What are the best exercises for improving strength as a road cyclist?

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zoe9127's picture

zoe9127

Question:

What are the best exercises for improving strength as a road cyclist?

I race 40km crit races and want to move from c grade to b grade next season.
The off season is approaching and i want to use the time to do the most effective strength training to be stronger next race season.

MartinM's picture

MartinM

Essentially you want to get very strong in unilateral exercises. To build a base for these you may wish to start with bilateral stuff such as Front squats and Leg press. Ensure you are using a FULL range of motion, if you get someone to analyse you on the bike you will see how close your knee comes to your upper body and you should aim to mimic this.

Once you are able to, look to doing deep one legged leg press, keeping your foot position neutral or even slightly lower, putting it higher on the foot plate will involved more of the hamstrings and glutes.

You can also look at single legged squats or deadlifts.

You need to ensure you don't get any imbalances so ensuring you have sufficient posterior chain work is neccessary. Glute-Hams and Romanian deadlifts are very good.

Hope thats of some help. Ask away for more detail.

M

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