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Fit Tip: Dumbbell Workout for Cyclists

Whether you ride a bike recreationally or competitively, strength training is for you. If you ride for fun, strength training can help make your rides more enjoyable while helping to keep you injury-free. Stronger legs will make pedaling up hills easier, improve your average speed and allow you to bike longer distances.

If you’re a competitive cyclist, lifting weights can help improve your performance for all of the reasons listed above. It can also help improve your sprinting ability and your ability to recover from workouts as well.

Strength training workouts for cyclists need not be long and don’t require expensive equipment to be effective. 10 to 30 minutes of targeted strength work done a few times a week can make a big difference in your cycling capabilities. You don’t have to go to a gym, either. You can do these workouts at home with your bodyweight and a set of dumbbells like the SelectTech.

Competitive cyclists realize that the lighter they are they faster they go, so these workouts are not focused on hypertrophy, namely building muscular size and therefore adding bodyweight. The goal of these workouts is to build muscular strength, muscular endurance, and to fix muscular imbalances.

You won’t be doing biceps curls or abdominal exercises to improve how you look, but rather functional lower body and core exercises to improve how you turn those pedals.

The Cyclist Six

Perform 2-3 sets of 10 repetitions of each exercise with a dumbbell weight that will be challenging for the last few repetitions. You can do it in a circuit format, 2-3 sets of one exercise, then move on to the next. Try to do the workout 2-3 times per week, with a break in-between or on non-consecutive days.