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Does adding weight to your bike make you train harder?

9.5K views 28 replies 9 participants last post by  nathan.j  
#1 ·
And then go faster once you remove it?
But then i was thinking surely youll still be getting same workout from that of a lighter bike just your going slower,?
Im abit confused on the matter so any help is much appreciated.
Nathan.j
 
#2 ·
nathan.j said:
And then go faster once you remove it?
But then i was thinking surely youll still be getting same workout from that of a lighter bike just your going slower,?
Im abit confused on the matter so any help is much appreciated.
Nathan.j
it really depends on alot of things.
where the weight is added.
rotational weight
terrain ? flat? downhill? etc.,
 
#3 ·
Depends what you're training for. If you're in a strength building phase then it wouldn't hurt if you loaded up a backpack full of books or rocks and started doing some lower cadence hill climbs. However, on the flats and doing most interval workouts, it probably wouldn't make that much of a difference. You may be travelling a bit slower (maybe) but the benefit in training probably wouldn't be that great.
 
#4 ·
nathan.j said:
And then go faster once you remove it?
But then i was thinking surely youll still be getting same workout from that of a lighter bike just your going slower,?
Im abit confused on the matter so any help is much appreciated.
Nathan.j
Almost assuredly the answer is no because bikes have gears and you can vary your effort. Of course if you were going uphill and maintaining the same gear and cadence as without the additional weight then yes it would take more power with the additional weight. If you're pegged at 100% of your power adding additional weight shouldn't do anything other than make you go slower.
 
#5 ·
nathan.j said:
And then go faster once you remove it?
But then i was thinking surely youll still be getting same workout from that of a lighter bike just your going slower,?
Im abit confused on the matter so any help is much appreciated.
Nathan.j
Try this idea.... 2 sets of wheels, 1 heavier for training and fun rides, one lighter for racing. You will be amazed at the difference come race day. If cost is an issue opt for tires and tubes only and swap out the night before your race.
 
#6 ·
calgarydave said:
Try this idea.... 2 sets of wheels, 1 heavier for training and fun rides, one lighter for racing. You will be amazed at the difference come race day. If cost is an issue opt for tires and tubes only and swap out the night before your race.
Yeah but remember he's confused on this issue. To be clear, using the heavy wheels doesn't induce more of a training effect than using the light wheels (you just go slower with the heavy wheels).
 
#7 ·
I disagree

Dwayne Barry said:
Almost assuredly the answer is no because bikes have gears and you can vary your effort. Of course if you were going uphill and maintaining the same gear and cadence as without the additional weight then yes it would take more power with the additional weight. If you're pegged at 100% of your power adding additional weight shouldn't do anything other than make you go slower.
In my experience, the weight of the bike has made a huge difference with respect to the training effect. I have my older MTB set up as a tourer with front and rear panniers and, when fully loaded, the whole package weighs around 100 lbs. The first tour I did, a three week trek in France, was nothing short of a revelation in terms of the strength, power and endurance I had when I returned. Even the appearance of my legs was startling - they were thick and defined in ways they never were before, even with training plans that included lots of intervals and uphill sprints. I came home and found I could do the same 33 mile road bike loop in a smaller rear cog and about 15 minutes faster - yet at the same intensity. Since then, I've tried to incorporate this type of riding in my preseason training.

I'm not quite sure about the mechanisms at work, but I think Dwayne fails to factor inertia into the equation. Getting a 100 lb. bike up to speed is a struggle against that whole "a body at rest" idea, yet even maintaining a steady, lower intensity speed is different on a heavier bike than an 18 lb road bike. This is partly why road bikes make good tools for recovery. On the tourer, even at lower heart rates, I felt like my legs had additional stressors. I think what happens is that I use a higher proportion of my faster twitch muscle fibers - even at lower intensities. Typically when I do a long bike ride on the road or mountain, my legs are tired and might ache the next day. Coming back from one or two day tour rides, my legs are actually sore - as in going-to-gym-and-lifting-weights sore. Of course, in a couple weeks, when they've adapted to that stress, they're pistons.

