I Love Bicycling

I Love Bicycling is a website that is geared towards cycling for beginners with road cycling tips, training articles, nutrition tips, weight loss, how to’s and bike repair articles.

Training

How to Correctly Adjust Bike Seat Height (And Why)

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Having a proper bike seat height on your rig is one of the most important parts of your bike fit overall. You risk discomfort, pain and the eventual likelihood of injury if you decide to overlook it, and may even attribute such problems to other facets of your training and lifestyle; missing the source of them altogether.

A number of factors are going to be at play including your specific upper/lower limb proportions, the mobility of your tissues, and your functional operating output in general. It might sound like a bunch of fancy nonsense, but it really all just boils down to the unique composite and capacity of your human body.

man adjusting bike seat height

levgen Skrypko/Adobe Stock

Here is what’s going to happen, we’re going to give you some simple tips and guidelines to adjust your bike seat height the correct way. Then, we’re going to hash out the problems that come with adjusting your saddle improperly. This will, for some of you (we hope), provide answers to pains that have been recurrent or chronic throughout your cycling career.

Arming yourself with the knowledge to address problems when they arise allows you to confidently push yourself in your training and competitions. Ride long enough and you’ll get hurt, you’ll feel pain, that’s just the way it is. Better to know where you can start looking, and be self-sufficient in your recovery, than to pedal away in ignorance and be at the mercy of countless practitioners because you have nowhere else to turn.

Proper Bike Seat Height

There are a couple of handy indicators that you can easily test and look for to tell if your saddle is the right height for your body. These signs should be looked for with a partner while you’re sitting on the bike while it (the bike) is in an upright position, using a support (such as a wall) to anchor yourself, and squeezing the front brakes to remain stationary.

Slight Knee Bend 

When you’re at the bottom of your pedal stroke (6 o’clock position) there should be a slight bend in the knee, approximately 25°-30° for most people. Any more, and you’re going to place excessive loads on the anterior part of the knee. Any less, and you’ll start to overextend the leg and heighten the injury risk to the back of the knee and hip extensor muscles.

1-2 cm Heel Drop

Again, at the 6 o’clock position, but this time with your knee locked out, your heel should drop 1-2 cm below the pedal. If you can’t fully straighten your leg, you’ll have to raise the seat. If you lock out your leg but are still struggling to reach the pedal, or your heel sits even with/above the pedal, the seat will have to be lowered.

Heel Pedal Test

Put your heels on the pedals and go through a full pedal stroke. If your saddle height is properly adjusted, your knee will lock out when going through the bottom position, and your heels will stay in contact with the pedal. If your knee bends at the bottom, the saddle should be raised, and if your heels lose contact at the bottom, the saddle should be lowered.

These are a few great ways to find your saddle height with the help of a friend or by using your phone to record yourself riding. More comprehensive methods are available, but these are by far the most economical. Let’s take a look at what can happen if saddle height is ignored or just improperly aligned, and the effect it can have on a person’s body.


Ljupko Smokovski/Adobe Stock

Improper Bike Seat Height

Having your saddle too low or too high is going to place excessive loads on different parts of your body. One of the reasons a bike fit is so important is because the bike is not a natural mechanism in and of itself. It’s man-made, but we are not bike-made. These are odd positions for us to be in in the first place, so doing it in the most optimal and efficient way is important due to the prolonged and repetitive nature of our sport.

Saddle Too Low

Knee pain is one of the most common problems amongst cyclists, and having a saddle that’s too low can be a significant contributor to it. When your bike seat height is too low it shortens the range of motion of your knees, and forces you to initiate your pedal stroke from a less than optimal position that places excessive load on your patella (knee cap). This can lead to irritation and pain in the patellar and quadriceps tendons (on, below and above the front of the knee). 

A low saddle will also compress your hips and shorten the rectus femoris and psoas muscles which make up the majority of your hip flexors. This leads to chronic tightness and fatigue and can actually pull your pelvis forward into what’s called anterior pelvic tilt, often a key player in the low back pain commonly experienced by cyclists. 

The structures on your lower leg are also going to suffer significantly from a lower than optimal bike seat. Because your knee won’t be able to extend properly, the body will naturally look for more room in the ankle joint. At the bottom of your pedal stroke, the ankle will remain in an excessively dorsiflexed (toes pulled up towards the shin) position. This shortens a large muscle on the front of your shin called the tibialis anterior, and can lead to the shin pain often described as “shin splints”.

Your upper body can also be compromised, because having a seat that is too low or too far back will have you reaching inefficiently for the handlebars. The body will resort to rounding the back and shoulders to optimally balance its weight over the bike, and can be a wonderful recipe for a weak, painful back, tight chest, inefficient breathing patterns and terrible posture.

Saddle Too High

While having the saddle too low can really affect the front of your knee, having it too high can injure the back just as well. If you’re reaching for the pedals and then weight bearing with a completely locked out or even hyperextended knee, you’re putting a huge load on the internal ligaments of the knee, particularly the ACL and PCL. The hamstring tendons and upper part of the calf can also be overstretched and affected by these locked out and loaded positions.

The hips will tend to rock back and forth if your saddle height is too high, and is a common sign to look out for. The reason being is because you will rotate, tilt and sway the pelvis to try and reach the pedal on every stroke. This can contribute to lower back pain and hip pain in any cyclist who doesn’t address it promptly.

Because you won’t be able to optimally generate power through your upper leg with a high saddle, the lower leg may try to compensate, which will result in fatigue and overuse of the gastrocnemius (calf), soleus (deeper calf muscle) and tibialis anterior (shin muscle). The achilles tendon will take the brunt of all these contractions, and can eventually develop its own tendinopathy.

Having the saddle too high might also make you lean forward more than you should be while riding. This can place excessive stress on the handlebars, and lead to things like “cyclist’s palsy” (ulnar nerve compression, weakness/numbness in the outer part of the hand). This position also shortens the hip flexors, and increases the likelihood of anterior pelvic tilt which can lead to back pain.


Beaunitta Van Wyk/Adobe Stock

Bike Fit At Home

MyVeloFit is a revolutionary new app that combines the powers of computer vision and artificial intelligence to help you do your very own bike fitting at home in a matter of minutes. Whether you’re an individual or a business that specializes in bike fitting, they have a subscription model that works for you. Everything from free to a fraction of the cost of an in-person fitting! Check them out today to start feeling better on your rides!

The Reasons Behind Your Cycling Knee Pain

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The two main areas that cause cyclists the most headache are the lower back and the knee. Ride long enough and you are almost guaranteed to experience some sort of pain, discomfort or injury in one or both of these parts of the body. Today we are going to focus on the knee, why cycling knee pain occurs, and what we can do to prevent it from happening.

