# Are conditioning for power and endurance mutually exclusive?



## Chase15.5 (Feb 17, 2005)

I was doing some research on improving my sprinting for BMX while still maintaining my endurance fitness for road cycling and stumbled upon this article. The premise of the article see counter intuitive to me: 

What do you guys/gals think:

"Conditioning for power and endurance are mutually exclusive activities. It is an either-or proposition; you cannot have it both ways. Think of your physical conditioning as a spectrum that runs from power on one end and endurance on another."


Link to article: http://feelbmx.com/news/bmx-what-type-of-sport-


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## Creakyknees (Sep 21, 2003)

Please don't cut n paste long articles... a link will do.

He's using the word "power" in a different sense than most roadies think of it, but he's essentially correct at least in the sense that time / energy spent on endurance has an opportunity cost that you could have spent on sprinting. Track sprinters also are not big fans of endurance riding, since it adds workload but does not make them faster.

I think where this guy is going is that in order to be able to race 30+ heats a weekend, you need to build up to being able to race 30+ _quality_ efforts of 30-45 seconds - and this is not at all the same as 30x45secs = 22.5 minutes of hard pedaling.

Now, there's also talent to consider. If you're a fast-twitch guy, odds are you're going to be fast no matter what you do.. but endurance work will blunt it a bit. If you a medium guy, you really need to focus on speed, "power" to maximize it.

Just my .02


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## M__E (Apr 21, 2006)

training for endurance is only for building a base fitness to enable harder 'power' training, and one would usually base build up to the length of their longest competition..or so..within reason (exceptions are marathon runners elite ones who know what they are doing that is :wink5: dont run a marathon
distance before their marathon as prep ect ect)

Power training is about much shorter but much higher levels of power
to increase speed, repeatibility, recovery ect ect.

yes they are the two ends of the spectrum..but they are not mutually exclusive..one needs the other in order to obtain optimum results and all round fitness and conditioning. The emphasis of how much training you do for each is derived from your competition event style, duration, intensity ect.

Eg a sprinter will spend more effort (not time!) on high power workouts than a century rider will spend, but the century riders endurance still needs power training in order to maximise his overall fitness (and therefore speed/power)


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## iliveonnitro (Feb 19, 2006)

M__E said:


> Eg a sprinter will spend more effort (not time!) on high power workouts than a century rider will spend


Wait, what? Why would anyone half-ass an effort? That's just wasted work...


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## Mr. Jones (Jul 4, 2006)

iliveonnitro said:


> Wait, what? Why would anyone half-ass an effort? That's just wasted work...


I think if you replace effort with intensity it makes more sense. The other possible and sensible alternative is that a sprinter will put more effort as a percentage of his total energy expenditure in training into sprints or "power" work than a century rider will.


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## M__E (Apr 21, 2006)

Mr. Jones said:


> The other possible and sensible alternative is that a sprinter will put more effort as a percentage of his total energy expenditure in training into sprints or "power" work than a century rider will.


Exactly what I meant :thumbsup:


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## iliveonnitro (Feb 19, 2006)

M__E said:


> Exactly what I meant :thumbsup:


I don't think that's a valid comparison...


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## M__E (Apr 21, 2006)

well it is..


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## toonraid (Sep 19, 2006)

The article's argument is of course correct but it has omitted many facts which can lead one to a slightly different conclusion. Power endurance is not unique to BMX there are many other sports as well as disciplines within cycling that require the same – A sprinter is expected to race for 200 km and then power the last 3 km with an average of 700 w and then sprint to the finish line and this is in Tdf where the race is spread over 3 weeks, a trackie is also in the same boat specially if its in one of those 6 day races which is why many BMXers end up as Sprinters or trackies such as McEwen or Hoy – A forward in football (soccer) is expected to constantly attack the opposition with sudden bursts of power over a 90 minute period and of course in between he still has a game to play.

I think we need to analyze the fitness requirements of a BMX cyclist in order to come up with a good plan – Explosive Power and rapid recovery are of course the key elements. Recovery rate is mainly dependant on your aerobic fitness which is built up during your annual base building program during the off-season doing lots of miles with low HR – during this period you will loose power but hey it’s the off-season. It is then followed up with your Advance Power building routine where you will gradually try to load your training routine with race elements week by week – e.g. you start with introducing standing starts on big gears going from a Cadence of 0 to 120 or 140 in between your warm-up & warm down and then you just keep loading it until you end up with near race requirements – i.e. of you have to do 12 heats of 45 seconds in a given weekend with 30 min recovery time between each race you may start with 2 x 30s x 45m but then you should slowly build yourself up to race level by adding more sets and increase the power cycle so that you end up with sets of 6 x 45s x 30m in your final weeks of training plan – That’s 6 efforts lasting 45 seconds each followed by easy recovery pedaling of 30 minutes. There is lots of variations you can try to make it more interesting but this is just to give you an idea. PM me if you need more info, I'd be happy to help.


