By Ric Stern
In a previous column we discussed how training harder can help maintain or improve fitness as we age. Today I want to take one of the things I touched on there — strength training — and dig into it properly: how it helps you as a cyclist (or triathlete, or runner), how it helps you as a regular person who doesn’t just sit on the couch, and how it helps with both aging and health.
Cycling is generally a non-weight-bearing sport. It’s excellent for cardiovascular and metabolic health, but it’s not much use for building strength — including leg strength — and it’s frankly poor for bone health. In fact, the evidence shows that people who cycle a lot are at increased risk of developing osteoporosis.
Here’s the interesting part. Cycling performance, health, aging, and just being able to do everyday physical things are all improved in much the same way: by maximal strength movements combined with powerful, high-velocity work. One type of training, several payoffs. Let me explain how, starting with the bike because that’s the bit that surprised me most.
Strength is defined as the maximal force a muscle or group of muscles can generate, and it can only be produced at zero velocity. As soon as a movement speeds up, the force you can produce drops (this is Hill’s force-velocity relationship). Because of this — and because cycling requires very low forces — I spent years believing strength training wasn’t necessary for performance on the bike.
Let me show you why. Take the force needed to win up Alpe d’Huez at the Tour de France. A rider needs around 6.5 W/kg, so a typical 65kg (143lb) male pro needs about 425W. If you know a rider’s power, cadence, and crank length, you can back-calculate the average force at the pedal. At ~90 rpm on 172.5mm cranks, that’s an average of roughly 26kg (~57lb) across both legs — half that per leg — with peak force a little over double the average. In other words: if you weigh 65kg and you can walk up stairs or stand on one leg, you can already generate the forces needed to win on the Alpe. (Heavier riders need a bit more, lighter riders less.)
Since virtually anyone can produce those forces and if you can’t — you’ve got bigger concerns than your cycling — I assumed strength work wouldn’t help on the bike. So I put it off.
Then, around my 50th year, with multiple fractures behind me, I figured I’d better do some strength work for my bone health. At the same time I started reading more of Rønnestad’s research on cycling performance. I changed my mind.
Four Key Exercises
Rønnestad and others showed that four leg-specific exercises reliably improve cycling performance: the back (half) squat, calf raises, single-leg press, and standing hip flexion. When riders did several sets of 4–10 reps of each, their cycling improved — and not just their sprint power. Their FTP (maximal sustainable power) improved, and so did their durability: the ability to hold close to FTP after already doing a lot of work. Heavy, low-rep work, done carefully and mostly unilaterally (the squat aside), made their legs both stronger and more powerful. These are the key exercises to focus on not the only ones, but the core.
So why does it work?
By now you’re probably thinking: if the forces in cycling are so low, why does strength work improve cycling at all? I know it sounds contradictory, and it’s exactly what kept me away from it until I’d cracked more bones than I’d have liked.
Strength work improves cycling economy (you use less oxygen for a given power), increases recruitment of type II muscle fibers (technically the motor units that activate them), and delays fatigue. The key mechanism is this: once you’re stronger, each pedal stroke uses a smaller percentage of your maximum force — so it’s less fatiguing, stroke after stroke, hour after hour. That’s why the benefit shows up most in durability and in late-race power, when you’re already tired.
Now, to be clear: if your FTP is 250W, adding strength work won’t transform you into Tadej Pogačar. But it will make you better and it’ll particularly improve how much of your power you can hold onto deep into a hard ride.
What gains can you expect?
It depends on age, health, fitness, and training history. What I’ve seen in riders: roughly 20–30W on FTP and 50–100W on sprint power.
For comparison, here’s mine at 57, against my 20s:
- 5-second sprint power: up 150W on my 20s. Honestly, that’s bonkers.
- 60-second power: down 20W. Aging is real.
- MAP (power at VO2max): the same as my 20s now — but it rose by 15W to get back there once I’d done a decent block of strength work.
- FTP: up 5–10W on my 20s as a Cat 1, at the same body weight.
How To Do It
You’ve got the four key exercises. Do you need more? There are other leg exercises, either to build towards these four or to progress beyond them that’s a whole separate column. But you should also include some upper body work (I say this as a man who’s fractured ribs both crashing in road races and, on one memorable occasion, sliding down the stairs in my socks while running late for a road race, which did not go well!!). Push-ups, bench press, a weighted row of some kind (not rowing on an erg), and some core work such as the Pallof press. Worth noting: the squat itself activates more core musculature than crunches or Pallof presses, but the Pallof is a useful anti-rotation tool.
Because cycling is a high-velocity sport — your legs move fast — you should also include some power work. Plyometrics such as box jumps train your muscles to contract rapidly and forcefully; progress to weighted box jumps once you’re competent, and add sideways jumps (good for lateral bone development). You can also take your normal squat, drop the load by around 20%, descend normally, then drive up as fast as possible to develop power. Box jumps and lateral jumps also build bone.
A reassurance, since masters riders often worry about this: heavy, low-rep training builds strength largely through neural adaptation, not bulk. You’ll get stronger without turning into a bodybuilder.
The Health Case
These exercises build bone density — they took my own osteoporosis from a T-score of −2.7 to −1.6 — which reduces fracture risk and, in older people, the genuinely serious (sometimes fatal) consequences that follow a fracture. They benefit both men and women, though women are at greater osteoporosis risk, and they support healthy hormonal function as we age. For a non-weight-bearing athlete, this isn’t optional maintenance — it’s the part of your training that keeps you riding into your 70s and beyond.
The Downsides
Are there any downsides? Well, within a couple of months of training like this, you’ll look more like Arnie than Tadej. No, seriously, the main downside is DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), those achy, sore muscles that turn up a day or so after unfamiliar strength work (for me, reliably 24 hours later). The good news: once you train consistently, it largely disappears.
When should you do it?
If you’re reading this you’re probably a cyclist or triathlete, so your riding takes priority and strength work is secondary. The best approach — and this is physiological, not just time-saving — is to stack your strength work onto your hardest riding days, performed later the same day. This concentrates your intense work into one day and protects your easy days, so you avoid blunting your endurance adaptations by lifting heavy when you should be recovering.
For me: a threshold session in the morning, then a few hours later I drive to the gym for heavy strength work. Sounds brutal — huge intensity in one day — but the logic is sound. If you ride in the evenings, flip it: I race most Tuesday evenings (Tuesday Night World Champs) and get home late, so Wednesday is a short recovery spin followed by strength work. The day after lifting you’ll likely have DOMS or just feel a bit meh, so schedule an easy endurance ride, not anything hard.
In Conclusion
Strength work has real benefits for athletes and for an aging population alike. It’s not a cure-all, and you need to respect it — start light and get the movements right before loading up. But better cycling performance, stronger bones, and healthier aging are three very good reasons to do it. If you’re short on time but riding at least six hours a week, I’d happily drop one ride to fit the strength work in. If you want help setting your training zones or structuring strength alongside your riding, there’s more for RoadBikeRider readers at cyclecoach.com/rbr.
Ric Stern is founder of CycleCoach and has coached athletes to World Championship gold, Commonwealth medals, and Paralympic podiums across 29 years.
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