Strength work has increasingly been gaining prominence in the preparation of all endurance sports., including of course, to cycling. For this, this week we will write this post about basic concepts of strength training and what you should know to better understand your preparation and guidance for the correct development of this basic physical capacity..

At the outset we will say that muscular strength is more than the unlimited development of muscle mass., advocated by bodybuilding or "body building". This strength training model continues to have too much influence on the classic training of this capacity.. It is a mistake to train like this since practically no athlete should ever train like this.

Marked this first part, We must introduce the concept of force at a theoretical and practical level seen from the physiological and neuronal point of view.We can say that strength is the ability of our muscles to generate tension in the muscle when contracting., where if we look at a physical level we would follow this famous formula:

Force =  Mass (kg)  x Acceleration (km/h – m/s)

So the force that is generated in ourneuromuscular system must be measured through the applied force, which will be what our body exerts on an external resistance (mass). This applied force will be the manifestation of the internal tension generated by the muscle when trying to displace this external resistance..

In the sports field we are interested in measuring the applied force since it is essential to know to what extent the internal force generated in the muscles translates into force applied to external resistances..

This applied force will depend on several factors which we detail below:

• From the load to be moved, the higher the load, greater force we can apply.
• Of the time available to apply force, longer, greater force to apply.
• Movement speed. At higher speed, less force we can apply to the load.

In the same subject there are two factors that are equivalent:

The time available and the speed at which the resistance moves. Where a problem will be raised that will be the following:  the time available to apply force is reduced as sports performance increases (higher performance) .

In summary we can talk about:

• The more time we have to apply force, greater force can be applied.
• The higher the speed of movement, less force can be applied.
• Given the same load, the speed of movement depends onthe force applied.
• If the time available to apply force is reduced when sports performance improves, the only solution to improve performance (speed in sports) is to apply more and more force in less time..

From all these concepts, the load – speed curve appears that will help us measure this force applied to different loads in order to suggest the improvement of the sports performance of our athlete in strength training and the quantification of this improvement..