I was hoping to get a tour in before the race season hits. That reminds me, I need to go to Home Depot to get some sand to stick in my panniers. :)
 
#8 ·
I think you're all confused. Except PeterE. Traning is forcing your body to adapt to higher and higher levels of stress. On level ground and uphill, more weight = more stress. Going downhill with more weight will not build your strength or endurance, but it will challenge your braking and cornering skill. I'd suggest carrying the added weight in a backpack and it should be something disposable and soft such as water or sand (I wouldn't want to fall with rocks inches away from my spine). And if you get into trouble during the ride and need to lose weight, you dont want to dump a pile of books in the woods. Make sure any rides immediately prior to a race are WITHOUT the added weight so you can regain the FEEL of the bike. Also, training is not just adapting to higher levels of stress, but also NEW KINDS of stress. This is why CROSS TRAINING is so important. Leg presses, leg extensions, leg curls, calf raises, dead lift, straight leg dead lift, sit-ups, and stairmaster or stadiums. If it doesn't work you're not eating enough.
 
#9 ·
"On level ground and uphill, more weight = more stress."
Not necessarily, which was the point of my previous post. On a bike you can shift gears and just go slower. You can simply induce more of training stress by trying to go harder (use bigger gears or turn the same gear over faster) without adding any weight. If you're going as hard as you can, by definition adding more weight isn't going to do anything other than slow you down. The only advantage I can think of of adding weight is to increase the effective length of climbs (because you go up them slower) if your area doesn't have particularly long climbs.
 
#10 ·
"I'm not quite sure about the mechanisms at work, but I think Dwayne fails to factor inertia into the equation. Getting a 100 lb. bike up to speed is a struggle against that whole "a body at rest" idea, yet even maintaining a steady, lower intensity speed is different on a heavier bike than an 18 lb road bike."

So what you're saying is that the extra 100 lbs forces you to work harder, what I'm saying is that you could do this voluntarily without the additional weight.

"I think what happens is that I use a higher proportion of my faster twitch muscle fibers - even at lower intensities."

You may be on to something here. What do you mean by lower intensity? Without going into too much about how muscle fibres are recruited, if you're riding at lower cadences with all that extra weight you're lugging uphill you very well may be recruiting a greater percentage of fast-twitch fibres, or simply relying more on force and less on speed (rpms) to generate the required power.

"Coming back from one or two day tour rides, my legs are actually sore - as in going-to-gym-and-lifting-weights sore. Of course, in a couple weeks, when they've adapted to that stress, they're pistons."

I get the same response from doing what I call over-geared rides on the road. I simply climb any hill I come to in a much bigger gear than I would ever use in a race this results in relatively low rpms and high forces.

Which gets back to the original issue, because bikes have gears you can modulate the stress via your gear selection. Power is power, and perhaps how you achieve that power (low rpm/high force versus high rpm/low force) affects the physiological response. You're body only knows how much work it is doing (power output) adding weight doesn't nessarily mean you need to put out more power you could just shift to an easier gear and go slower with the additional weight, OTOH without the additional weight you could just put out more power and go faster.
 
#11 ·
nathan.j said:
And then go faster once you remove it?
But then i was thinking surely youll still be getting same workout from that of a lighter bike just your going slower,?
Im abit confused on the matter so any help is much appreciated.
Nathan.j
It's all about the amount of force you generate. Not how fast you go or how much mass you're moving but the product of the mass and the acceleration. F=ma. (ANY change in velocity is acceleration). Wanna' go faster? It takes more force. Want to move a more massive object with the same acceleration then it takes more force.

Answer to the question is YES. If you increase the weight of your bike and continue to accelerate your bike to the same speeds as when it was lighter then you will be required to generate more force. Challenging your body to generate more force makes it stronger.

Is this a good way to train? I doubt it. Focusing your training on developing your weaknesses is likely more effective than a training based on hauling around a mess of mass.
 
#12 ·
AndrewMcD said:
It's all about the amount of force you generate. Not how fast you go or how much mass you're moving but the product of the mass and the acceleration. F=ma. (ANY change in velocity is acceleration). Wanna' go faster? It takes more force. Want to move a more massive object with the same acceleration then it takes more force.

Answer to the question is YES. If you increase the weight of your bike and continue to accelerate your bike to the same speeds as when it was lighter then you will be required to generate more force. Challenging your body to generate more force makes it stronger.

Is this a good way to train? I doubt it. Focusing your training on developing your weaknesses is likely more effective than a training based on hauling around a mess of mass.
Actually Andrew it's about power (P = force x velocity), force is only a component of power. If I increase my candence from 90 to 100 rpm, it takes the same force to move the crank each rpm but I go faster because now i'm moving the cranks faster (the velocity component of power). As you say increasing the weight while maintaing the same speed (going uphill) requires more power, alternatively increasing the power while maintaining the same weight just means you go faster. You body is responding to the power demand irrelevant of whether the demand is there because you want to move a heavier mass the same speed or the same mass at a greater speed.
 
