Should Cyclists Strength Train?

This is the time of year when a lot of you ask about strength training. Should you? Shouldn’t you? There has been much debating about the effectiveness and necessity of strength training for cyclist for many years.

Strength training preserves muscle mass

Cyclists over 40 always complain about their slower metabolism, and while age plays a role, the amount of muscle you’re carrying on your frame plays a bigger one. As we get older we tend to be less active, and as a result we lose muscle mass. You may be more active than others in that you’re a cyclist, but look at your overall lifestyle. Are you more or less active now than you were in your twenties? You most likely sit more; do less manual labour, less lifting and chasing around, etc. Similarly cyclists under 40 are still developing muscle mass and reaching their optimal muscular development. It is vital that strength training be added regardless of age, the benefits will enhance your cycling ability and your overall enjoyment of the sport

Resistance Training and Weight Training Enhance Coordination

Whether you are doing body-weight resistance exercises, lifting free weights, or using rubber tubing, there are balance and coordination components to your movements. This develops and maintains neural pathways for proprioception and balance, and it develops small muscles that help your stability. Why is that important? When your balance and coordination are not well trained during any age you end up lifting objects or moving your body in ways that place inappropriate stress on weak muscles. This is part of the reason moving furniture or hiking with a heavy pack leads to significant soreness or injury.

Strength training increases your options

This is crucially important for lifelong cyclists. I have long described something I refer to as “the cyclist’s paradox”. Cyclists have extremely well developed aerobic engines, yet very underdeveloped musculoskeletal systems for any sport other than cycling. You have the aerobic engine to run pretty fast for a prolonged period of time, but because cycling is weight-supported many cyclists can “outrun” their skeletal system’s ability to handle the stress of either the speed or duration their aerobic engines can support. Similarly, lifelong cyclists frequently have severely underdeveloped upper body strength. This limits the exercise and activity options cyclists feel prepared to participate in.

Strength training keeps you in the game

Even if you see yourself as primarily a cyclist I encourage you to expand your vision and aspire to be a well-rounded athlete who happens to focus on cycling. This distinction touches on all the points raised in the sections above, but perhaps the greatest advantage of being a well-rounded athlete who cycles is that your activities off the bike help you to be more effective on the bike. Note, I didn’t say that your off-bike activities made you faster on the bike, but rather, more effective. In my experience, well-rounded athletes are able to be more consistent in their sport-specific cycling training because they spend less time sidelined by soreness and injury caused by being unprepared for activities of daily living. Yes, silly things like moving furniture and heaving luggage knock cyclist out of sport-specific training frequently enough to disrupt training programs. Cycling as a fitness activity has many benefits however, cycling can also develop many weaknesses within the body; a weak core due to resting your upper body on the handlebars or weak ankles from your feet being locked into your cleats. The position of a cyclist is an unnatural position for the human body to stay in for a period of time; hyper-extended neck, rounded back, and shortened hip flexors all add up to a poorly developed posture for every day life. This is another reason cyclists should program strength training in to their training schedule. All professional athletes from all sports will spend time in the gym, correcting muscular issues and building strength training as part of their daily routine.

But, does Strength Training make you Faster?

So, does strength training make you faster on the bike? Probably not in a direct sense. Even though squats, for instance, use the same muscles you use to push on the pedals, the rate of force production is far slower during a squat than it is during a pedal stroke. You don’t squat at the leg speed of a 90rpm cadence. However, in an indirect sense, the fact that strength training makes you a better-rounded athlete, increases the range of activities you can participate in, and increases your chances of exercising on a more consistent basis, means you can apply a greater training stimulus more frequently than you could otherwise. And that can definitely make you a faster cyclist.

Strength Training for cyclists

In conclusion should cyclist incorporate strength training in to their workout schedule? In my opinion there is no doubt that strength training should be a regular training regime, especially during the off season, Re-addressing postural and muscular issues during the off season and then focusing on building strength is vital if you want to have a good cycling season ahead of you. It really doesn’t matter what type of cyclist you are, whether that be a road racer to sportive rider it really doesn’t matter, what matters is that you are in the best shape at the start of the cycling season. To be the best cyclist you can you need to train wise and train complete.