Man with cycling knee pain

Halfpoint/Adobe Stock

When a particular sensation is prevalent amongst athletes participating in the same sport, it can be tempting to throw the baby out with the bath water and think that the sport itself is the problem. Take running for example. A large percentage of the population believes running is bad for the human body, when in fact the evidence supports an entirely opposite hypothesis, that human beings are actually the best and most efficient runners in the animal kingdom. 

Cycling also carries some of these stereotypes. 

Because so many cyclists have knee problems, the conclusion must be that cycling is bad for your knees – right? We don’t think so. In our view, the fact that it’s a commonly experienced problem simply means that most people’s knees are not prepared to do the work that they’re doing on the bike, and/or perhaps are doing that work improperly.

Just like running, everybody thinks riding a bike is just riding a bike. Something you learned when you were a kid and kept with you for the rest of your life. How could you mess it up? But they fail to consider the differences between these two time periods. The truth is cycling as an adult is far different from riding your bike as a kid, and our bodies are quick to remind us of that through the telltale signs of pain and injury.

Let us consider these differences, and take into account everyone from beginners to professionals, by analyzing some of the causes of knee pain from cycling.

Increasing Volume Too Quickly

A classic mistake of anybody entering into a sport or trying to regain their fitness after injury is doing too much too soon. It doesn’t help that many people are recommended or even prescribed cycling as an activity that is low impact that they can do despite their lack of overall strength, health and wellness (this is the case for several elderly people, for example). 

Our sport is indeed a great way for people to get their health in check, but that doesn’t mean its unique demands on the body can be disregarded and instantly capitalized upon. You have to earn a healthy body, and the price is not small. Going from zero to 50 miles a week on your new road rig is an approach that is going to humble you very quickly.

The knees are uniquely positioned to cause you agony in this scenario. Because of the tremendous forces produced by our quadriceps (front thigh muscles) while pedaling, and our position on the bike in general, the knee joint is susceptible to the bulk of those loads being constantly transferred across it. If it has not had the time to slowly adapt to such loads, you could be in for a painful awakening. 

Cyclist’s knee is a broad term used for conditions such as patellofemoral pain syndrome, patellar compression syndrome, patellar tendinitis, and a host of other names that are describing pain on the front of the knee, just below or above the kneecap, and even inside the knee joint itself. Often increasing with use and subsiding with rest. 

It is outside the scope of this article to go into each of these with detail, but it should be noted that they can all be exacerbated by an unprepared knee that the athlete is asking too much of in their training. Like any sport, jumping on the bike is going to have you using your muscles in new ways you’re not used to. You have to give the body time to adapt to these new demands, by slowly and thoughtfully increasing training volume when it is ready to do so.

knee anatomy

Axel Kock/Adobe Stock

Weak Hips

A sport can be looked at as a more advanced level of physical activity, just like going to university is a more advanced level of education. To get into university, there are prerequisites; the attainment of certain grades or passing of certain exams, for example. In sports, there are also prerequisites, we just don’t usually consider them before participating. 

One of these prerequisites for a new or current cyclist should be having strong hips. Having strong hips not only stabilizes the pelvis and contributes greatly to the overall function of the body, it also helps keep the knees in good alignment. Strong hips are not going to develop on the bike, however, adding to the importance of this particular tip.

Hip abduction (moving the leg away from the midline) and hip extension (moving the leg behind you) are severely limited when cycling. The saddle immobilizes the pelvis, and the degree to which your hips flex and extend is nowhere near their full range of motion. This, played out over a long enough period of time, is likely to get us hurt.

When doing a squat, for example, one of the functions of your glute (butt) muscles is to keep your knees from collapsing inward. In fact, a common cue when having someone squat is telling them, “push your knees out”, this activates the gluteals and helps you maintain balance and activation in the hips when squatting. If you see a person’s knees falling inwards during a light-moderate intensity squat, they likely have weakness in their hips.

Why does this matter for cyclists? If you have weak hips, your knee is likely collapsing inward while you pedal. This is a problem, because you are going to further exacerbate this imbalance the more you ride your bike, and this can lead to your muscles developing improperly, pulling structures like your patella (kneecap) out of alignment. 

Supplementing your time on the bike with a balanced strength and conditioning program is going to help ensure that you maintain balance throughout your body, and reduce the chances of your cycling causing knee pain down the line.


Rido/Adobe Stock

Saddle Height

Your bike fit can have a tremendous amount of influence over how your body feels and functions while riding. The saddle height in particular can be a culprit when it comes to cycling knee pain, because the loads on, and angles of, your knee are going to be different depending on where your seat is positioned. 

Having a seat that is too low is going to be the most detrimental when it comes to developing pain in the front, sides and inside the knee. This is because it’s going to keep your knee in a more bent position throughout the whole pedal stroke, and you’re going to be pushing from a mechanically disadvantaged position that puts huge force right through the knee joint. This also leads to quicker fatigue and overall breakdown of form in the athlete.

Having your seat too high isn’t good either, however, because now you’re going to be at risk of hyperextending the leg, and putting excessive strain on the internal ligaments of the knee (ACL/PCL) as well as the hamstring tendons and calf musculature in the back of your leg. The lower leg will also take more load than necessary, putting tissues like the achilles tendon at risk of developing further problems.

A correct saddle height will leave you with a slightly bent knee at the 6 o’clock pedal position. If you straighten your leg in this position your heel would drop 1-2 cm below the pedal. This position keeps the knee stable, and allows enough extension to properly utilize the force of the quadriceps, hamstrings and lower leg, but not too much to overextend and strain the ligaments of the knee.

Knee Rehab Program for Cyclists

Looking for a program that will help you address the muscle imbalance that is likely causing your knee pain? Dynamic Cyclist is an online training platform designed to help cyclists become stronger and faster while riding pain free for years to come. Complete your regimen with an all-inclusive program that addresses mobility, flexibility, strength and injury prevention, all for a fraction of the cost of one physiotherapy appointment. Try out their 6 Week Functional Rehab Program and experience the results for yourself. Click here to try 7 days free!

How to Eradicate Shin Splints in Cyclists

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“Shin Splints” is a term often used to describe any sort of pain that runs along the lateral part of the shin bone. It usually starts to occur after prolonged activity and/or training in sports that involve a lot of impact, running or other repetitive movements. Shin splints and cycling have an interesting relationship, because cyclists experience very different forces through the lower leg as opposed to someone like a runner. 

Even more interesting, the two sports often overlap, with participants cross training in each for triathlons or the complementary health benefits in general. This leaves the often undertrained area of the shin vulnerable to excessive impacts and contractions it might not necessarily be prepared for.

woman with a shin splint

lzf/Adobe Stock

What Causes Shin Splints?

If we think about shin splints as pain along either side of the shin bone, it begs the question…

“What is causing the pain?” 

The answer is, it could be a number of things. 

While many people think this pain is primarily caused by tiny stress fractures in the shin bone (tibia) itself, this is actually unlikely, especially for cyclists, because the impact on your lower leg while riding is very minimal. There are several other lines of defense if you will that tend to be the culprits in a condition like this that develops over time. 

