Your glutes are important muscles for cycling, these leg exercises for cycling will help turn your glutes into buns of steel!
When sports physio Mike Aunger isn’t looking after the starts at Chelsea Football club or treating patients at his busy London physio practice Technique Physiotherapy he spends his spare time helping you to ride better.
Over to you Mike.
Leg Exercises for Cycling: The Glutes
We recently talked about cycling stretches that help to prevent over use injuries, focusing on the quadriceps because of their importance in cycling as the power houses. Although this is true it is not the complete picture. There is another muscle group that help deliver power at the top of the pedal stroke and having good activation and strength through this region is vital to ensure you maintain good power through out the push phase of your pedal stroke.
The gluteus muscles are vital and improving the size of your rump steaks will not only get you admiration from passers by, but will help to shave seconds off both sprint and distance times. So here are 3 leg exercises for cycling that can help to improve performance on and off the road.
As a general rule, if you suffer from knee or lower back problems, you should consult a physiotherapist before starting these exercises. Feel free to contact the Technique Physiotherapy team at any stage if you have questions.
Leg Exercises for Cycling: Single Leg Press
Aim to get the starting position above 90 degrees at both the hips and knee. The closer your bum is to the plate the more you will need to use your glutes to activate the movement. Aim for sets of 4 sets 6-8, by the final 1-2 reps in the set you should be getting some serious fatigue and trouble to complete the rep.
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Leg Exercises for Cycling: Single Leg Sit to Stand
Stand up from the chair using one leg only. Aim to do 3 sets of 6-8 reps.
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Leg Exercises for Cycling: Bulgarian Split Squat
With or without weight this exercise really helps to develop all round leg strength, but the lower you go the more you will hit your glutes. Aim to do 3 sets of 10-15 reps (without weight) and for those with experience at lifting free weights try with a 15-20kg bar bell (3 sets of 8-10 reps).
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About The Author
If you are looking for more leg exercises for cycling or any help with physiotherapy or sports medicine contact the Technique Physiotherapy team and sign up for the monthly Brevet Newsletter for your next tip from the Technique Physiotherapy team.
Hill Training in the Swiss Alps
If you’d like to put these new leg exercises for cycling to the test then why not book a training block in the Swiss Alps?
As well as featuring classic Alpine climbs all of our fully supported cycling holidays feature local Swiss sportives to get you race fit.
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Image Credits: Images from Technique Physiotherapy and Sportive Training Plan