Cycling: It’s likely that you’d like to be stronger and more powerful, but you’d rather ride your bike than spend hours at the gym. The good news is that if you plan your workouts well, cycling can help you get stronger and build muscle. The bad news is that unless you’re a beginner cyclist, lifting weights a few times a week will usually help you build power more than riding your bike.
Strength training makes you a stronger cyclist by pushing you to use muscle fibers you don’t normally use. This works as long as you use a heavy enough load. We developed in a world with limited energy, so our bodies don’t really want to keep up all of this “expensive” muscle tissue. Pickels says, “If you don’t use that tissue, it’s like leaving an old coat in the back of the closet; your body doesn’t remember to use it.”
But when you lift weights, your body has to use those muscle fibers. This is good for you, and it shows when you’re running to the county line or climbing a steep hill. Choosels says, “The more you have to use that extra muscle tissue, the better your body gets at using it and the more likely it is that it will keep using it.”
Pickels also says that lifting weights can make your muscle cells grow, which makes you stronger.
Building Strength vs. Building Muscle
Before we talk about how cycling can help your muscles, it’s important to know the difference between building muscle and building power. Even though they’re not completely different—in general, if you focus on building muscle, you will get stronger, and if you focus on fat loss, you will lose weight—there are some important differences.
“More often than not, bigger muscles mean we can use more force, but not always.” “For instance, a body builder might look and have more muscle mass than a powerlifter, but that doesn’t mean they are stronger,” says Lally.
If your goal is to get bigger muscles (also called hypertrophy), you should usually lift the biggest weight you can for eight to fifteen reps. If you want to improve your strength, or how much force you can produce, you should focus on doing one to five sets of the biggest weight you can.
If you want to get bigger while working out less (which you probably are if you’re reading this), don’t try to get bigger. That’s the job of body builders. “Building strength is definitely more in line with what you want as an endurance athlete,” says Lally.
How riding a bike can help you get stronger
Hannah Lally, a doctor of physical therapy and strength and conditioning coach, says, “When we move in new ways, our bodies adapt and change, and that makes us stronger.” She says that when you work out your muscles, they break down proteins and then build them back up stronger. According to research, bikers can also experience the same physiological process that makes muscles grow.
You will likely hit a plateau at some point, though. “The body is very good at making things work better.” “We need to add a stimulus once the one we’re using is no longer challenging it,” says Lally. She says that what that stimulus is relies on a lot of things, like how much and how hard you ride now, your training history, and most importantly, your goals.
For some, that new stimulus could be a strength-training practice (more on that later), but for others, it might just be increasing the number of rides and/or the intensity of the rides. Pickels says that people who are new to riding, people aged 50 and up, and clinical groups like stroke patients will gain the most strength from cycling alone. The same is true for getting bigger muscles.
This is because cycling by itself can be enough stress for these groups to cause what is called an anabolic, or “building up,” reaction. Your body’s recovery reaction will bring your muscles back to baseline—and then some (as long as you’re recovering and fueling properly), through a process called supercompensation. This happens if a workout causes enough muscle tension, damage, and metabolic stress to cause a drop in performance.
If you give your body the right signal, it will rebuild muscle tissue that is stronger and bigger than it was before. This means that the next time you do the same workout, you won’t feel as stressed.
The main reason why cycling isn’t the best way to get stronger and build muscle
There are some cycling workouts that will help you get stronger, but most riders will need to switch things up and start weightlifting in order to get the long-term health and performance benefits of having stronger muscles and more muscle mass.
Pickels says that while it is technically possible to build muscle and power just by cycling, it is a very inefficient way to do it. He tells Bicycling, “Putting aside how hard these workouts are, the rate of hypertrophy from cycling and sprint interval training is much slower than traditional strength training. To the point where I don’t think it is a practical way for a trained cyclist to gain more strength,”
Pickels goes on, “The body responds to the activity we do.” You teach your body to use that energy more efficiently every time you ride your bike, which is a sport that relies on type I muscle fibers, which are slow-twitch fibers that give you energy steadily for a long time. Cycling, from long endurance rides to VO2 max cycles and everything in between, improves your body’s ability to use fat and carbs as fuel and creates more mitochondria, which are your cells’ power plants. This makes you stronger and longer-lasting.
She says, “And that’s not what we’re trying to do with strength training.” “Endurance training goes down one path in the body, and strength training goes down a completely different path.”
