Strength and Endurance

[CJ Gotcher]

I would be more than willing to bet that your max squat would actually decrease as your cycling times improved. The point being that your current weight and muscle mass would be detrimental to your cycling performance. Therefore, Ripp's explanation in the video is severely lacking.

Strawman. Standard.

For everyone's sake, first read the rest of the thread (and Jordan's comment, specifically) before replying.

[Mark Steele]

I would be more than willing to bet that your max squat would actually decrease as your cycling times improved. The point being that your current weight and muscle mass would be detrimental to your cycling performance. Therefore, Ripp's explanation in the video is severely lacking.

This was covered when people pointed out that Rip doesn't want endurance athletes to squat 500+. You can't use Jordan in this example because he's a strength athlete. Of course his squat is going to go down as you train him to ride a bike, because the resources to maintain and improve a 600lb squat are greater than what he can spare to improve his cycling ability.

The argument is that taking an endurance athlete with a 135lb (or lower) squat and increasing it to 225-315 (it's a subjective number depending on the individual) will benefit them when it comes to their chosen sport. If you take the guy (or girl) with a 135 squat and double it, the effort they expend to push a pedal or take a running step forward goes down, and numbers that low won't require so much time and energy to acquire that they interfere with their endurance capabilities.

Someone correct me if I'm misunderstanding the strength crowd argument. Someone on the other side provide examples if you have them that improving to a 225-315lb squat from 85-135 will make an endurance athlete worse at their sport, provided they kept up with their endurance training alongside the meager strength training required to reach those numbers.

[Mark Rippetoe]

This ^^ is all your fault, Rippetoe, and may God have mercy upon your soul.

I know, I know. I should have deleted it, like he wanted me to.

[brcleeroy]

Strawman. Standard.

For everyone's sake, first read the rest of the thread (and Jordan's comment, specifically) before replying.

I am far more interested in finding out what others (Starting Strength Coaches) think is the biggest limiting factor for endurance if it is not cardiac output. That is my central point.

Jordan's explanation and Ripp's argument in the video are completely contradictory.

[ColoWayno]

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING IS ANECDOTAL

I work with a lot of "ultra" endurance athletes. Runners, tri-atheletes, cyclists, etc. In addition to my generalizations about them being tired all the time, hungry all the time, irritable all the time, and that they are emaciated, i always find it amazing how out of breath they get walking up a flight of stairs. It's as if each step is close to their 1RM, that sets of 10s or 20s (stairs) is a serious effort. Not that I'm worried about them dropping dead. Just that they seem surprisingly out of shape considering how many hours they devote to training.

Absolutely true in my experience going from LSD to strength training. I could never figure out why scrambling up a flight of stairs left me huffing and puffing when I was running 30 miles a week. These days I don't notice any difference in my breathing until I've done at least 4 flights, and then I recover quickly.

Not very applicable to the arguments here, but it's pretty satisfying to feel like you are barely working when a "cardio guy" you are with has to stop talking.

Also, guys, we get it. A 500 lbs squat is counter indicated for a marathoner. The advice I remember Rip giving one of these guys was "try a little". What's your argument against that?

[brcleeroy]

The argument is that taking an endurance athlete with a 135lb (or lower) squat and increasing it to 225-315 (it's a subjective number depending on the individual) will benefit them when it comes to their chosen sport. If you take the guy (or girl) with a 135 squat and double it, the effort they expend to push a pedal or take a running step forward goes down, and numbers that low won't require so much time and energy to acquire that they interfere with their endurance capabilities.

Someone correct me if I'm misunderstanding the strength crowd argument. Someone on the other side provide examples if you have them that improving to a 225-315lb squat from 85-135 will make an endurance athlete worse at their sport, provided they kept up with their endurance training alongside the meager strength training required to reach those numbers.

I can squat >300 lbs and I can also run a 5K in sub 19 minutes. Neither one of these feats are overly impressive but I would consider myself to be fairly strong for a runner and fairly weak for powerlifting standards. I also know runners who can complete a 5K in sub 15 minutes who would be lucky to squat their body weight. How much strength does one realistically need to excel in aerobic performance. For aerobics you basically need a heart, lungs and whatever muscle you need to carry around your mitochondria.

