Are the pros doing it right? And should we follow in their footsteps?
It’s the offseason, that brief period of the year where professional road cyclists get the chance to step off the bike for a few weeks, maybe do some travelling, and generally enjoy life like a normal person before they build-up towards another new season.
A typical pre-season build-up consists largely of long, low-intensity rides, developing a rider’s fitness base before sharpening their form later on. It will probably also include some complementary strength training.
The benefits of strength training for endurance athletes are well established: greater cycling efficiency, greater maximal power, and improved cycling performance overall, to name just a few.
But what does strength training look like for pro cyclists? How often are they hitting the gym and what do their routines look like when they do? And is there anything we amateurs can learn from how the pros approach strength training?
To answer these questions you could always ask a pro or two. Or, you could ask several hundred pros and get a bigger-picture view of how the world’s best road riders approach strength training.
That’s exactly what a trio of Norwegian researchers did for a paper published earlier this year in the journal PLOS One. The article is entitled “Strength training among professional UCI road cyclists: Practices, challenges, and rationales” and it offers plenty of valuable insight.
One small upside of strength training: making it easier to lift your cobblestone trophy when you win Paris-Roubaix.
This post is for paying subscribers only
Subscribe now
Already have an account? Sign in
Did we do a good job with this story?
👍Yep
👎Nope