Strength Training Program For Cyclists

How do I increase my cycling strength? By getting off the bike and lifting weights!

Strength training for cyclists, which includes heavy weight lifting, band work, and some lateral non-cycling movements, can provide a lot of benefits to overall cycling performance. The overall strength gains that you will make will allow you to turn the pedals with higher watts, and for longer durations of time without fatiguing as quickly. Strength training will increase your cycling performance!

The tough piece to this is that weightlifting is a sport of its own, so how do we incorporate weight lifting into our cycling training plan without having it be detrimental to our focused interval work?

Measuring the effects of each strength training session can also be difficult. “How much TSS do I assign to a lifting session?”

Should I lift low weight and high rep, or just the opposite: high weight and low rep? But won’t I get injured since I’m not a weightlifter? I’m a cyclist!

There is a way to combine the two sports so that strength training will improve your cycling performance. Every athlete is unique (this is not a cop-out!), so getting the right dose of strength training will be something that you need to experiment with as an athlete.

To note: weightlifting does not have a measurable effect on aerobic fitness in trained athletes. It won’t improve your ventilatory ability (VO2max) or the body’s ability to shuttle or consume lactic acid (lactate threshold).

We know that cycling is mainly an aerobic activity, so why would we strength train for cycling when we just said that weight training will not improve our aerobic ability?? Would it be better to spend my time just working on the aerobic side of cycling?

This had us stumped for a while too, especially when we followed a cycling strength training program but did it half-assed. We didn’t fully commit to it.

Once we did and had athletes that followed suit, we kept hearing: “Wow, it’s like I have another gear out there!” There are a lot of benefits to strength training that will boost your cycling performance because remember that FTP and VO2Max are not the only important things to winning a race or performing your best at the next event.

If you want to get faster and have your best spring racing campaign, read on and incorporate cycling strength training into your overall cycling workout plan. Here are some other basic points to get you started safely. We will be coming out with a great strength training program for cyclists in the coming months, so make sure you sign up for our newsletter!

Related Reading : Top Strength Training Mistakes By Cyclists

Weight Training For Cyclists: When Should You Lift?

Weight training for cyclists is an important part of your overall cycling training program because more strength not only means more watts, but it also means pushing the same watts for longer, and an improved cycling economy. We’ll get into this in more detail below, but said differently, lifting heavy weights can also improve your fatigue resistance in cycling.

How often should cyclists lift weights? An athlete should look to be in the gym two to three times a week during their base phase (the months furthest away from your competitions). Three times is more often for athletes living in areas of the world where the weather does not allow outdoor riding all of the time, and they may have limited mental matches for indoor training.

The one aspect of lifting that I love is that it is an activity that I can quickly get done when I’m on the road for family travel or if there is a time when I don’t have a bike with me. If you had to take 5 days off the bike, I think it’s safe to say a lot of us would freak out. But now, with strength training in our cycling training program, we complete 3 strength sessions, and it becomes a nice break that isn’t horribly detrimental to our overall progress.

See below, when I went to Utah for Chris’ birthday, it was great to see 3 green boxes instead of 5 red ones!!

Should I Lift Once or Twice A Week for Cycling?

Once the season is underway, I would shift to lifting either one or two times per week based on your cycling training load. There are so many factors at play here that it’s impossible to say whether 1x or 2x a week is right for YOU. I personally have tried lifting heavy two times a week with a massive ride load, and it was too much for my body. I crumbled. I was so excited about getting strong that I forgot that lifting is a supplement to the cycling training; not to be taken as a sport itself!

That said, when I’ve reduced my riding volume by just a couple of hours, I can get that second strength session in, and it really helps me keep the strength flow going.

When your main competition phase begins, if you are focusing on a small cluster of races, you may want to pause the strength work so that all of your energy goes into the races and recovery between the big events. On the other hand, some athletes swear by a lift the week of a race, so do whatever feels right to you; test it out!

Why is Strength Training Important for Cyclists?

There are a number of reasons why a weight training program for cyclists is important, and our top ones are listed below.

Once you get into your strength program and see the physique changes in your body and the extra drive that you have while riding, it is hard to argue that strength training isn’t good for cycling.

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Top Benefits of Strength Training for Cyclists:

To improve cycling economy and your time to exhaustion
Increase strength to increase your Sprint power or PMax
Prevents injury and increases training longevity
Increases testosterone
Improves core strength
Improve glute strength
Improve hip strength

You can read about these in detail in this post.

Does Weight Lifting Make You A Faster Cyclist?

Bike strength training will definitely make you a faster and stronger cyclist. If you are training your body to reduce the chance of injury, increase time to exhaustion, improve cycling economy, improve max watts and PMax, how could anyone argue that weight training is not good for cycling?

While there is an opportunity cost to lifting (you can only do so many workouts; when you are lifting, you aren’t riding), we believe that the benefits outweigh the fact that you are taking 1-2 hours away from your cycling time.

Weight lifting will add to the longevity of your training, allowing you to train harder, for longer, which at the end of the day will far outweigh the extra hour of riding you might get if you didn’t lift.

If you think watts don’t matter, relisten to Tyler Williams talk in his podcast with us about how watts win every time.

Top Strength Training Exercises for Cycling

We put together this document of Light Weight workouts to get you started. Eventually, you are going to want to get into the gym, but if you haven’t lifted before, spend 4-6 weeks, or 8-15 sessions, workout with bodyweight or very lightweight.

Your initial lift sessions should focus on form, and have your body used to the movements. This is where the low weight and higher rep lifting comes mostly into play.