#13 ·
The bottom line is we all use tricks to motivate us to work harder during workouts, and racing is a mental as well as physical game. I do not disagree with the arguments about physics but the facts are these in my little world:

On the flats and with a light bike and no power meter, it is very possible to convince oneself that the workout is hard, when, in fact, it is not.

Hill training is particularly useful because hills force us to work hard- the gear ratios are not infinite, we cannot balance well at 0.5 mph, etc. So to make some hills, we have to work hard or fall down.

If we combine some hills with additional weight, we'll be forced, in effect, to use a larger gear than normal to make it up the hill (because we cannot find an easy gear). The human will to make it to the top of this hill, with the gears I've got, is easier to tap into than, "I will maintain xxx watts for yyy period of time".

Harder work makes us stronger. We do whatever it takes. A backpack full of rocks going uphill works. Working out with a training partner works. It's not all about the math, much of the struggle is to find ways of making ourselves do the volume and intensity of work required to get stronger.
 
#14 ·
I agree with your basic sentiment but the original poster said he was confused on the matter of training on a heavier bike would make him faster. The answer to that question is no, putting out more power (presumably) will make him faster come race day. Adding weight doesn't affect power output it only affects speed.
 
#15 ·
Dwayne Barry said:
I agree with your basic sentiment but the original poster said he was confused on the matter of training on a heavier bike would make him faster. The answer to that question is no, putting out more power (presumably) will make him faster come race day. Adding weight doesn't affect power output it only affects speed.
Turning into a non-informative pissing contest. Seems most of this thread is just about some of us proving we understand the science better than the other guy (trust me, I understand the science and have the degrees, faculty position at a medical school, and publications to prove it). Guess you missed my point that pushing more weight often causes people to use more power, just to make the hill. Then using more power makes us have a training response, which can lead to adaptation, which can lead to improved performance. Question is, are we interested in helping the person with the question or not? I'd rather give helpful and encouraging answers than quibble over definitions.
 
#16 ·
Try to find the sport in it...

rpironcladracer said:
Turning into a non-informative pissing contest. Seems most of this thread is just about some of us proving we understand the science better than the other guy (trust me, I understand the science and have the degrees, faculty position at a medical school, and publications to prove it). Guess you missed my point that pushing more weight often causes people to use more power, just to make the hill. Then using more power makes us have a training response, which can lead to adaptation, which can lead to improved performance. Question is, are we interested in helping the person with the question or not? I'd rather give helpful and encouraging answers than quibble over definitions.
Yes, there's that element of authoritarian condescension that comes across in his posts, but that's why I enjoy sparring with him. The more I think about it, the more intriguing the question is. The polemics challenge me to think hard about this or any other issue.
 
#17 ·
Dwayne, force is necessary to accelerate a mass. A heavier mass requires more force than a lighter mass to accelerate to a given velocity in a given amount of time. Now this may blow your mind but traveling on level ground at a constant speed is ACCELERATION. More precisely, it is a balance between the acceleration you provide and the deceleration provided by friction with both the ground and the air. GEARS DON'T CHANGE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. Using lower gears means you will need less force, but for a longer period of time. What we're really talking about is KINETIC ENERGY = 1/2 MASS x VELOCITYsquared. Notice MASS is in the equation. With more mass you have more kinetic energy and we all know energy isn't free, we have to WORK for it. I could go on but I'm boring myself...
 
#18 ·
rpironcladracer said:
Turning into a non-informative pissing contest. Seems most of this thread is just about some of us proving we understand the science better than the other guy (trust me, I understand the science and have the degrees, faculty position at a medical school, and publications to prove it). Guess you missed my point that pushing more weight often causes people to use more power, just to make the hill. Then using more power makes us have a training response, which can lead to adaptation, which can lead to improved performance. Question is, are we interested in helping the person with the question or not? I'd rather give helpful and encouraging answers than quibble over definitions.
Sorry you see it that way, wasn't what was intended. I was just trying to clear up the guy's confusion. So I'm going to answer his questions to the best of my understanding.

