Practicing cycling not only requires going out by bicycle to improve your resistance and physical background. It also requires strong muscles and joints to increase your pedaling power, overcome hard ramps, improve your bicycle skill and handling and sprint to make a difference.
There are still cyclists who mistakenly believe that to improve the state we must focus fundamentally on training only on the bike and strengthen legs with extra static exercises. Nothing further from reality.
Exercising the hips, trunk, back and arms is also part of that state improvement process and can make a difference in any march, career or exit with your habitual friends.
For this we present you ten
strength exercises To be better cyclist that you can comfortably do from home, with the help of a simple mat and with the support of some weights or dumbbells. Dedicate 30 minutes or an hour to perform these exercises taking advantage of the rest days between route and route will help you enhance the muscles and reduce fatigue when pedaling.
Strides or lunges
We start with some exercises to strengthen the muscles of the legs, such as strides or
lunges. Start by advancing your left leg and folding at the same time the right knee until you almost touched the ground. Then, delay the left to return to the initial position and do the next repetition by changing legs.
You can introduce variations to this exercise week by week, how to perform the strides back, crossing the leg that is delayed or adding extra weight, grabbing two dumbbells with both hands. Remember to always keep your balance with your back totally straight.
https://youtu.be/QOVaHwm-Q6U
Squats or squats
A classic exercise to strengthen buttocks, quadriceps or knee tendons. It is about squatting, keeping the knees folded to force the muscles of the area and then return to the initial upright position. Like the strides, there are many variants of the squats that you can introduce in your routines: with dumbbell or Russian weighing (kettlebell), with one leg, with separate legs, with jump ...
Start with series of 10 repetitions and 20 seconds of rest and see adding more repetitions and less rest between series, as you dominate them.
https://youtu.be/UsH8K0homso
Calf lifting
Once we have exercised thighs and buttocks we have to do the same with the other half of the leg, knees and twins mainly. The simplest and most effective exercise is to rely slightly on a wall keeping straight and parallel to it and slowly lifting your heels, staying on tiptoe.
Start making series of 10 repetitions and see the exercise varying over the days. Make the lifting with the feet from outside, lifting only one leg, then the other. You can also strengthen twins by squatting with a dumbbell or Russian weighing in each hand.
https://youtu.be/BgJ03QEtD3M
Iron
We pass to the upper train, with force exercises for the abdomen and trunk, those in charge of giving you stability and balance on the bicycle. Start with 30 seconds and 30 rest plates and see its duration gradually increasing, without exceeding. It also introduces variants, such as side plates or alternating with a single foot or support arm.
https://youtu.be/d0atctiI7Vw
Russian Twist
It is an exercise that has a more complicated technique than the previous ones, but it is very effective for aspects such as your position on the bike or the flexibility of the abdomen or trunk. Sit on the floor and lift your legs slightly, supporting you only with the buttocks and delaying your back back. In this position, turn to one side and another your trunk with extended and intertwined arms.
You can increase the hardness of the exercise holding a weighing in your hands while making the turns.
https://youtu.be/JzPRECKoRIU
Burpees
One of the most complete and common force exercises of any cardio routine or high intensity training. Combine the jump and breast flexion, working both the trunk and the legs. It is a perfect exercise to burn calories and strengthen muscles at the same time.
We recommend starting with 2 or 3 short series of 8 or 10
Burpees, with breaks between 10 and 15 seconds between them.
https://youtu.be/5S4AJrl_EZ4
Flexions
Classic flexions or
Push-ups It is a very suitable exercise to complement our cycling training, both road and mountain. This is a sport that has not traditionally been given much importance to the force of the arms, but they are an important part of our body that intervenes in the management and control of the bike, especially to lower or complete a descent and stop .
With the flexions we will strengthen the entire upper train: abdomen, chest, back of the back, shoulders and arms. It is a high intensity exercise and requires a good technique to take advantage of its benefits. Start doing series of 8 or 10 repetitions, with 20-30 seconds of rest between them. There are numerous types of flexions you can do: with the most separate arms (they strengthen the chest), more together (arms),
Hover (shoulders), in pica (shoulders and back), etc.
https://youtu.be/IODxDxX7oi4
Biceps curl
We pass to the arms with a well -known, simple and effective exercise. We can do it with a weighing or dumbbell, performing the series with one arm and continuing then with the other, or contracting both at the same time with one weight in each. To correctly make the
Curl From biceps you have to keep the elbows attached to the torso and shoulders down at all times, so that the contraction is effective.
https://youtu.be/HU2lghjU29Y
Granjero Paseo
With this curious name, one of the simplest but more effective arms exercises is called to strengthen all the muscles of the arm, especially the forearms. It consists of taking weight with both arms, as if you carry the purchase bag, whether dumbbells, discs, Russian weights or other heavy everyday objects, such as two water jars.
Once we have weight in both hands we keep our arms in a neutral position down and start walking with them. We can start with a 1 minute farmer walk and increase the duration and kilos as we dominate it.
https://youtu.be/PV5cqXK_Lgo
Column extensions
Finally, we must not forget to strengthen and tone the back, one of the areas of the body that most intervenes in maintaining the position on the bike. To avoid the appearance of discomfort in the lower back or in the cervical it is very important to perform exercises such as column extensions.
You can make them lying down on a mat, lifting the trunk again and again, as if you were making abdominals but vice versa.
https://youtu.be/tGLxZYE7LjY
