Why strength training improves your cycling performance
Many cyclists avoid the gym for fear of 'heavy legs' on the bike. Research points the other way: properly built strength training makes you faster, not slower.
The myth of heavy legs
Many cyclists avoid the gym for fear it will make them slower on the bike: heavy legs, less suppleness, energy going toward muscle mass instead of endurance. That fear is understandable, but it's not what the research shows — provided the strength training is built up the right way.
What the research says
A review by Rønnestad and Mujika, published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports (2014), brought together what's known about strength training in endurance athletes. The conclusion: heavy strength training — low repetitions, high load, twice a week — improves pedalling efficiency, sprint capacity and high-intensity endurance, with minimal interference with endurance training. A separate study in elite cyclists confirmed the concrete performance gain specifically in cycling itself, not just in strength on its own.
The nuance is in the details: it's about heavy loads with few repetitions, not long sets with many repetitions (hypertrophy training, aimed at muscle mass). And timing matters — stacking a strength session right before or together with a hard ride does increase interference. Keeping it separate from your quality rides is part of why it works.
How we build this in
At HealthyDNA we deliberately include strength training as a fixed part of the build-up phase of a training block — not only during race season, and not as an optional extra. Twice a week, with sufficient distance from your intense cycling days, and with part of your easy endurance training deliberately swapped out rather than simply stacked on top.
How that looks in practice for you depends on your phase in the season and on how much time you have available in total — just like the rest of your training schedule.
Want to know how strength training fits into your schedule? Get in touch — we'll look at it together.
Sources: Rønnestad & Mujika, "Optimizing strength training for running and cycling endurance performance: A review", Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports (2014); "Strength training improves performance and pedaling characteristics in elite cyclists".
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