60 rpm cadence, the force needed per stroke is 50% higher than 90 rpm, and clearly you'll more likely be creeping into type 2 fibers in the 60 rpm case. which can't be sustained for as long. that's my hypothesis at least.

now add in the fact that you have larger legs, the cost of everything goes higher. not just more to swing, but if climbing uphill, simply more power is required, thus more force per cycle, and more likely to fatigue at a given rpm and gear.

of course some muscle is necessary. so there's a balance, just wonder where that point is.

[lylemcd]

It depends on how you define 'best'. Cycling at a higher cadence is less stressful muscularly but more stressful cardiovascularly. This is HUGELY important for long stage races (Lance Armstrong was the one who made high cadence racing really popular) and a lot less relevant for single stage races or crits. YOu have to save your legs for day 2 and day 3 and day 4 and day 20 even if it's at the cost of CV efficiency. For a one day event, it doesn't matter so much, you can wreck your legs during the race because you don't have to race the next day.

I also saw the point made recently that most work looking at cadence optimality was looking at elites. The optimal cadence to push 400w may be different than for 200w.

I doubt highly it has much to do with the energy to accelerate the legs. Certainly rotational weight has a higher cost than linear weight but the difference just isn't going to be massive.

Again, to your last question: IT DEPENDS ON THE SPORT.

[Zé Apelido]

agree it depends on the sport, just kinda discussing it now. Higher cadence is obviously more cardiovascularly demanding at a given gear ratio, but even when fixed for constant power output, it is more cardiovascularly demanding. Maybe this is what you were saying, but if you don't think that increase in cardiovascular demand is due to increased rotational energy expenditure, what do you think its from?

Regardless, you're right, higher cadence must be better for long bouts of exertion.