As far as the pedal output example that keeps getting used, let's look at the numbers. Riders in the tour de France are averaging >400 Watts during each of the stages. Lance Armstrong was able to maintain 500 Watts for 20 minutes while going up the mountains. I don't know how much his squat was, but I doubt it was very high. I think we could safely assume Jordan's squat is significantly higher than Lance's. How long do you think Jordan could maintain a power output of 500 watts on a bicycle?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

The explanation I gave above is a bit simplified, but cardiac output is easily argued to be the biggest contributing factor for the limitation to aerobic performance. If you want to disagree with this statement that is fine. However, please provide some sort of explanation since "it is easy to see shy this is wrong".

Can you define what cardiac output is and how it is different in absolute terms from ProTour rider to a Continental level rider?

From what I am understanding from the explanation that Ripp provided in the video in regards to arguing for strength training in endurance athletes it sounds like the argument is based on the idea of submaximal contractions. If someone has a greater sink of force to draw from, each pedal stroke on the bike would be performed at a lower percentage of the maximal force able to be generated. If this is the argument that Ripp is choosing to argue from, my question to you (I am going to use you as the example because your strength is well documented) is what would happen if we tried to train you (Jordan) to be the best endurance cyclist you could be?

I would get a lot (cycling outcomes) out of cycling for any non anaerobic conditioning piece.

Would you be better served to add an extra 100 lbs. on your squat to improve cycling performance, or would training for this type of event result in a reduction of your squat?

You really think this a good question that would, if answered the way you like it, contradict Rip? Really?

I would be more than willing to bet that your max squat would actually decrease as your cycling times improved. The point being that your current weight and muscle mass would be detrimental to your cycling performance. Therefore, Ripp's explanation in the video is severely lacking.

I think your interpretation and subsequent understanding of what he and I have said is severely lacking, almost to the point of being intentional. If it's not intentional, how do you function day to day?

[Sean Herbison]

Holy crap. I've never seen so many strawmen and irrelevant statements (on both sides) in such a concentrated form. It's like a casting call for a Wizard of Oz remake.

Elite runners and cyclists will not train.

To be clear, we are talking strength training here, right?

But how many marathoners do you know can squat 225?

That depends. What level of competitiveness are we talking?

it is astonishing that they all are so f-ing stupid.
Reminds me of the Olympic Weightlifting community.

Oh come on. This is why people outside the forum think we're all a bunch of novices parroting Rip without actually understanding anything. What's your basis for such an arrogant, all-encompassing statement? Your vast stores of experience in lifting and coaching? The hundreds of books and thousands of articles you've read over the years?

Is there evidence (anecdotal, even) of an elite-class distance runner adding a bit of muscle over a short period to demonstrate the "worse mpg' in her distance times?

Not that I know of, not that that's saying much, since I haven't looked. There is, however, plenty of evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, of competitive (I'd have to look up whether any were already elite) distance runners and cyclists who lost weight and improved their times.

You think that nobody who has won the TdF has trained for strength? You think that the idea that perhaps the naturally strongest endurance athletes are the ones that win is absurd? The guys born with the bigger motor don't win???? The other guys can't benefit from a bigger motor? You win the TdF with your VO2max?

Be fair, Rip. There are plenty of terrible ideas in this thread to legitimately tear apart, but this isn't what Maties Hofstede said at all. He said he liked your analysis on the big lifts, and is looking for something similar for this question.

Remember what business I have been in for 40 years, and compare that to your professional history.

Not that experience has no bearing (it does matter quite a bit), but the way you phrased this implies we should all listen to Louie Simmons, since he's been around longer.

(Side note, how old is Simmons? I tried looking it up, but all I can narrow it down to is that he's at least 70, since an article from 1998 mentioned some lifts he did at 51 years old.)

it's much more fun for people to do the straw man thing. "Mark Rippetoe says that squatting 500 for 5 will help elite distance runners. He's so out of his mind."