He asked:
Does adding weight to your bike make you train harder? Not Necessarily. It would only result in a greater adaptation if it forced you to put out more power. OTOH, you could "force" yourself to put out more power by simply trying harder.
And then go faster once you remove it? See above.
But then i was thinking surely youll still be getting same workout from that of a lighter bike just your going slower,? Yes. If the only factor that changes is the bike weight there is no reason to think that any greater adaptation would occur.
 
#19 ·
Nathan was asking about carrying more weight for training, not during the race. Of course it will slow him down, that's the point, he wants to work harder. Suppose it slows him down an average of 3 mph. on a given course. After a few months training with the weight he gains back that 3mph. Now when he takes the weight off he gains back that 3 mph. that the weight took away. A net gain of 3 mph. and Nathan passes Dwayne and Dogwood on the final lap to take 1st place because Dwayne didn't understand how to use his energy and Dogwood had a headache.
 
#20 ·
dogwood said:
Dwayne, force is necessary to accelerate a mass. A heavier mass requires more force than a lighter mass to accelerate to a given velocity in a given amount of time. Now this may blow your mind but traveling on level ground at a constant speed is ACCELERATION. More precisely, it is a balance between the acceleration you provide and the deceleration provided by friction with both the ground and the air. GEARS DON'T CHANGE THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. Using lower gears means you will need less force, but for a longer period of time. What we're really talking about is KINETIC ENERGY = 1/2 MASS x VELOCITYsquared. Notice MASS is in the equation. With more mass you have more kinetic energy and we all know energy isn't free, we have to WORK for it. I could go on but I'm boring myself...
I understand. But the original question was about increasing mass. It didn't say anything about keeping speed (time) constant or force constant. My point about gears is that you can always choose to go slower by selecting an easier gear (or lowering your rpm for that matter) on a bike so increasing mass doesn't do anything per se. I guess I was unclear, naturally if you're trying to maintain the same speed over the same distance and you increase the mass then the force (or power) would necessarily have to increase.
 
#21 ·
dogwood said:
Nathan was asking about carrying more weight for training, not during the race. Of course it will slow him down, that's the point, he wants to work harder. Suppose it slows him down an average of 3 mph. on a given course. After a few months training with the weight he gains back that 3mph. Now when he takes the weight off he gains back that 3 mph. that the weight took away. A net gain of 3 mph. and Nathan passes Dwayne and Dogwood on the final lap to take 1st place because Dwayne didn't understand how to use his energy and Dogwood had a headache.
Dogwood, changing the physics (adding weight) doesn't change the physiology (power output). If he wants to work harder he could just try harder and push a bigger gear or turn the same gear over faster to increase his power output resulting in greater speed. There is no need to add weight to work harder unless you're spinning out your hardest gear. Which gets back to answering the guys question, adding weight to his bike doesn't necessarily make him faster come race day unless he ups his power output to maintain the same speed he's use to without the weight.
 
#24 ·
Well finally we agree on something. When did I say he HAD to add weight to get faster? Nathan asked if adding weight would make him train harder. The answer is yes, it would, and so would using taller gears. However, using taller gears won't improve his core strength (abs, abdominal obliques, lower back, etc.) at all. Also, changing the TYPE of training you do can often be key to making new gains. I'd sure like to know what Nathan got from all of these replies.
 
#25 ·
Naw, wasn't talking about you Rip

rpironcladracer said:
Thanks for the heads up Pachito. I re-read my reply, and I did come across as condescending. Guess I was the one making it a pissing contest. Kettle calling the pot black!
in terms of the condescending tone. You just seemed a tad defensive. We're all having fun and learning a little too.
 
#26 ·
I'm so glad to hear you're having fun. I'm just having fun too. Nathan hit on my two favorite subjects, I'm making the most of it. The only reason physics got involved was that Dwayne understands that carrying more weight requires more power, but he doesn't understand that using lower gears only reduces the FORCE required to move the weight a given distance. He knows but doesn't give credit to the fact that although FORCE is decreased the time over which that force is applied has increased. The simple answer here is that any time you increase resistance, you are training harder. That resistance can come from taller gearing, adding weight, dragging a parachute behind you, riding under water, whatever. Likewise you can also increase the amount of time that a given output is sustained, this however would be training for endurance. Isn't it cool how complex training can be, with so many opinions, theories, formulas, and techniques. I'd like to hear from Nathan again, I imagine he has just reached a plateu and realized that he needs to do something different. We've all experienced these plateus and should be sharing our ideas for what changes to make in ouir training. Someone more popular than me needs to start that thread.