In addition to making you a stronger cyclist, strength training increases your metabolism, lowers your body fat, and protects you from some of the leading causes of death and disability. Keep reading to learn how strength training will improve your cycling performance this season and keep you riding at a high level for many more years ahead.
Offset Muscle Loss - No matter how many miles you’re riding, if you’re not regularly strength training, you’re getting weaker. In fact your muscles start to deteriorate in your 30’s. By age 40, you’ll lose an average of 8% of muscle mass every decade, which accelerates even faster after age 60. Decreased muscle mass leads to accelerated aging, limited mobility, and a host of chronic illnesses including diabetes and osteoporosis.
Ride Faster – Improving your speed and climbing requires adding stress to your training routine. Strength training concentrates an extreme stress and adaptation on the muscles that goes far beyond what cycling alone can provide. Also, strength training builds Type II muscle fibers which are your body’s power delivery engine that enables you to sprint faster and use that larger gear when tackling difficult climbs. Type II muscle fibers are more difficult to develop than Type I endurance fibers, and the first you’ll lose with aging.
Ride Longer – Want to maintain a fast pace throughout your long rides? Strength training improves your ability to recruit the correct muscles for the workload and effectively synchronize the workload across multiple muscles. Increasing upper body and core strength helps improve your cycling form, breathing, stability, and ability to maintain higher sustained speeds. During challenging rides I often hear other riders yell “shut up legs!”. I never hear them yell “shut up lungs!”. That’s because it’s typically the muscles that give out before the lungs during long rides. What limits most cyclists from getting to the next level is lack of muscular power, not aerobic conditioning.
Correct Your Strength Imbalances – The repetitive motion required in cycling magnifies strength imbalances that lead to reduced performance and injuries. Performing unilateral exercises with one arm or leg identifies and helps correct side-to-side strength imbalances. Additionally, the cycling pedal stroke is mostly a concentric (push) movement that requires the quads and glutes to shorten which reduces mobility in those areas. Strength training includes eccentric (pull) movements that lengthen the muscles as the weight is lowered.
Injury-Proof Your Body - Have you ever had trouble standing up straight following a long day in the saddle? The hunched over position cycling requires causes stiffness and pain in the neck, shoulders, and back. If not addressed this results in long term injuries, and time off the bike. By consistently following a strength training program, you’ll improve your muscle tone, increase your joint mobility and range of motion, improve your posture, and move better off the bike too.
Build Stronger Bones - If you’re over 40 and your training is limited to non-impact activities like cycling and swimming, you likely have osteoporosis. Additionally, cyclists lose a lot of calcium sweating through those 3-5-hour rides. Strength training is a load-bearing activity that cues your body to build new bone.
Improve Your Hormone Health - Strength training elevates levels of muscle building hormones, specifically testosterone (benefits woman and men) and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1). Your muscles are sensitive to insulin, and increased muscle mass leads to better insulin response, and lower risk of type 2 diabetes.
Save Time - Since strength training delivers a larger dose of muscular stress than cycling, you’ll save time every week by replacing 2-3 hour rides with 1 hour strength training sessions.
You should commit to strength training throughout the year to earn the full benefits described above. This allows you to continually improve your strength and performance versus stopping then restarting your program from a baseline level each season. I typically strength train 3-4 times per week during the winter, and 2 times per week during cycling season.
Stronger Cycling Workout
Click on this link for a workout that will improve your cycling performance this season and keep you riding at a high level for many more years ahead: Stronger Cycling Workout
