Strength Training for Endurance Athletes
12/20/06

A study showed that strength training had positive effects of endurance cycling capacity. Eighteen males performed 12 weeks of strength training three times a week. The strength training consisted of 8-12 repetitions of upper body exercise (bench press, push-ups, lat pull-downs, arm curls) and 15-20 repetitions on lower body exercises (knee extensions, hip flexion's, parallel squats) with a 30-second rest between exercises. The strength training program had no effect on the subjects VO2max. However, 1 rep-max(RM) for knee extension and hip flexion improved by 30% and 52% respectively. More important, cycle time to exhaustion at 75% of VO2max improved a massive 33% from 26.3 minutes before strength training to 35.1 minutes after training.

The conclusion: "strength training improves cycle endurance performance independently of changes in VO2max... and that this improvement appears to be related to increase in leg strength."

Good luck!
Joe