Your body uses pain to alert you to a problem that needs addressing, and the muscles of the lower leg are likely to be causing these problems far before the integrity of your shin bone is compromised.

Lower Leg Muscles & Shin Pain While Cycling

When people train the lower leg (and this includes cyclists), they often focus only on the back of it, where your calf muscles are located. Your calf muscles are responsible for plantar flexion, i.e. pointing the toes down. You use these muscles repeatedly while cycling, every time you press down on the pedal (particularly near the end of your downward stroke).

The front of your lower leg also has a huge muscle which performs the opposite function, dorsiflexion, i.e. lifting the toes up. This muscle is called your tibialis anterior, and it runs from just below your knee joint all the way down your shin before actually wrapping underneath the arch of your foot. All that to say, it has significant influence over a number of areas in your body.

tibialis anterior

maya2008/Adobe Stock

As you can see from the image above, dysfunction in the tibialis anterior might cause pain at the knee, at the ankle/foot and anywhere in between. It’s a muscle that can get incredibly overworked in our day to day lives and activities of all kinds, including cycling. Because of its function to lift up the foot, we are constantly using it unknowingly while walking, running and even pedaling.

Everytime you swing your back leg forward while walking or running, your tibialis anterior is the muscle that lifts the foot to avoid it from hitting the ground. Everytime you press through the first half of the downstroke and start to transition to the upstroke, the tibialis anterior becomes engaged (especially if you’re wearing cycling shoes or are strapped into a stationary bike).

The countless times that the tibialis anterior will contract leaves it open to overuse and irritation if it’s not prepared for that kind of exertion. As previously mentioned, because of our neglect for this part of the lower leg, this often seems to be the case in individuals who develop shin pain while cycling. 

Another function of this muscle is to help us decelerate when walking, landing from a jump or running. It absorbs a huge percentage of our impact and helps us to slow down, change direction and also to keep us from overextending in the direction of inertia. This is one of the key reasons why runners develop pain in their shins, and could be a factor in cyclists who experience shin pain and also cross train with running.

How Do I Prevent Shin Pain While Cycling?

There are two things that commonly need to happen in any athlete who is experiencing shin pain. One is to stretch and mobilize the area so it can relax and better receive blood flow and nutrients. And two is to strengthen it to the point where it can handle the forces you’re asking it to absorb so you can continue your sport without irritation and injury. 

Stretch

Here is a simple ankle/shin stretch from one of our daily stretching and mobility routines available at Dynamic Cyclist. This routine focuses on the calf and ankle. We have hundreds of routines available like this for every area of the body to address mobility, strength and injury prevention for all levels of cyclists.

Strengthen

An easy way to strengthen your tibialis anterior muscles is by performing an exercise called Tibialis Raises. It involves leaning flat against a wall with your heels slightly away from the wall (the farther from the wall the harder this will be). While keeping your legs locked straight, lift your toes up as high as you can, slowly lower, and repeat. 

Performing high repetitions of this exercise (20-25 rep sets) will train your shin muscles to work under load, and will strengthen them up to be able to better handle the repetitive nature of pedaling and any other exercise/activity you might involve yourself in.

Do You Want to Become a Better Cyclist?

Dynamic Cyclist offers comprehensive, all-inclusive, balanced programming designed specifically for cyclists. Our mission for ourselves and everyone in our community is to ride pain free, and we do that by addressing strength imbalances and mobility restrictions that hinder cycling performance in a systematic and well thought out way. 

If you’ve ever wanted to take the guesswork out of your training and be part of something professional and easy to follow, try signing up with us for FREE with a 7-day trial that you can find here! 

The Best Way to Avoid Cycling Injuries

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“How can you prevent injury while cycling?”

It’s one of the first questions you should be asking as a cyclist. We all want to get faster, stronger and better on the bike, and while there’s definitely tried and true methods to attaining those things, there’s also a guaranteed way to prevent them from happening: Getting injured.

injury while cycling

Being sidelined from the saddle is a cyclist’s worst nightmare. We all know the exercise-induced-junkie-type behaviour that is all too common in ourselves and our fellow riders. We love to ride and we love to ride often. Being “injured” is almost a misnomer for many members of the cycling community, and we’re all too inclined to take a position of out of sight, out of mind. 

But that can only go on for so long. Anybody who has been riding for a while knows that the aches turn into pains if you give them enough time, and because of the repetitive nature of our sport, cycling injuries in general tend to stick around longer than others. 

This calls for action, a plan, something to have in place and fall back on. It’s not a pill, it’s not a tool, and it’s not a quick fix. It’s more of a philosophy, a necessary component. Something you need to build yourself and your cycling practice around. Something that will help you keep your status not just as a cyclist, but as an overall strong, healthy human being. 

One of the best ways to avoid cycling injuries is by implementing a strength, mobility and conditioning program into your training. 

Common Cycling Injuries

Think about it, apart from falls and collisions (which, admittedly, make up a large percentage of cycling injuries), how do we get injured in our sport? There are no rapid changes of direction that blow out our ACL’s. No violent kicks, throws or punches to tear a hip or shoulder. No lifting of heavy loads to herniate a disc…it’s just different from other sports. 

There is one word, though, that could characterize the plight of the average cyclist…

That word, is overuse.

Overuse injuries are the bane of your existence if you are an avid bike rider of any kind. The bike keeps you in a more or less fixed position while riding, which is something the body can adapt to, but only so much. There comes a time where you cross the point of adaptation and creep into the realms of imbalance; a place where lurking, recurring injuries love to dwell. 

Knee pain, neck pain, lower back pain, groin pain, hamstring tightness, headaches, shortness of breath and so much more can all be the result of overworked muscles. Not necessarily just in the area of pain, but somewhere in the chain of the human body’s unbelievably complex web of connectedness.

How do we restore function? How do we get rid of pain? How do we find balance? It is something we have to achieve in our time spent off the bike. 

Strength Training for Cyclists

prevent injury while cycling with strength training

fizkes/Adobe Stock

Exposing your body to exercises that work opposing muscles from the ones you use while cycling are going to help pull joints back into alignment and strengthen the tissues that get neglected through our sport. It is common for cyclists to think that any time off the bike is wasted time, but going back to the beginning of this article, if you end up injured, you might not be spending any time on the bike at all.

Some people fear the idea of strength training because they don’t want to get too bulky, and are afraid it will actually hinder their performance on the bike. Nothing could be further from the truth. Several studies have shown that in both men and women, one of the best things you can do to increase cycling performance is to increase the cross sectional area (size) of your muscles. 

Remember this as well, building muscle is a slow and tedious process. It requires weeks, months and years of consistent week-in-week-out effort. So the idea that you’ll wake up one day and be too bulky to ride efficiently is a myth you should be all too willing to dispose of.

