Training: Building Strength to Ride Faster

Leg muscle strength is what produces power. Its development is limited by your physical capacities, and it drops very quickly when you are undertrained. There are, however, specific exercises to improve and maintain it, and so gain ease when pedaling.

By Guillaume Judas – Photos: PEdALED / Mavic / Shimano / Maratona dles Dolomites / FUELBELT – DR

Strength is one of the components of the power you produce while pedaling, along with cardiovascular capacity and your pedaling technique (spin). The key to cycling performance is power output. But you should not confuse strength with power. Power results from the force applied to the pedals, combined with the speed at which you turn them, and with overall fitness, the kind that optimizes gas exchange and the release of energy, from the intake of fuel (food) through to its conversion into the substrates needed for muscular work. So you can be powerful while lacking some strength, and have strength while lacking power! Still, gaining strength is always worthwhile in terms of performance or ease, especially when this quality has never been specifically trained.

What Do We Mean by Strength?

The strength of a muscle is its ability to contract intensely so that a joint can overcome resistance, for example to lift or resist a load. While pedaling, several muscles are engaged, together or alternately, which is why strength on a bike applies to the whole movement. It can be assessed by the maximum load you can move under certain conditions, for example climbing a hill in your largest gear. The force developed depends on the number of muscles engaged, muscle mass, the natural distribution of fibers (fast or slow), how the neuromuscular system works, and gestural technique. Muscle size, of course, also influences strength.

You don’t need big muscles to be strong.

But you don’t need big muscles to be strong, because strength can be improved in several ways. Strength is built by working on muscle hypertrophy (increasing fiber size by growing the number of myofibrils), on neural recruitment (when demand is higher, high-potential fibers are called upon), on motor unit synchronization (coordinating contraction signals within the muscle), and finally on coordination among the various muscles involved in the movement.

Strength and Cycling

Cyclists and triathletes have an interest in improving their strength, but not necessarily by building muscle mass, unless they specialize in short, explosive efforts (track sprinters, for example). Strength alone is not enough to move a bike forward, at least not for long. Targeted strength work does, however, have two goals: the ability to start off or accelerate again more efficiently, and preparation for the muscular tension of maximum efforts, which are performed at optimal power (and therefore by combining strength and speed). Many inexperienced or poorly advised cyclists get into the habit of riding a big gear over long distances. This is called “strength work,” but in reality they are not working much at all, apart from neglecting their pedaling cadence. In the end, they tire faster and make no progress in strength, power or efficiency.

It Starts with Fitness

To progress in power, you are limited not only by your muscular strength but also by how well your muscles are oxygenated. Simply by accumulating rides, you improve week after week. So by improving your “engine,” you also improve your reserve of strength. That is natural, because the fitter you are, the less tired you are when you need your muscles to produce force. You can progress passively, simply by riding or running on all types of terrain. But you can also progress actively by targeting the intensity of your rides and working specifically to push back your anaerobic threshold. As a result, you aren’t specifically working on strength, but when you need it, your energy reserves are less depleted and your muscles are fresher. Still, this approach does not let your body tap its full potential.

-> SEE ALSO: The Importance of Endurance

When you detrain, strength is one of the first capacities to be affected. In three weeks, muscle mass drops by 10 to 15% (replaced by fat), and in four weeks, strength falls by nearly 30%! During shorter breaks (a few days), the loss of strength is mainly due to lower neural recruitment, reduced motor unit synchronization and weaker coordination among the muscles. These effects are fortunately very quickly reversible, which is why strength exercises are worth scheduling soon after a short break.

In the Gym

Strength training in the gym is very popular with many cyclists during the off-season. Building strength can be combined with exercises that strengthen or build other parts of the body, such as the torso and arms, but especially the abdominal belt (core). It all pays off in better stability on the bike. For those who first want to gain overall muscle tone, gym strength work is an interesting complementary sport, and the exercises can be approached as an endurance or resistance effort.

