Earlier in the year we teamed up with the bike fitting experts, Velo Atelier, to bring you six simple – but challenging – stretches for cyclists. We’ve joined forces again to bring you six essential strength exercises.
Being both supple and strong on the bike are key to unlocking your potential performance. Whatever your discipline is, you need to have a certain level of flexibility to be able to adopt those race positions, and to throw your weight around the bike at the drop of a pedal.
We’ve worked with Dorte Jensen, who is a level 3 pilates instructor with over five years experience. The stretches in these videos aren’t likely to be unknown to you, but she’ll demonstrate the correct way to carry them out and highlight common errors which can hamper the effects of the stretch. Here are the cycling stretch videos we did earlier this year:
- Glutes (view that one here)
- Quads (view that one here)
- Hamstrings (view that one here)
- Hip Flexors (view that one here)
- Neck (view that one here)
- Calves (view that one here)
Moving on to strength exercises…
It isn’t just about having a flexible and supple body though. Having a strong core is more than just a six pack, it includes your pelvis, lumbar, abs and much more. This group of muscles is responsible for fending off early onset fatigue, keeping a stable riding position and distributing your weight efficiently.
We’ve already covered:
- Strengthening the neck (view that one here)
- Strengthening the abdominals (view that one here)
- Strengthening the thoracic (view that one here)
- Strengthening the rhomboids (view that one here)
- Strengthening the glutes (View that one here)
Strength exercise number six looks at strengthening the obliques.
The obliques run along the side of your body, they work in conjunction with the core muscle structure. It’s important to strengthen these areas as they are important for keeping you stable on the bike.
If you ride a lot of off-road, then your obliques are even more important for quick body manoeuvres and moving your weight around the bike. Keeping this supple and strong will help prevent injury, and reduce muscle fatigue.
The video below demonstrates a simple and effective way to strengthening those side muscles.