What Should My Program Consist Of? 

Dedicating time to bringing harmony back into your body is the only way to counter everything we put ourselves through on the bike. A strength training program isn’t all about lifting heavy weights, there are several other components as well to ensure it remains balanced and complimentary to your body and the sport of cycling. 

We can not only increase our strength, but our endurance as well. The higher our fitness level the less likely it is that our form will break down while riding, which can lead to our muscles being used improperly and adding significant stress to our joints.

We can also work on our mobility and flexibility to help keep tissues supple and vascular. Too much cycling activity can really start to limit our ranges of motion due to its relatively minimal amount of movement. The pedal stroke doesn’t take our hip or knee through a full range, and the rest of our body doesn’t move that much at all. Resultant stiffness can lead to constriction, which means less blood flow and nutrients delivered to the area, and an increased risk of injury.

How Do I Start? 

Starting to exercise off the bike can be the most intimidating part of the process. We’re taking you away from what’s familiar and plunging you into a whole other world that applies to not just cycling, but every other sport and activity that there is. Sometimes the best thing to do is hire a professional, but coaching costs can be discouraging. That’s why we decided to come up with something better…

Dynamic Cyclist is our partnered training platform designed by cyclists, for cyclists. We’ve integrated mobility, conditioning and strength training into one, easy to use, 100% online user interface that our members can use 24/7 to fit their schedules. There’s no need for a gym membership, because all of our routines can be done at home with little to no equipment!

Everything has been prepared for you with high quality instructional videos led by world class coaches. All you need to do is press play and follow along!
For a fraction of the cost of a single physio appointment or personal trainer session, you can become part of our community of cyclists who want to ride pain free and be the best version of themselves on and off the bike. Try it for yourself by signing up for our 7-day free trial!

9 Tips on How to Build Your Own Cycling Training Plan

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Whether you just bought your first rig or are an experienced road racer, a cycling training plan is going to be (or become) that friend who always tells you the truth, no matter how ugly that truth is. Saying you want to do something (increase your fitness, be a better cyclist, lose weight, etc.) is something entirely different from actually seeing your progress written down on a piece of paper. 

Perhaps that’s why most people never do it.

It can be both heartbreaking and encouraging to look down at a planned workout or multiple week program, and then to see how you’ve been succeeding (or failing) throughout it. There’s no sense lying to ourselves, though. It’s better to see it in front of you than live in the delusion of doing better than you actually are. 

This is one of the most important reasons to have a cycling training plan. It keeps you on track, makes you responsible for something and holds you accountable. While all that sounds great, actually building a training plan can be another monster all on its own. There are a lot of variables and areas of focus that you need to consider, all depending on your experience and current state of fitness.

Today we’re going to give you three tips and/or things to focus on whether you’re a beginner, intermediate or advanced cyclist. These ideas can be combined with any current training program you’re working through or currently building, and can be used for reference whenever taking consultation from a coach, training template or fellow rider.

Beginner


Source: jul14ka/Adobe Stock

Beginner cyclists can vary to a wide degree. You could have zero experience on the bike, or, be a once avid cyclist who hasn’t rode in a long time. This is the only stage out of the three that has a sliding scale, especially due to the cardiovascular fitness and muscular endurance required for our sport. But whether you’re fresh to the bike or revisiting it after a prolonged absence, the beginner cycling training plan principles will remain the same. 

1. Build Consistency

Getting used to regular riding is something your body needs time to adapt to. The pressure from the saddle, the energy requirements, the time allotment…all these things add up, and they’re just a few of the components required to build on more advanced levels of cycling. So focus on getting on the bike often, at least 3-4 times a week.

2. Try Different Intensities

This can be explored in a number of ways, one of the most freeing and encouraging for someone new to the sport would be to try different routes and terrains wherever it is you live. This will present a number of challenges depending on how many hills there are, the contours of the ground, etc. Start learning where your boundaries are in terms of pushing yourself.

3. Increase General Strength & Conditioning

In many ways, as a beginner, you are most susceptible to injury. You’re going to be asking your body to do a lot of things it’s not used to. This is why it’s important to carve out some time in your training schedule to develop overall strength and conditioning. It will help balance you on and off the bike and prevent injury long term.

Intermediate

Intermediate cycling training plans typically include training for races around the five hour mark.

Source: Friends Stock/Adobe Stock

If you’ve built up the discipline and capacity to put in six to eight hours/week, and have been doing so consistently for at least six months, you might be able to call yourself an intermediate cyclist. People in this range are typically training for races around the five hour mark, and will aim to put in around eight to 10 hours/week of training.

1. Learn to Use Fat as Fuel

Don’t really, this isn’t really a conscious thing, but more of an experiential one. When people talk about “hitting the wall” in long duration aerobic exercise, the sudden halt in energy is often the point at which their body is switching from carbohydrates to fat as the primary fuel source. It’s a jarring feeling, one that takes getting used to. Longer rides will help you adapt to this.

2. Develop Your Muscles

The intensity and length of road races favours your slow-twitch muscle fibers. These are highly oxygenated muscle fibers that are capable of producing low amounts of force over long periods of time, which is exactly what needs to be done on the bike. They are workhorses, and can only be developed through sustained, long duration, consistent time riding.

3. Improve Your Cycling Economy

Your economy on the bike refers to the amount of oxygen required to move your body at a given speed or power output. As you build up higher training volumes, the capillarization of your muscles increases, you produce more mitochondria and your aerobic fitness goes up. All contributors to how well you will use your oxygen intake while riding.

Advanced

Advanced cyclists have completed several races and are used to putting in a lot of volume on the bike.

Source: Charte Photography/Adobe Stock

Advanced riders have been training for a bare minimum of one year. They’ve completed several races and are used to putting in a lot of volume on the bike. Because of the adaptive changes their body has made in terms of fitness and resilience, they’re able to push their bodies much harder than a beginner. This opens up new possibilities for training, especially at higher intensities.

1. Develop Your Anaerobic Threshold

Anaerobic threshold is the highest exercise intensity you can sustain before lactic acid starts to quickly build up in the blood. In other words, your submaximal effort. A place that tilts on the edge of serious discomfort. To become a serious competitor in cycling, you need to become very comfortable with that discomfort, because you’ll be spending a large portion of your races there.

2. Changes in Intensity

Advanced riders are more free to play with interval training, and expose their bodies to large scale changes in intensity over short periods of time. This can help mimic race conditions when going over varying terrain, hill climbs, attacking for and defending position. Your body should be built up by this point to where you can throw anything at it without worrying about injury.

3. Improve Your VO2 Max

Cyclists have some of the highest VO2 max scores ever recorded. It refers to the maximum amount of oxygen you’re able to utilize during intense exercise. The combination of aerobic base training (long duration, low intensity) and maximum effort training (short duration, high intensity) is key. This should become a prime goal in the last phase of training before a race.

Ready to Ride Pain Free?