But to gain pure strength without adding bulk, you need to work with heavy loads and few repetitions. This type of training is already aimed at experienced athletes, particularly given the risk of tendon strain. Start by assessing the maximum load you can lift in a squat, on the leg press, on the leg curl or the leg extension. This is the maximum weight you can lift in a single movement. Obviously, get help from a qualified coach to avoid injury during this assessment. From this maximum load, you can then design a program with sets of 3 repetitions at 85% of your maximum load, using dynamic movements. The number of sets and the number of muscle groups worked in each session will depend on your level and on your overall training load, cycling included. The advantage is that progress can be very rapid on targeted muscle groups. On the other hand, a real gain in strength then requires maintenance, which is hard to combine with cycling training throughout the season (and even more so in triathlon).

Maximum Strength on the Road

In sprints, in accelerations, to launch or to respond to an attack, you need to produce a lot of power in a short time. The principle of Force Max is to train yourself to develop as much explosive force as possible in a very short time. Developing maximal strength increases the muscle’s ability to work under maximal tension. The power available in a short acceleration or sprint therefore increases, while providing more strength reserve for all the other short efforts you may face during a ride or race. The advantage is the almost playful side of the exercise: because the effort is so short, there is no real muscle pain. Heart rate at the end of the exercise is not significant, and only heavy breathing during recovery reminds you that the body has been pushed to its limits. Recovery of phosphagen (ATP) energy stores is relatively quick, allowing you to recover in 5 to 10 minutes. In practice, on the flat or uphill, do a very short sprint of about 7 seconds, starting in a big gear from a very low speed. Maximum muscle fiber recruitment occurs after 2 to 3 seconds, then declines quickly as the power required is converted into a higher pedaling rate. At the end of this type of session, which might include a 7-second sprint every 5 minutes for 45 to 60 minutes, the feeling of fatigue is mainly due to nervous system stress and can cause a slight dizzy feeling (head spinning). You can work on this maximal force applied to the pedals very early in winter training, and maintain it regularly during the season. On the other hand, since we are talking about gears and not a load to lift, success in this exercise depends on strong mental engagement during the 7 seconds of the sprint. Basically, to progress in Force Max, you need to concentrate and give everything during this short effort.

Submaximal Strength, or “Strength Endurance”

For better performance at high output, what is called strength endurance, or submaximal strength, prepares and increases the muscle’s ability to work under high tension, close to what you will later encounter at the anaerobic threshold or at maximal aerobic power (MAP), and thus gains power at the intensities that matter for performance. The advantage of working at submaximal intensity is that it produces little or no lactic acid, so you can accumulate sessions without immediate losses in efficiency. You can practice on the road (flat with a headwind, or uphill) or on the home trainer with a high level of resistance. The idea is to settle at about 80% of your potential (that is, below your anaerobic threshold), keep your breathing steady and regular, and use a very big gear at 40-50 rpm for 3 to 5 minutes. On the road, you can climb every hill of a ride using this principle, and alternate with spinning phases between the bumps. On the trainer, you can alternate 5 minutes of this exercise with 5 minutes of easy recovery, and so on. Leg burn or soreness may set in gradually. But riding below the lactic acid production threshold only leaves superficial tension. The exercise is not hard to do and can be done fairly early in winter training. The power benefits, however, do not show up right away. This is more about muscular conditioning than real strength development, and with too low a pedaling cadence you can build muscle volume.

-> SEE ALSO: 8 Indoor Trainer Workouts

An Extra Bit of Comfort

“Having strength” on a bike can mean different things, depending on whether you are chasing performance or more ease to get through difficulties. Strength is not only useful for young, motivated racers or for triathletes looking to develop their power. Recreational cyclists can also benefit from having a strength reserve. On a long ride, it is an extra comfort, which means a wider range of responsiveness and therefore a better answer to all the unknowns of the route or the weather you may encounter on a long-distance ride. With age, strength and muscle mass decline. This is one of the reasons performance drops, which is often simply attributed to the passing of time. Yet a well-designed program to maintain this capacity can still keep the fun going for quite a while.

-> SEE ALSO: All our Coaching articles