No one said that. This is a strawman of a strawman. Strawmanception.

Puberty = strength improvement.

Puberty = strength improvement + a lot of other things.

I've been reading this thread and every time I do I just keep thinking "why would anyone want to do that to themselves?" All the running and stuff just sounds miserable to me, they more resemble chemo patients than actual world class athletes.

Why would anyone want to be 300+ lbs at 5'8" and strap themselves up in multi-ply gear to squat a world record 8 inches high? People like to compete, especially if they can make money while they do it.

[brcleeroy]

Can you define what cardiac output is and how it is different in absolute terms from ProTour rider to a Continental level rider

Once again Ripp likes to delete my posts, despite the fact there is nothing particularly contentious with them. But since a well-respected SS coach on this board is asking me specific questions, let's see if he will let this one go through.

This is not a difficult concept to grasp. VO2 is defined as per the Fick equation:

VO2 = Cardiac Output x (a-v O2 difference)

Cardiac Output is also defined as Heart rate multiplied by stroke volume. so the equation can then be defined as:

VO2 = Heart Rate x stroke volume x (a-v O2 difference)

This is basic textbook information, and I don't think that I am telling you anything that you don't already know. But those are the variables that affect aerobic performance. Stroke volume (and by definition cardiac output) by far has the greatest ability for improvement. Training has little to no affect on maximal heart rate, and although training may impact the (a-v O2 difference), it does not nearly have the same degree of plasticity as stroke volume.

Yes, there are other variables that will determine performance as well such as cycling economy and and lactate threshold. If this is where you are going with your argument, yes strength training does impact both of these factors. Regardless, the adaptation that best predicts aerobic performance is cardiac volume (which lead to an increase in stroke volume => cardiac output). If you have data specifically on the differences (or lack thereof) of the cardiac dimensions between ProTour and Continental level riders I would be happy to see it. It is entirely possible that cycling economy and differences in the lactate threshold become more important in elite level riders. It is also important to point out that I am not discounting the importance of strength training as it will help to improve aerobic performance. However, increasing someone's cardiac output (which does not happen to any significant degree through strength training) will have a far greater impact on improving performance than would the doubling of their squat.

It seems that you as well as the other SS coaches on here don't believe that cardiac output is primary limiting factor on aerobic performance. If so, then you are a bit outside of the mainstream and that is fine. I welcome you to challenge the argument. I know that there are dissenting opinions by other researchers such as Tim Noakes that I am not going to go into because I don't think this is where you are arguing from. However, The onus is then on you to present your case because the preponderance of evidence would not seem to support what you are saying. But then again, it is difficult to see what you are saying because so far all you and all of the other SS coaches on here have provided to dispute what I have said is a "nuh-uh".

[Mark Rippetoe]

To be clear, we are talking strength training here, right?

I haven't been clear? Haven't I said about a thousand times that marathon training and weightlifting training are different, but both are training? You actually felt compelled to ask me this? It is normal to see trolls like Leeroy mis-stating my position. But you too?

Be fair, Rip. There are plenty of terrible ideas in this thread to legitimately tear apart, but this isn't what Maties Hofstede said at all. He said he liked your analysis on the big lifts, and is looking for something similar for this question.

And my analysis is in the OP video, in all the books, and is presented at every seminar, including the ones you have taken and audited, and I don't remember you objecting to it on these occasions. Hofstede is a tiresome troll, read his posts in the other threads. My analysis is: If an endurance athlete is not doing any strength training in conjunction with his endurance training, he is not strong enough, and performance will improve if he does. He doesn't need to be a powerlifter -- he needs to be a stronger runner/cyclist. Barbells are the best way to get stronger. That is all.

Your self-assigned "Voice of Reason" function on this forum is admirable, I suppose, but it is concern-trolling. Give it a rest.

Once again Ripp likes to delete my posts,

And once again, I approve your post. Somehow. Why delete you when you dig your own hole?