Our partner Dynamic Cyclist is a world class training resource for cyclists worldwide. They have a comprehensive library of follow along instructional videos with routines for stretching, mobility, strength and injury prevention. We invite you to join the community and try their programming in a FREE 7-day trial that can be accessed here.

What Muscles Does Cycling Work?

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It can be hard to discern just through sensation what muscles we actually used during a ride, and you might find yourself wondering what was really accomplished in terms of muscular activity. What muscles does cycling work? Some people say their lungs are working, but the lungs aren’t a muscle. It’s obvious our legs are working, but the leg is a big thing with many parts. Which of them are doing what? How? And at what time when we’re on the bike? 

The science of cycling is unique in several ways because our sport is quite different than most. There’s those sports where you operate on your own two feet, and others (like cycling, rowing and kayaking) that support and move you in a seated position.

Today we want to tell you, and give you a brief overview of the different muscles you use while cycling. Some are far bigger contributors to your cycling performance than others, and some are just completely misunderstood. So let’s start with busting a major myth right off the bat. The idea that cycling builds big glutes.

Source: Rattanasak/Adobe Stock

Glutes

Unfortunately, it does not. Not to any great degree anyways. If you’re cycling to lift things up, make them more round and so on – you’re going to be quite disappointed. That is unless you’re coming from a place of very low fitness and activity (i.e. cycling is your first real form of exercise), in which case you will likely notice a difference, but only the same difference you would notice if starting any form of exercise.

If you’re relatively fit with a healthy body composition, the sport of cycling just doesn’t stimulate the gluteus maximus (your butt) enough for any real development. The gluteus maximus is the body’s primary hip extensor, it’s strong and big, and responds to intense, powerful hip extension like you see in a person sprinting or coming out of the bottom of a full depth squat.

The reason cycling negates its use is due to the range of motion your hip goes through while on the bike. If the hip doesn’t go past a certain degree of flexion, your body will not use the gluteus maximus to extend it. It’s too expensive, and the body is an energy conservation machine. It will instead resort to your secondary hip extensors, which are the hamstrings.

Electromyography analysis of the lower extremity during pedaling. What muscles does cycling work

Source: Electromyographic Analysis of the Lower Extremity during Pedaling

Hamstrings

The graph above details this situation perfectly. This study placed individuals on a bicycle ergometer and had them pedal against changes in workload, pedal rates and other variables in seated and standing positions. The graph shows measures in electrical activity of different muscle groups throughout the test. Notice the difference between gluteus maximus and biceps femoris (your outer hamstring).

Your hamstrings have a primary function of flexing the knee, and a secondary function of extending the hip. When circumstances ask for hip extension, but the intensity requirement of that extension is low, your body resorts to a principle called synergistic dominance. This principle states that when a prime mover is inhibited (gluteus maximus), your body will use secondary movers (biceps femoris) to save energy and properly perform the function.

Conclusively, the hamstrings are far more responsible for hip extension while cycling than the glutes. On every downstroke your hamstrings are working to extend the hip down. Further, they also use their knee flexing function to start the upstroke. All of this work presents itself in the hamstring stiffness often seen globally among cyclists.

Woman holding a bridge pose

Source: fizkes/Adobe Stock

Quadriceps

Let’s move on to the real workhorse muscles used while cycling, the quadriceps. Particularly the rectus femoris, also seen in the electromyography graph above. There is extreme and vigorous activity of the quadriceps on every pedal downstroke you perform. That’s because the range of the movement and your ability to produce force is operated primarily via your ability to extend the knee, which is, you guessed it, the main function of your quads.

Particularly when standing on the bike you are going to get more of a pump in your thighs due to the fact that you’re contracting them with the addition of a huge percentage of your bodyweight that would otherwise be supported by the saddle. The quadriceps are big, powerful muscles and that burning feeling you get climbing a hill or doing a sprint is because of the lactic acid that gets accumulated as a result of all their contractions.

Knee pain, IT band tightness and even hamstring injuries can be the result of overworked, stiff quadriceps muscles. Using foam rolling, mobility and stretching exercises to help release some of the tension they’re liable to hold on a cyclist can do a lot to increase blood flow and allow other muscles to do their jobs properly while riding. 

Lower Leg Muscles

The all too forgotten muscles of the lower leg serve important roles while cycling. If they’re thought of at all we tend to only focus on the back of the lower leg, your gastrocnemius and soleus (calf muscles). These muscles work to flex the foot or point the toes down, which is a huge part of transitioning through the bottom of your pedal stroke.

It may surprise you to learn that there is also a whole other side to your lower leg! The tibialis anterior is a large muscle that runs along the front outer part of your shin with its tendons actually wrapping down into the arch of your foot. It’s responsible for picking your foot off the ground and lifting your toes. Which happens every time you transition to the upstroke and is accentuated drastically through the use of cycling shoes.

Cyclists with achilles tendon problems, knee issues and foot pain often have dysfunction somewhere in the lower leg muscles as well. We can mitigate a lot of those problems, however, by ensuring our lower legs are strong, supple and getting some focused attention in our training programs. 

A group of cyclists lower body pedaling

Source: pavel1964/Adobe Stock

Hip Flexors

Especially if you’re wearing cycling shoes, the hip flexors (primarily the psoas muscle) can help produce a more powerful upstroke while pedaling. Their function is in the name, hip flexion, but that’s not all they do. Because of their attachment to all five lumbar vertebrae, they are major stabilizers of the lower back.

Low back pain is one of the most common complaints amongst cyclists at all ages and skill levels. A good chunk of that responsibility has to fall on your poor psoas muscle, which can really get crushed if you’re putting in long hours on the bike. This is because the hip is always in a semi-flexed position, which for the psoas means a semi-shortened position.

If you constantly put a muscle in a shortened position you’re basically teaching it to stay there, and by chronically shortening a muscle it will eventually start to lose sarcomeres (base units of muscle), becoming permanently shorter. We want to avoid this at all costs, and implement stretching and mobility measures to return the psoas to its normal range.

Strengthen the Muscles Used in Biking

Our partner, Dynamic Cyclist, has intelligently designed programs to address all the stiffness, injury and common muscle weaknesses seen in cyclists! They have hundreds of follow along video routines that have been organized into balanced training programs for you to try, all for a low monthly cost! See for yourself by signing up for a 7-day free trial!

This Breathing Technique Will Make You A Better Cyclist

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If you take the time to learn how to breathe properly while cycling, your performance could go from zero to hero in just a few short sessions. We don’t think about breathing technique because our bodies are designed to try and keep breathing no matter what, and this can lead us down a road of dysfunction we never even knew we were traveling on.

