Cycling Workouts to Improve Performance and Increase Resistance to Injury

Cycling workouts help increase your aerobic conditioning, anaerobic threshold, and/or cycling related strength. Rarely do I get on the bike and feel that I didn’t get a good workout. Cycling is always a great workout! But, are there any muscles being neglected during cycling? What other types of workouts should I be doing to increase my performance on the bike?

Cycling mainly trains your heart and respiratory system. It’s hard to ride a pace that doesn’t put you into at least the aerobic heart rate training zone.

Cycling also develops certain muscles, primarily the quads and glutes. But the position of cycling ignores some major muscles and puts strain on others. I’ll show you what types of workouts you should be doing in addition to just cycling to build a more balanced fit and tone body.

The shoulders are highly susceptible to injury on the cyclist. Why? Sometimes it’s because a cyclist bears too much of his weight with his arms. But mostly it’s because at one point or another you are gong to fall off your bike, possibly flying out and over the handlebars. The natural instinct when diving headfirst into asphalt or a rock pile is to stick out your arms to protect yourself. Hence, shoulder injuries are common. Check out this ultimate shoulder workout to keep your shoulders strong and flexible and avoid injury.

The glutes take a pounding on the bike and typically develop a nice firm butt. I also stress the importance of core strength for translating power to the bike. Here’s a workout plan for the midsection and butt to keep everything firm and strong. It’s not necessary to purchase expensive stomach workout equipment to develop a strong core, check out these ideas for home fitness workouts.

Working out can sometimes be a chore. But with cycling, it hardly seems like work at all. There’s something about moving through the woods on a two-wheeled machine powered by my own fitness that makes the fun override the effort.

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