Did you know that you can go faster on the bike by working out off the bike? Well, it’s no secret that the best riders, amateur as well as professional, integrate Strength and Conditioning into their training programmes. Have a look at what top mountain biker, Nino Schurter, does in the gym in his workout!
Firstly, why do it? While you can get reasonably fit and strong just by riding your bike, you’re missing out on ultimate power and resilience against injury that only S&C can give you. If you’re racing or tackling challenging Gran Fondos then this can be the difference between winning and making up the numbers. Even if you think your goals are more modest, then being as strong, powerful, flexible and agile as you can will mean you’ll enjoy your riding more for many years into the future.
Secondly, doing weight bearing exercise becomes essential from your 40s, to prevent bone loss (osteoporosis) and muscle loss (sarcopenia). Keeping your body as physically young as possible, for as long as possible, vastly improves your outlook for older age.
Thirdly, this sort of cross-training is a great thing to do in the winter as it gives you a break from cycling and fits in with the weather.
Building your S&C programme
There are 5 main types of exercise you can do for Strength and Conditioning:
1. Weight training, lifting or moving heavy weights to increase your muscular strength. You can use your bodyweight, “free-weights” (long or short metal bars with heavy metal plates), or exercise machines.
2. Core functionality, do develop your “core” stabilising muscles, so that you have a strong and stable platform for your movement muscles to get on with pedalling. You can do simple floor exercises as well as use Swiss Balls and wobble boards, so that you’re moving and stabilising yourself at the same time. It’s also a lot harder than it looks!
3. Plyometrics, which means any sudden explosive movement, such as jumping onto a box or starting a running sprint. Building this into your programme massively increases your power, so you’re able to climb better, sprint faster and accelerate quicker on the bike.
4. Mobility, where you increase your range of movement by doing dynamic, movement exercises. For example, lunges to improve your hip flexibility.
5. Flexibility, using static stretching to restore and increase joint range of movement. This is best done after exercise while your muscles are still warm, as part of your cool-down routine.
Discover more with Performance Herts Strength and Conditioning Coaching:
If you’re interested then I recommend to get you started with this book: Weight Training for Cyclists, by Schmitz and Doyle. Please remember all the usual caveats about being sensible and get proper coaching before handling heavy weights. Then enjoy the benefits of being fitter and stronger than ever!
Bonus: Olympic Weight Lifting. This is a very specific type of weight lifting that does only two lifts. However, these combine the strength of weight training with the explosive power of plyometrics and a large dose of joint mobility. The gains you can make from this one discipline are awesome, just please get proper coaching before you start. Here’s an example masterclass.
