Why do I have weak bike legs when Standing on the Flats
OK - here's the deal. I'm a fairly strong rider for my age. I can go long and fast and I can take the hills. Although I climb hills well, if I stand up in an easy gear on the flat, my quads burn. I was doing a Spinervals tape this morning that has a lot of standing. If we were in the 53-15 and harder, standing was fine. But when we were in 53 - 17 it was tough, and the easier the ratio got the harder it was. At 53-19 and easier, I cannot remain standing for 60 seconds...my legs just burn too much. 
Why is that, and how do you get your quads capable of handling that kind of standing spinning? Also, what's the advantage of this kind of training?
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Don't know about the overall intention/purpose of it, but I know I try to do a lot of my climbing out of the saddle. Wrecks the legs, as you use a lot more power and energy, but I enjoy the change.
The Spinervals tapes from Troy Jacobson occassionally have standing but the one tape I used today has a lot of it and it hurts. Troy doesn't explain the reasoning but from his comments he indicates that it does hurt more in the easier gears, and I will attest to that. BTW, Troy won the 40-44 Age Group at IMAZ 2010 in 9:06 with a 4:56 bike split and a 2:59 marathon. He was a 2nd tier pro in his day and never cracked 3 hours in the marathon until just now.
paul:
i think everyone agrees that in IM racing, standing is not advantageous due to the matches you burn, physiologically, that will effect the remainder of the race.
the EN standing in the training plans is mostly to give the other muscles a break.
road riding without "dancing on the pedals" (i.e. standing) is just not road riding. like some others in this thread, i really like dancing on the pedals when out climbing on the road or when bridging to a group of faster guys on rolling terrain or when sprinting against cippolini and zabel on my solo rides (i.e imaginary Cippo and zabel, of course)...but i digress.
anyway, i think the difficulty you are experiencing when standing on the flats at easy gears, is based on a lack of leverage upon which to steady your pedaling. as a result, you have to engage your core more than ever, your upper body more than ever, while keeping a smooth pedal stroke and high rpms. you probably also breath less while you are distracted by trying to steady everything. the anaerobic effort dominates in this case and you get tired, fast. so, basically this drill mixes things up and gives your body and mind a new type of challenge to work through, while getting core/shoulders/pedal stroke in tune. other than that, i don't think this drill is teaching you a new way to ride. in other words, standing on the flats in an easy gear, would never be done in any racing scenario road or tri.
hope all is well.
gh
Out on the road, I try to do about 25% out of the saddle. More challenging than sitting and works different, tired, muscle groups, if you ask me.
I've also been known to do some of it inside on the drainer.
The fact that Troy is fast does not mean that his suggestion to stand means anything. Maybe he was dating a spin instructor when he came up with that workout. We have to determine whether people are fast because they do things or in spite of them. There was at least one multi time Olympic champion runner that thought doing sprints in boots while holding his breath was a good plan, should we try that? Standing up on a bike on a trainer also seems to be a bad plan in terms of what it does to the bike.
As to why you feel weak when you try it, my money is on Al's theory...
On hills, roadies stand to generate more power. It allows you to put your weight into the pedals. But here's the thing, they tend to do it at a lower cadence, either when they've run out of gears, or deliberately.
On the flats, or the way TJ has you do them, you're standing at a higher cadence with less resistance (ignoring the sprinter-type standing in a hard gear). Muscles do react differently when asked to contract harder and faster at the same time, and that is why you're feeling sore. It really doesn't say anything about whether or not you need to train differently, or have some weak 'dimension of fitness' that needs to be addressed. I'd suggest that most all triathletes would feel the same way if they did that set (I've done a few of those TJ ones).
If you were a roadie, you might decide to work on climbing while standing at a higher cadence to be able to hang with group, etc. But that really has nothing to do with how we ride in a tri.
@ Brenda - I'm guilty, guilty, guilty. I follow maybe 50% of the OS and about 75% of the IM plans, picking and choosing what I feel is best for me. I follow some OS bike work-outs to the letter and then on other days I want to hammer myself with Troy (I've got 16 of his videos and use them all). The video in question is Tough Love and it's 3 hours on the drainer...so I fell right off the OS bandwagon on Saturday. However, I am compliant with the overall thrust of the OS model, meaning I swim less (not zero) and I work harder on intensity.
@ Mike - in Tough Love there are alternating sets of say 6 x 6 mins with each set alternating 1 min seated and 1 min standing; and the sets going up or down the cassette so if it's a down progression then start at 53-13, then 53-15, 53-17, 53-19, 53-21 and 53-23. I have a 12-21 cassette on my trainer at the moment and never went higher that 53-20 but that was rough on the quads just above the knees. Similar to a tough ab workout where you really feel the burn. Even though we don't ride like that in triathlon do you think there is any benefit? We do a lot of stuff in training (like 5K TT runs) that don't mimic the way we race yet have benefits.
Paul:
sports specific training is high yield in terms of benefit to your sport of choice. the EN way accomplishes this for us in a very harmonious way with our physiological ability to adapt to work.
our physiological ability to adapt to work, however, is encoded in our DNA. our physiological and molecular self does not care that we are triathletes or cyclists or runners. once we start training a certain way, then the cohort of muscles we train gets stronger. but there's never a free lunch in nature. those muscle combinations not getting worked become less strong.
resiliency to injury, comes from keeping your body as well balanced as posiible with a variety of activities, as we would have done in the caveman days. as triathletes, we are lucky to have three disciplines to keep our bodies busy. however, whenever possible we should never limit ourselves, especially in the OS, to challenge our bodies to be strong in various scenarios.
with my run, i can sprint pretty good, i can hang at middle distance, and am learning to run well in IM. i've started running trails and that's been awesome. i wear minimalist shoes, no matter the terrain. the running form i use on the trail, i would never use in an IM. nonetheless, i like this versatility and for sure it makes me a stronger runner, triathlete and human. i am just learning to set myself free in this manner on the bike and it is really exciting. after that, i will try to do the same with the swim.
in summary, i think you would have been a pretty successful caveman!
GH
Given infinite time, and high quality recovery, you'd train with roadies on the bike, train with track runners, and train with real masters' swimmers. Of course, if I were to do that, I'd have to sleep for a week. What we do here is not the only way. It is a solution to the problem "I don't have 15 hours in the dead of winter to train for tris, so then what?". It's the best way to get fast on minimal time invested. Many of us go out and ride with roadies in the spring or fall, cuz its fun, and works.
So, with all of that said, do I think it could help? Frankly, I'm not sure that high cadence standing stuff helps much, but it could help you learn to get your weight off the back pedal, which would be good for pedaling technique...
To expand the drift in this thread: If I had my druthers, I would ski all winter, just run in the woods, ride my bike on gravel roads and dirt singletrack in the mountains, and free swim in the ocean (where it's warm enough to go for an hour without a wet suit). And I used to actually try to train for triathlons that way. It kinda worked, but as Mike and Gilberto have pointed out, training with sport specificity works best and most efficiently, and I wanted to win, so I hunkered down and grew more and more "specialized" (to the extent that a triathlete can say that). The results came, but sometimes the focus does get too narrow and confining.
Hmm, are you saying Paul has some of that Neanderthal DNA in him? He uses a fork, knife and spoon at dinner ...
Al:
by mere fact that paul participates in endurance sports, he has by definition, diverged from neanderthal. i think the only remaining expressed neanderthal DNA left in homo sapien is found in those who only do "cross-fit" training!!!!!!
see you at CdA!!!
GH