People think that in order to increase your lung capacity for cycling you just need to push yourself harder, faster and longer on the bike. More hills, more sprints and never-ending rides. Sure – this will increase your fitness, but the thing stopping you from reaching optimal lung capacity on the bike could be the way you breathe in and of itself…

Today we’re going to tell you about THE breathing problem to fix if you want to become a better cyclist, and how it will serve you in ways not just on the bike – but in every other part of your life. Breathing is obviously essential, and learning how to do it better is never a waste of time. So strap in, take a deep breath and keep reading!

breathing for cycling

Source: John R. Perry/Pixabay

Am I Breathing Properly?

“Should I breathe through my nose or my mouth while cycling?”

“How many pedal strokes should I inhale and how many should I exhale?”

“Are intervals the best way to increase my lung capacity on the bike?”

These are all fine questions to ask, but will be a complete waste of time trying to answer if you’re not taking in air properly in the first place. Unfortunately, this is not only the case for most cyclists, but for most people in general. This results in poor performance, high stress levels and even mental health problems like anxiety.

Because of our modern lifestyles of sitting on couches, working at desks and driving in cars, the majority of the population has developed what is called a faulty breathing pattern. This simply means that the manner in which they breathe is not optimal for the way their body is designed to function. This most commonly represents itself in the form of chest breathing.

Chest Breathing

When someone is a “chest breather”, you’ll see their chest and shoulders rise when they inhale. There won’t be any belly movement, and in some cases you can even see the belly go in (called an inverted breathing pattern). Somebody who breathes this way is constantly sending a stress signal to their nervous system, because they are forever only getting submaximal oxygen intake.

Someone who only breathes through their chest can only take in about ⅓ the amount of oxygen their body is capable of inhaling on a given breath. Throughout history, limited oxygen would have been the result of having some sort of stress to respond to – this is partly responsible for the evolution of our “fight or flight” response, but we shouldn’t be in this state all the time.

This is exactly the state perpetual chest breathers put themselves in, and it’s a major contributor to a person’s stress levels and in our specific case, poor cycling performance. Not only that, this pattern of breathing overworks muscles in our neck (scalenes) and rib cage (intercostals). People who have chronic neck and chest tightness almost always have a faulty breathing pattern.

How To Breathe While Cycling

You may have determined by now that you are in fact one of those aforementioned chest breathers, but not to worry! Even though this has by now become a very ingrained and practiced breathing pattern in your body (like, over 20,000 times a day kind of practiced), it doesn’t mean we can’t change it through a little focus and concentration.

Breathing for cycling, and good health in general, should be governed by your diaphragm. The diaphragm is a thin, dome shaped muscle that separates your abdomen from your chest cavity, and is the muscle responsible for what is called belly breathing.

breathing for cycling - inspiration vs expiration

Source: Alila Medical Media/Adobe Stock

Belly Breathing

Belly breathing allows you to take in full, deep breaths that keep your nervous system calm, aid in digestion and allow you to perform to your potential during exercise and sport. When you contract the diaphragm, it flattens its dome shape, providing space for the lungs to drop and expand. It also creates a vacuum which pulls air into the lungs (pictured above).

The term belly breathing came about because of the rise and fall of the tummy during the breath cycle. However, contrary to the common cue, “breathe into your belly”, air does not actually enter into the abdomen. Fun fact, the movement comes from your organs being pushed down and out against your abdominal wall. 

Having a fully functioning diaphragm while riding is going to send your cycling performance through the roof. Our seated and often hunched over position on the bike can encourage the stiffness and decreased movement in our diaphragm that we see similarly in desk workers and sedentary people, so it may be a conscious effort in the beginning to get things working smoothly.

Breathing Techniques For Cycling

Most important is to start becoming aware of how you breathe, on and off the bike. The more stressed you are, whether that’s by daily life or by exertion while cycling, the more likely you are going to revert to a chest breathing pattern. Increase your awareness throughout the day, and start consciously trying to breathe with your diaphragm as opposed to your chest.

As previously mentioned, chest breathers often have tight, overworked chests, necks and abdomens. Stretching these areas can help them to relax so that the diaphragm, which is a deep, central respiratory muscle, can start to move, work and regain its pliability and overall functionality. Stop sucking in, free your belly and let it rise!

We recommend Dynamic Cyclist to anyone looking for a comprehensive training, performance and injury prevention platform designed specifically for cyclists. Their follow along video routines are led by world class coaches who give you the right cues to breathe properly while exercising, which carries over to the bike and how you perform during rides!

If you’re interested in giving them a try, you can sign up for a 7-day free trial HERE.

How To Get Stronger Legs For Cycling

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When it comes to your muscles, cycling is a predominantly lower extremity exercise. Not including your heart, your legs are pumping harder than anything else in your body. Everything else remains relatively fixed in certain positions for prolonged periods of time, so it only makes sense that our training off the bike pays special attention to leg exercises for cycling.

You might be thinking…shouldn’t a cycling leg workout just consist of…cycling? 

Well, unfortunately our time on the bike will only take us so far in terms of output and overall performance. The fault of which lies in something called the S.A.I.D. principle.

Source: Maksym Protsenko/Adobe Stock

S.A.I.D. Principle

Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands (S.A.I.D.) is a guiding principle in exercise science that the body is always following. What it means is that the body will change only in relation to the demands you are placing upon it… 

For example, if you do push ups, you will get stronger arms and chest muscles. You will also get better at pushups.

If you start running, your ankles will get stronger and you’ll lose weight. You’ll also get better at running. 

If you sit at your desk, your glutes will get weak and your upper back will start rounding forward. You’ll also get better at sitting.

If you ride your bike, you will increase your cardiovascular fitness and tone your legs. You’ll also get better at cycling.

All these things are true…to an extent.

An important component of the S.A.I.D. principle is that the imposed demands have to be adequate enough for the body to make the continual corresponding specific adaptations. In cases where you’re getting weaker (such as the sitting example), this has to be thought about slightly differently. We will focus on getting stronger for the remainder of the article.

If you ride your bike 10 miles (and that is difficult for you), you will see improved fitness and strength adaptations in your body each repeated time you complete that distance. Once you are strong and fit enough to easily do 10 miles however, it is going to take a different or more intense stimulus to see new fitness/strength gains.

Source: Justin/Adobe Stock

How Does This Relate To Cycling?

Time on the bike will only get you so far. There are few ways outside of changing gears and the level of incline your riding that will make pedaling more difficult. It’s near impossible (and honestly, would be a bit strange) to try and replicate the reps and sets of a strength or muscle building focused gym workout whilst on the bike. 

Leg exercises for cycling should focus on building more muscle in the correct tissues, and also increasing their force production capabilities over extended periods of time. Luckily for us, these things can go hand in hand. It’s a matter of choosing the appropriate exercises and performing them in the right order to give us the maximum benefit. 

The S.A.I.D. principle is always at work. So what demands should we place on our bodies to get the adaptations that we want (i.e. faster, stronger, better cycling performance)?