Once you get past this 4-8 week adaptation phase, then you can start using the bar, and slowly adding weight.

The reason I put 4-8 week adaptation in BOLD is because a lot of cyclists rush into the gym and want to immediately start squatting with lots of plates…play the long game and take it slow!

The best way to get things rolling is to break up your lifting into different areas of focus.

When you are ready to create a sample cycling strength training program, follow the GZCLP method of lifting or something similar to it, like Strong Lifts 5 x 5.

If you'd rather save time and make this easy addition to your TrainingPeaks calendar, I’ve create a strength program that is similar within the Free Strong App so that you can easily download all of the workouts! Check it out here.

The plan reviews these main points:

•Adaptation: First 8 workouts provide adaptation to the movements. Learn the movements but assess tight muscles or movements that don’t flow well; you might need to add in some yoga or “opening” workouts. Tight hips, tight hamstrings, etc.

•3 workouts specifically targeting your motion and form for the big lifts

•Progressive overload lifting based on GZCLP, with Templates already created in STRONG App that I use.

•Video running through the entire program.

•Favorite Core workouts with links explaining them on google

•Over 20 other warm up movements like Fire Hydrants, Cat Camel Stretches and Thread the Needle examples

•In Season 1x a week lifting regimen

•Optional Plyometric ideas and 2 workouts if speed is something that you find useful to incorporate

•Supplemental Band Work which can really strengthen your glutes and hips for more cycling power! I would not neglect this if I were you!

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Cycling Strength Training Plan

What strength training should cyclists do? For a complete strength training program for cyclists, we’re looking to perform Squats, Deadlifts, and then Push and Pull for the upper body. The upper body training will help you with hard accelerations and climbing! No, you won’t get bulky from getting strong.

Remember that the main goal is to get stronger so that we can push more watts, but also to expose ourselves to stimuli outside of the sagittal plane. So remember to have variety in your lifting, and use this as a guide, but always listen to your body, and work with a strength professional if you have access to one!

I’d also add in some lateral movements, which can be as easy as a lateral lunge, curtsy lunge, and all of the band work.

If you want to get stronger on the bike, follow this cycling strength training routine.

Squat Day

Squat 5 x 5 or 3 x 8
Bent Over Row’s 3 x 8-10
Lateral Raise 3 x 10
Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat
Suitcase Deadlift
Lat pull wide

Overhead Press

OHP
Deadlift or a Variation
High pull
Kettlebell
Pull-ups
Curtsy Lunge

Deadlift

Deadlift (Trap Bar)
OHP
LAT pulldown normal grip
Goblet Squat
Kettlebell
Lateral raise

Additional Workouts

Cossack Squat
Fire hydrant / single leg extension
Superman
Pull-ups
Farmer Carry
Skater Lunge
Pistol Squats (if you’re just that awesome!)
Leg Press - optional. Some athletes love it for the heavyweight aspect

Sample Cycling Strength Training Program

We would recommend that you go through and use the Adaptation workouts for 4-6 weeks of you cycling weight training plan to get your body used to the load that lifting brings upon it.

How often should a cyclist perform strength training? I’d start with those 2x a week and then move into 3x a week. Really focus on your consistency in the lifts.

You will be sore when you first start this cycling strength training program, but it will eventually go away. An easy way to recover from these sessions is by using LactiGo. It is a game-changer on the bike and in the gym! Discount Code Brendan.

We then shift into the GZCLP way of lifting. It allows you to safely lift and continually add weight. I haven’t used the Wendler 5-3-1 system, but I’ve heard athletes use that and really enjoy it.

Should I Lift Before or After Cycling Training?

This gets asked often: Should I lift before or after cycling training? Here’s my answer: whichever works best for your life’s schedule.

There is some literature that states that for the most benefit and adaption, we need to wait 4-6 hours between cycling / cardio and strength training. As much as I love training, I can’t always mold my day’s schedule to fit that! Oftentimes, the schedule gets dictated by weather, or other errands that I have to run.

When I’m in Florida, I have to ride early, around 5:30am to beat most of the traffic, so I’m lifting afterwards in the afternoon. That might be 2 hours after the ride stops, or 4 hours. It just depends!
When I’m in North Carolina, I love lifting first, and getting morning work and errands done, and then ride in the afternoon. I’ve never noticed a huge difference one way or the other, so do what works best for you!

Should I Lift On Hard Cycling Day or Easy Day?

This is another great question that gets asked often, and I prefer to lift on my hard training day — this keeps the “hard days hard”, and the easier days (Endurance) as easy days. If we are doing intervals on one day, and then lifting on our endurance days, we end up stacking a few too many “hard days”.

Strength training is extremenly taxing to our neuromuscular system and nervous system; we need to give ourselves a break or that is a recipe for being under-recovered or overtrained.

Is Weight Lifting Worth It For Cyclists?

Your cycling strength training plan is going to make you a more robust and stronger athlete without adding unnecessary bulk. Athletes that are worried about added weight can rest easy knowing that they will get lean and strong, but not just bulky.

This added strength will no doubt increase your abilities on the bike: more power, more speed, less injury.

Having a longer time to exhaustion and bigger watts will help you become a threatening all-around cyclist; the kind that has the best chance of winning most often.

Weight training for cyclists is worth it for cycling performance. Even if you are a time-crunched athlete, figure out a way to work this into your cycling training plan and have the best year of numbers and results ahead!

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Strength and Weight Training Plan for Cyclists of All Levels