Strength Training and Cycling: The pro’s and con’s explained – is it worth the grind?
We’ll start with the con’s.
In order to include strength training sessions within your weekly training schedule, it’s likely that you will have to sacrifice a cycling session or two (dependent on your available time and also training volume).
This is because you need to be able to fit your strength sessions in to your training week at a time when you aren’t coming off the back of a 100km tempo ride or hour of anaerobic efforts.
You want to be somewhat fresh in order to maintain technique and make the most of your time. That doesn’t mean to say that you only have to do one session a day – maybe consider a more intense 50km ride and a quick 40-mintute blast in the gym.
Worried about losing your fitness on the bike? Studies have shown that incorporating 2–3 strength sessions a week provides no detriment to fitness over a 6–8 week period. Training smarter, not harder!
As with any new training, at the beginning you may suffer some muscle soreness because you are using your muscles in a different way to what they are used to. Due to this, it is possible that your cycle training session the following day can be effected because of some soreness.
Usually, this is only for the initial period until you begin to adapt to the new form of training. It’s actually a positive, because it shows that the training is having an effect on your body that will lead to performance, if continued consistently.
Something that I’m often questioned about is the subject of weight gain and how that will impact performance. It’s a fair point because we all know that having a good w/kg output is crucial for many aspects of cycling performance.
There is the possibility of some weight gain – but this is probably going to be a fairly insignificant amount given the total volume being completed and the time spent in what’s known as a catabolic-state when riding for anything longer than an hour. I’ll cover this in more detail in later articles.
On top of these points, there is the obvious outlay of costs. If you plan on training at home, that might mean that you choose to invest in some equipment. It’s definitely possible to begin with no equipment, but at some point you’re going to want to add load as there’s only so many reps and sets of bodyweight someone has the time (or mindset) for.
The alternative is the inclusion of a gym membership within your monthly budget. Improvements can be made with both methods, however there’s likely to be more training options available with a full gym set-up at your disposal.
Within the UK, there’s a number of options for very cost-effective 24-hour gyms that start at £15 a month. Probably one of the cheapest upgrades to your cycling performance you can make… Cheaper than a set of aero carbon handlebars that will ‘definitely’ make you faster ;)
The good news is that there’s methods of programming to reduce or even avoid muscle soreness and excessive weight gain. The benefits of including a strength training programme within your schedule will lead to bigger improvements on the bike than you can achieve with cycling alone.
Let’s look at the pro’s.
Firstly, becoming stronger means that you can exert more force onto the pedals.
There’s lots of reasons why you want to do this. For example:
- Faster sprinting (speed and power output)
- Faster accelerations (time to get to top speed)
- Longer sprint efforts
- Less effort required when climbing
- Increases in average speed (great news for time trials!)
- Increased VO2max capacity
- Improved efficiency (less energy expenditure)
There are others, but these constitute the most tangible. You should also consider strength training for efficiency if you are competing in multiple day cycling races, or want to make the most of a cycling holidays.
To explain this point further, think about your daily available energy like a battery. If you need to use more of the battery in order to keep up with the group, you’ll probably fatigue quicker, or efforts will be shorter. Equally this will take longer to recover from leaving less in the tank for the next climb, a sprint finish, or for the next day’s riding.
By utilising more muscle fibres, you’re able to spread the load over more of your muscles and also reduce your heart rate. Therefore you’ll be using less of the battery and becoming more efficient with your energy usage. This can be completed relatively quickly through strength training, which would take much longer to achieve by cycling alone.
Aside from these points, there’s the other side of the coin that consists of injury prevention and recovery from injury.
I guarantee that a physio worth their salt will incorporate some form of strengthening exercises into their programming. This is because it’s an extremely potent tool that speeds up recovery and gets you back in the saddle.
There’s also the benefits to your ageing muscles and bones. As we age, we lose muscle mass naturally. Research suggests that this can be dramatically reduced from consistent loaded exercise.
Bone health can also be improved. It’s been reported that Grand Tour riders will reduce bone density throughout the season by up to 3% in their lower limbs, hips and lower back due to the lack of impact that you would normally get from walking or running. This can be reversed quite effectively through structured strength training exercise.
These are just some of the benefits that strength training can have. Within subsequent posts, I’ll break down these points and build your knowledge of how to put together your own effective programme that will lead to performance improvements.
For more info, check out cyclingstrengthcoach.me