Cyclist Legs Workout

By creating routines with exercises that are both similar and complementary to the positions and muscular contractions we see in cycling, Dynamic Cyclist is a wonderful resource for anyone looking to increase their leg drive on the bike. 

We’ve taken some of the exercises from one of their lower body routines to show just how beneficial the right movement selection can be. Each exercise includes a link to our coach Alisha teaching and demonstrating each movement, as well as a quick explanation about what makes it so powerful for you as a cyclist.

These are just a few exercises from a library filled with hundreds of videos and routines to help you ride pain free and be better on the bike. We hope you enjoy them and consider signing up for a FREE TRIAL with Dynamic Cyclist HERE!

Squat w/Band

Click here to try this exercise with Alisha!

Why It Works

It wouldn’t be a lower body workout without squats. It’s a fundamental movement we’ve been doing since we were kids, and it is one of the best leg exercises for cyclists. The force produced in the power phase of your pedal stroke is produced primarily by your quadriceps (front thigh muscles), and that’s exactly what this exercise focuses on.

By adding the mini band around your legs, it forces you to press your knees outwards throughout the entire movement. This helps to engage your glute (butt) muscles which play an important part in your overall hip health and lower body strength. 

Hamstring Curls

Click here to try this exercise with Alisha!

Why It Works

The hamstrings (particularly the biceps femoris) play a crucial part in cycling because of their dual function, knee flexion and hip extension. Both of these things occur in the transition between your downward and upward stroke, and because of the position of the hip while cycling, the hamstrings end up doing the majority of the extension work (as opposed to the glutes).

This exercise is simple, easy to do and all you need is a mini band. Because of the anatomy of the hamstrings and their crossing of the knee joint, they are an important stabilizer of the knee and contribute to its overall health. Many people experience knee pain while cycling because of an imbalance between the quadriceps and the hamstrings, this exercise helps correct that.

Tick Tocks

Click here to try this exercise with Alisha!

Why It Works

In a way, cycling is a partly unilateral exercise (one side, one legged). Not entirely of course, because you have the support of both pedals at the same time. However, there are varying degrees of emphasis on each leg depending on which one is in its power phase. 

This can create an odd strength/timing imbalance if one side is stronger than the other, because one leg might be pushing faster and with more force. The tick tock exercise helps work on the strength of each leg independent of the other. It also places tremendous demand on your gluteus medius and minimus through the standing leg and dynamic abduction of your free leg. Both these things contribute to pelvis stabilization and overall hip health.

Now It’s Your Turn!

Give these exercises a try and see what you think! Adding some strength training into your routine can go a long way towards improving cycling performance, reducing injury and keeping your body healthy long term. If you’re not sure where to start, Dynamic Cyclist has put it all together into one simple package available for you HERE.

Here Are 5 Tips To Correct Your Cycling Posture

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As cyclists, we want to be economical and good cycling posture plays a significant role in doing this. Because of the countless hours we end up sitting on our bikes, it would be wise to figure out how best we can achieve efficiency in order to avoid damage to our bodies and improve overall cycling performance.

The question here is: How can we improve cycling posture? 

To become better at something, you need to become more efficient. The truth(s) we are actually seeking is how do we get better on the bike? How do we avoid overuse injuries? And how do we get more for less while cycling? 


torwaiphoto/Adobe Stock

A great question can sometimes be answered with an equation – and one for efficiency already exists. Borrowed from physics, it reads as follows

Efficiency = Output/Input

In cycling terms: Greater output (cycling performance) divided by lesser input (work done on the bike & wind resistance) will equal more efficient cycling.

One way to lessen the input is by improving posture.

Cycling Posture

After you’ve had a professional bike fit done to reduce hot spots and accommodate your unique proportions, the next thing to address will be your posture. The reason is because using the wrong postures at the wrong times (or just doing them poorly) while riding can make you a far less efficient cyclist…

Increased wind resistance, bleeding force, overloaded joints and overworked muscles are just some of the damage we do to ourselves and our biking when posture gets compromised. You end up putting in more work (higher input) for less reward (lower output), opposite of the desired variables in our formula above.

Today we want to give you 5 tips to improve your cycling posture so you not only feel better on the bike, but also increase your longevity, lower your injury risk, breathe better and enjoy yourself more – even on tough rides. 

#1. Adjust Your Hand Position

There are three hand positions that you’re going to use throughout your ride, and it’s important you use the right one at the right time. They each have significant influence over how the rest of your body will be positioned, all with their own advantages, disadvantages and specific use:

cycling posture

Tops

You should be using your tops when you’re at the front of the group, riding alone or climbing a hill. This allows you to be in a more upright position where you can take in deeper breaths, have a better view of the road, pedal hard and be overall more comfortable on the bike.

Hoods

This is where you’ll be the majority of the time, think of it as a maintenance position for when you’re cruising on flat terrain and maintaining a steady cadence. This is a good position to relax into and conserve energy with easy access to your shifters or brakes should you need them.

Drops

Your most aggressive position and ideal for descending down hills as it lowers your center of gravity. You’ll naturally be able to shift your weight back and literally “drop” into a more aerodynamic position; increased output (speed/distance) and lowered input (pedaling/wind).

#2. Remember To Breathe

Not getting enough oxygen in is going to force your body to compensate through your posture. You’ll start to crane your neck, your breathing will get erratic and exaggerated, your lower back will arch, and basically everything will fall apart. Breathing is not something you can mess with on a human being without some sort of consequence.

There’s a couple of ways to address this, number one is to improve your strength and conditioning so that the stimulus of cycling isn’t so stressful on your body. The better shape you’re in, the more calm you’ll be on the bike. You can learn to modulate when your body breathes deeply for recovery and when it should really push for a sprint or hill climb. 

Number two, maintain good posture even when you’re at the limits of your fitness. “Fake it until you make it”, in a sense. The reason is because you want to send the signal to your brain that you’re in control. Try your best to harmonize yourself with the stress, and you’ll recover faster when you hit flat ground or return to a more steady pedal rate. Keep it together!

#3. Engage Your Core

Maintaining some degree of stiffness in your core is going to help support your back (keeping it from collapsing) and give your legs something solid to push off of. The lower extremity is connected to your torso through the hip flexors, and pushes/pulls on the pedals in concert with the contraction of your core muscles in the front and back of your body.

Especially as you drop into a more folded position, it’s important to keep your tail slightly tucked (pelvis rotated back) to keep your core engaged. This will increase the power output from your legs, and also disperse the load more evenly throughout your body. 

Remember that any break in the kinetic chain (combined muscle activity to perform a movement) will cause force to bleed out and be wasted. For many people, this is the core, and it presents itself as an arched lower back on the bike or abnormal movement patterns that don’t look or feel natural.

#4. Relax Your Body

Too much tension on the other hand, is also going to affect the way you look and move on the bike. While the goal is to produce force, pedal hard and cycle fast while riding, we also need to be able to adapt, stay loose and complete the distance we’re setting out to do. 