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## ncvwnut (Oct 15, 2008)

It has always been said that a sprinter will improve his/her time by training with endurance as well as an endurance will improve his/her time with sprint or interval training. How are you defining "mutally exclusive?" Are you saying that they cannot happen at the same time or one does not affect the other? Depending on your point of view and your definition it can go either way. If you say that you can improve power by training on your endurance and visa-versa then no they are not mutually exclusive. Maybe if you are saying that you can't gain more power by training endurance that may be true but you can maintain your peak power over a longer period of time by endurance training. An endurance rider can also improve short burst power by training on power along with endurance.


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## Chase15.5 (Feb 17, 2005)

toonraid said:


> The article's argument is of course correct but it has omitted many facts which can lead one to a slightly different conclusion. Power endurance is not unique to BMX there are many other sports as well as disciplines within cycling that require the same – A sprinter is expected to race for 200 km and then power the last 3 km with an average of 700 w and then sprint to the finish line and this is in Tdf where the race is spread over 3 weeks, a trackie is also in the same boat specially if its in one of those 6 day races which is why many BMXers end up as Sprinters or trackies such as McEwen or Hoy – A forward in football (soccer) is expected to constantly attack the opposition with sudden bursts of power over a 90 minute period and of course in between he still has a game to play.
> 
> I think we need to analyze the fitness requirements of a BMX cyclist in order to come up with a good plan – Explosive Power and rapid recovery are of course the key elements. Recovery rate is mainly dependant on your aerobic fitness which is built up during your annual base building program during the off-season doing lots of miles with low HR – during this period you will loose power but hey it’s the off-season. It is then followed up with your Advance Power building routine where you will gradually try to load your training routine with race elements week by week – e.g. you start with introducing standing starts on big gears going from a Cadence of 0 to 120 or 140 in between your warm-up & warm down and then you just keep loading it until you end up with near race requirements – i.e. of you have to do 12 heats of 45 seconds in a given weekend with 30 min recovery time between each race you may start with 2 x 30s x 45m but then you should slowly build yourself up to race level by adding more sets and increase the power cycle so that you end up with sets of 6 x 45s x 30m in your final weeks of training plan – That’s 6 efforts lasting 45 seconds each followed by easy recovery pedaling of 30 minutes. There is lots of variations you can try to make it more interesting but this is just to give you an idea. PM me if you need more info, I'd be happy to help.


Good suggestions, thanks. And a PM sent.


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## Chase15.5 (Feb 17, 2005)

ncvwnut said:


> An endurance rider can also improve short burst power by training on power along with endurance.


I think this is the way to go for me to get a balance of endurance cycling activities and sprint/power related training.


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## function (Jun 20, 2008)

Most road cyclists shouldn't pigeon hole themselves as endurance rider or sprinter. Some TDF sprinters ride 160km+ everyday for 3 weeks and still put in a decent (for road sprinters) sprint.

BMX is probably in the same boat as track cycling, there they certainly have scheduling problems with putting in quality track efforts and building endurance.


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## MerlinAma (Oct 11, 2005)

Actually there have been several articles in the last few years that show intensity (training for power) does a lot for your endurance also.

However I've never seen anyone say that endurance training (long slow rides) do anything at all to increase your power.

Based on that I'd not define the training as "mutually exclusive". More of a one way situation.


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## Alex_Simmons/RST (Jan 12, 2008)

Chase15.5 said:


> I was doing some research on improving my sprinting for BMX while still maintaining my endurance fitness for road cycling and stumbled upon this article. The premise of the article see counter intuitive to me:
> 
> What do you guys/gals think:
> 
> ...


You can improve both with an appropriate balance of training but you can't be world class in both.

The physiological requriements are different.


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## stevesbike (Jun 3, 2002)

Like a lot of training articles, the're potential confusion in the author's use of 'conditioning for power,' as a contrast to endurance training. In the context of a BMX race, which is probably at most 20 seconds of work (plus coasting over bumps) there's not much sense in doing endurance training. Endurance training will hurt explosive power, and long endurance training is thought to lower hormonal levels necessary for sprint training and recovery from it. Since there's no endurance component to BMX (unlike a road sprinter), there's not much use to endurance training. 

When endurance cyclists talk about peak power training, they are typically talking about training that affects aerobic pathways, and are typically longer than explosive power training. Even Peter Laursen's TMax workouts are pretty long intervals compared to explosive power ones.


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