You use type II muscle fibers, also known as fast-twitch fibers, when you do resistance training. These fibers are responsible for quick, intense efforts. This is true whether you’re trying to get stronger or bigger. “When the load is heavy enough that your body says, ‘I need to get better at this or I might hurt myself,’ your muscles adapt by getting stronger,” says Pickels.
He says that riding wouldn’t help your upper body, your ability to move in different planes, or your bone density even if it were the best way to get stronger. It’s part of our daily lives to move through different patterns on different planes and deal with different forces, she says. And riding is great, but you have to stay in one place and move in the same way over and over again for all of those things to be true.
Lally says that going to the gym two or three times a week is the best way to build the strong bones and muscles we need to step up our game and get stronger in everyday tasks. She says to pay attention to general movement patterns instead of specific body parts. To do that, you should focus on squats, hip hinges, exercises with only one leg, pushing and pulling in both the horizontal and vertical planes, and rotation and anti-rotation exercises.
It also means choosing weights that are very hard. As an endurance athlete, you may find it strange to lift as much as you can safely and correctly for one to five reps, with two to four minutes in between sets. This is how you should improve your fitness.
“A lot of endurance athletes don’t mind lifting a moderately heavy weight for 10 to 12 reps.” But you really need to lift very heavy things. “And you need to get your form right, or you could hurt yourself,” says Lally. You should see a skilled personal trainer, strength coach, or physical therapist a few times to make sure your form is strong.
How to Make Cycling Work Better for Building Muscle
To get the most out of your bike workouts for strength building, focus on short, hard hills and sprints that work your type II muscle fibers.
Pickels says to do some easy riding to warm up before going to “the steepest hill you can find” and doing a set of hill repeats. You’ll go all out for 10 to 15 seconds, aiming for 60 to 80 revolutions per minute (rpm). Then you’ll rest for three to five minutes and do it again three more times, for a total of four all-out efforts.
It may seem silly that the healing time between intervals is so long, but that’s the point. Choosels says, “We want to maximize force, not fatigue.” You can do the next interval with the same level of intensity after giving your body the time it needs to fully heal. This will stress physiological systems that help muscles get stronger. Pickels says that if you don’t, you’ll just put stress on your heart.
Pickels says that the only thing you should be concerned about is your rate of perceived effort (RPE). It should be a 10 out of 10 (all out!). He says that’s because the time between sets is too short for your heart rate to adjust, and if you’re trying to hit a certain power zone, you might not take enough wattage into account.
But no matter how much high-intensity training you do, it won’t help you build muscle if you don’t eat right. That means eating a lot of protein. Pickels says, “If you don’t eat enough protein, your body will break down other structures to get what it needs, which is not good.”
People used to think that endurance athletes didn’t need as much protein as strength-training athletes, but new research shows that endurance athletes should get at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight.
FAQ’s
Q1: What are Type II A muscle Fibres?
Ans: Type IIA fibers are fast-twitch, have a high myosin ATPase activity level (pH 9.4), can use a lot of oxygen and glucose, and don’t get tired easily. Type IIB fibers are fast twitch, have low oxidative and high glycolytic ability, and get tired quickly. They also have high myosin ATPase activity (pH 9.4).
Q2: What is the difference between Type 1 and Type 2B muscle fibers?
Ans: Type 1 and 2A fibers depend on oxidative metabolism the most, while type 2X and 2B fibers depend on glycolytic metabolism the most. However, there is still some variety, and energy use is not a perfect way to tell what type of fiber it is1,3.
Q3 What is anti-rotation exercise?
Ans: Anti-rotation core movements work the muscles that keep the spine from turning. Anti-rotation exercises focus on resisting movement, specifically rotational forces, while regular core exercises require movement.
Q4: What is an example of a rotation exercise?
Ans: Russian twists, medicine ball slams, cable woodchoppers, and rotational push-ups are all examples of rotational workouts. These movements work out a lot of different muscle groups, but they focus on the core muscles, like the obliques, rectus abdominis, and lower back muscles.
Q5: Can squats reduce thigh fat?
Ans: Doing squats is a good way to make your legs stronger. Squats work your core and also work out your hips, quads, hamstrings, and calves, which are all big muscle groups in your legs. So, squats not only help get rid of fat in your thighs, but they also burn a lot of calories and lower your risk of getting hurt.