Put that chattering voice in your head to work by giving yourself reminders throughout the ride. Relax the shoulders and bring them down from the ears. Soften the elbows so they can act as your built-in natural shock absorbers. Unclench the jaw and relax your face. Loosen the grip and use only as much muscle as you need.

Bodybuilders know the effects of this all too well – they commonly report extreme muscle soreness and fatigue after doing a posing routine on stage. All their energy goes into those poses, but it doesn’t need to go into ours. Learn to catch yourself wasting unnecessary energy and gain it back through small reminders to relax.


Pattadis/Adobe Stock

#5. Control Your Exertion

Bursting too hard out of the blocks is a common problem among many types of athletes. In our sport, it can have some seriously negative effects on your cycling posture. If you overexert yourself too soon and use up all your reserves, you might not have the capacity to recover, and form will just slowly break down further and further as the ride goes on.

A proper warm up can really help mitigate this problem. It gives you the time to get yourself in a good headspace, go through the race or training plan in your mind, and figure out how best to approach the peaks and valleys of this session. 

If you can stay relaxed in the right places, you’ll be able to fine tune the juxtaposition between your periods of recovery and moments of intense exertion (sprint, hill climb, attack, finish). This helps maintain overall composure, resulting in better race outcomes and training results over time.

Ride Pain & Injury Free For LIFE

If you’re looking for an all-inclusive training platform available to you 24/7 for a low monthly cost – check out, Dynamic Cyclist. They offer daily stretching and strength training video routines designed specifically for cyclists. Created by industry professionals, these programs will take your cycling to the next level and help you reach your full potential. So, whether you’re a beginner or an experienced rider, Dynamic Cyclist has everything you need to improve your performance and keep riding for years to come. Experience the results for yourself. You can try it for FREE by signing up HERE!.

These 3 Tips Will Make You Better At Endurance Cycling

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The Basics

To get better at cycling, you’re going to have to spend a lot of time on your bike. Training for endurance cycling is, in some sense, a simple endeavour. We just have to create the infrastructure that can perform for long periods of time at a given intensity. This is what many people refer to as: Building your aerobic base.

Source: Lassedesignen/Adobe Stock

Building up a large aerobic base is the foundation that will support you through long, gritty rides on the roads and trails. By cycling at a low, sustainable RPM for extended sessions (on a consistent basis) your body will begin to make adaptations because of the demands you’re placing on it.

Being able to produce and utilize the adequate energy, while also effectively removing the byproducts of that energy production (lactic acid), would mean you’d be able to ride longer, harder and faster over greater distances for extended periods of time, just like professional cyclists.

 A more comprehensive and robust capillary network will begin to form, and this will serve to supply more oxygen and nutrients to the working muscles. Further, it will increase the production of mitochondria, which can be thought of as the power plants of your muscle cells. These mechanisms combined create an efficient energy production and waste removal system.


Source: Shutter2U/Adobe Stock

What Allows Us To Train For Endurance Cycling?

This is actually the first question we should be asking. Endurance training can be brutal and exhausting, yet we are often so concerned with the various training methods and desired outcomes that we forget to ask ourselves, “Am I ready to train today?”

The truth is that most people have not properly prepared for the training they put themselves through, evidenced by the high percentage of pain and subsequent injuries (non-traumatic) reported in the average cyclist. This could be due to a number of factors, all of which significantly contribute to an individual’s general health and well-being. 

It will ultimately be a willingness to consider the various parts of our lives, health and bodies in combination with one other that determines how long we stay on the saddle, and how well we perform during that time. Despite the tried and true training protocols for endurance cycling, if we can’t ride due to injury or fatigue, none of them will matter.

How To Become A Better Endurance Cyclist

Here are three tips that will ensure you get the most out of your long distance training. By following this advice, you will also be mitigating your injury risk and working towards a sustainable, long term cycling practice that you can continue to do for the rest of your life. Staying on the bike and riding pain free should always be the number one goal. 

Monitor Your Resting Heart Rate (RHR)


Source: Marcos Paulo Prado/Unsplash

This can be done in a number of ways with all sorts of fancy tools and gadgets, but there’s also a simpler method that costs no money and actually does more in the way of connecting you with your own body. That is by manually checking your pulse as soon as you wake up, and tracking your beats per minute in a simple journal or by creating a new column in your training log.

Studies have shown that an elevated RHR of just five extra beats per minute is strongly associated with overtraining. You’ll notice the same effect when you get sick, are having a troublesome time at work, have been making poor food choices – and the list goes on and on. All of these things are associated with a person being under increased levels of stress.

Whatever the reason, it can be taken as a sign that today might not be a great day to try and push yourself. Today might be a day for rest and relaxation. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you’re not going to become an elite endurance cyclist in one either. Taking the time to focus on recovery could be the best option when this simple metric starts to stand out.

Follow The 80/20 Rule


Source: .shock/Adobe Stock

The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Distribution, basically states that 80% of outcomes are due to 20% of causes. It is quite a miraculous phenomenon that is rampantly prevalent in human activity and nature too. Surely our meager cycling endurance training can’t escape something so fundamental. Perhaps it means we don’t have to work quite as hard as we think, either.

Adapting the 80/20 rule to endurance cycling would involve deciding what amount of time to spend between low intensity and high intensity training. As mentioned in our introduction, it is important to spend the majority of it (80%, perhaps?) building a large aerobic base. That leaves 20% for us to dedicate to higher intensity training like hill, sprint and interval workouts.

Having a training plan makes a ratio like this easy to track, but even a loose adherence to this guideline will start to provide significant returns on your training investments over time. A great way to start is if you ride five days a week, commit one of those days to a workout that really pushes you, saving the others for longer, more manageable rides.

Start A Strength & Mobility Program


Source: Ayo Ogunseinde/Unsplash

Cycling positions can be tough on the body, and if the plan is to stay in those positions for longer stretches of time over greater distances, that means the chances of injury are going to increase as well. Incorporating a properly programmed and professionally designed strength and mobility program can help counteract this.

Supple joints that can move through varying ranges of motion and strength training in particular have been shown to increase endurance cycling performance. By increasing the cross sectional area of the muscles used while cycling, they’re able to produce more force over longer periods of time, and their fibers become more resistant to pulls, strains and tears.

Dynamic Cyclist is our recommended choice for an all-inclusive program that is accessible 24/7 through an easy-to-use online training platform. It has follow along strength training, warm up and mobility routines to help you optimize your cycling performance, reduce pain and stay injury free before, during and after your time on the bike. 

Deciding what to do and at what time can be challenging with all of the conflicting information available online. Dynamic Cyclist gives our readers a personal trainer, physiotherapist and professional cycling coach all combined into one low-cost option that they can try here for FREE.

No matter what your end goal is with endurance training, be sure to look after yourself, make sure you’re prepared, and do the necessary work that is going to keep you riding for years to come!

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