By Greg Lewandowski, Strength and Conditioning Coach with the Canadian Sport Institute Ontario

While most cycling disciplines require a big aerobic engine to meet the demands of an endurance sport, adding a layer of strength not only provides the cyclist the ability to produce high-power outputs during short bursts (e.g., the ability to close a gap), but also decreases the likelihood of sustaining an injury. Mitigating the risk for injury will allow cyclists to continue to ride their bikes, which is ultimately key to improving cycling performance.

One of the most common misconceptions within the cycling community is that you need to have access to a fully equipped gym in order to maximize the benefits of strength training. While this may partially be true for an athlete with an extensive strength training background, there are still several key exercises that can be done with little to no equipment. So, whether you are away travelling or are just trying to maintain strength at home, there are plenty of key exercises that can be done, regardless of environment and access to equipment.
The key to improvement is consistency, not complexity. A short circuit of basic exercises done 1-2x per week, regardless of the time of the year, will be more beneficial than an extensive gym program with complicated exercises done periodically throughout the year.

The Importance of Technique

Just like pedaling technique is important, movement quality during strength exercises is imperative. During the pedal stroke, the knee should track roughly in line with your hip and foot in order to effectively transfer force into the pedal. More importantly, this will limit any unnecessary stress that may be placed on the hip and knee joint. Poor pedaling efficiency coupled with the repetitive nature of pedaling may eventually lead to injury. Given that strength training is conducted in a more controlled environment, it provides the opportunity to focus on movement quality, with the hope of carrying over this quality onto the bike.

It is essential that your knee, hip and ankle are all aligned during the recommended lower body exercises.

Lower Body Exercises

During the downward portion of a pedal stroke, the majority of power is generated by hip extensors (glutes), knee extensors (quadriceps) and plantar flexors (calves). This article will describe exercises that target the glutes and quadriceps.

Squat

Relevance: Squats support the lower body by developing strength in the glutes and quadriceps during downstroke. It also helps develop a strong, stable base for pushing into the pedal.

Modifications: This exercise can be made more challenging by holding weighted implements (e.g., dumbbells), adding a band or by simply pausing/holding the exercise when in the bottom position.

Coaching Tip: Feet should be about shoulder width apart, and knees should be aligned with the hips and feet.

Split Squat

Relevance: Cycling involves uses each leg in alternation; therefore, using single leg exercises allows the focus to be placed on each leg individually. This will target any imbalances between the two limbs.

Modifications: The exercise can be made more challenging by holding weighted implements, adding a band or by simply pausing/holding the exercise when in the bottom position.

Coaching Tip: Create two 90-degree angles (approximately) with the front and back legs during the lowering phase.

Upper Body Exercises

Although maybe not as evident in cycling, the upper body still plays an important role in creating stability during climbs and sprints. Difficulties in creating stability through the upper body will negatively affect the force that can be transmitted into the pedal through the lower body.

Push Up

Relevance: Push ups develop the muscles (i.e., pectorals and triceps) necessary to support the upper body in a basic riding position.

Modifications: The exercise can be made more challenging by elevating your feet off the ground. On the other hand, if pushing up from the ground is too difficult, you may push off a bench instead to elevate the upper body.

Coaching Tip: Lead with your chest and not your chin when lowering yourself towards the floor or bench.

Core

Hip Bridge

Relevance: Hip bridges target the glutes, which are important for pelvic stability. Pelvic stability is instrumental in the efficient pedal stroke of the cyclist.

Modifications: Hip bridges can be made more challenging by doing them on one leg at a time. This will increase the stability demands of the exercise.

Coaching Tip: Focus on squeezing the glutes when in the top position rather than extending the hips through the lower back.

Side Plank

Relevance: Side planks help develop the musculature needed to support single leg stability during climbs and limit side-to-side swaying.

Modifications: This exercise can be done from knees if doing it from the feet is too challenging.

Coaching Tip: There should be a straight line formed between the shoulder, hip and foot. Hips should not be dropped towards the floor.

Bent Elbow Plank

Relevance: Bent Elbow Planks help develop the musculature needed to create stability during long rides.

Modifications: The exercise can be made more challenging by lifting one leg off the ground in alternation. On the other hand, if the bent elbow plank is too difficult, you do the plank with extended arms.

Coaching Tip: There should be a straight line formed between the shoulder, hip and foot. Hips should not be dropped towards the floor.

Putting It All Together

All the above exercises can be put into a short circuit. Depending on time and goals, the circuit can be completed between 2 to 4 times. Exercises can be progressed or regressed based on the suggestions provided in the exercise descriptions.

A suggested circuit may look like this:

1. Squat: 2-4 x 12
2. Push Up: 2-4 x 10
3. Split Squat: 2-4 x 10 Each Leg
4. Hip Bridge: 2-4 x 30 sec Hold
5. Side Plank: 2-4 x 30 sec Hold Each Side
6. Plank: 2-4 x 30 sec Hold

By Jesse Korf, Pathway Development Manager with Cycling Canada and PhD candidate at the school of Kinesiology and Health Sciences at York University

Allow me to try and blow your mind.

Attempt number one: professional road and mountain bike athletes may spend one thousand hours a year training and racing. That’s about the same amount of time it will take you to drive from Toronto to the southern-most tip of Patagonia…five times.

Not impressed? How about this one?

Over the course of the Tour de France, the total energy intake for a single cyclist might rise to 168.000Kcal, that’s the equivalent of a staggering 305 Big Macs!

These are just two of the countless amazing factoids in the world of mind-boggling human feats that is elite cycling. Our top athletes are incredible, and it is this, the quest to push the boundaries of what humans are capable of and helping people chase their dreams, which makes working at this level in sports so exciting.

Here, we will explore a three-step approach to greatness for world class cyclists or anyone who is serious about getting seriously good at what they do. You can use this approach as a guide to go on a journey and unlock your full potential. You will be shocked and amused how much you can unpack and explore when you think about your craft and do a little research.

Here is the approach:

1. Find your why/your purpose
2. Fill your four buckets
3. Big rocks and marginal gains

Step 1: Find your WHY

This is an essential first step. So, you decided you want to be an Olympic champion or maybe a special forces operator, perhaps become a world-class lawyer. Great! But merely deciding you want to do this is likely not enough. Why? Well, without serving a bigger purpose or exploring what fuels this inner fire, it will be very hard to stay committed during rough patches and in times of doubt. And those times will inevitably come.

Take your time to really explore your why and make sure it is both authentic and something that is near and dear to you. For me, there is nothing that sparks my interest more than exploring what sets apart the very best athletes on the planet and help people that have the ambition to become great, get there. My mother owned a gym and my dad was a Phys Ed teacher. Helping people improve their physical and mental health utilizing sports is what they did, what I grew up in. The source of my curiosity and my WHY are directly traceable to this formative environment. What is yours?

Step 2: Fill your four buckets

At this point, you might ask yourself: so, what are the ingredients of unlocking human potential? Any sport or occupation consists of four categories of ingredients:

1. Physical
2. Technical
3. Tactical
4. Cognitive

Think of these four as buckets with a couple of tiny holes in them. You want to continually try to add to your buckets and if you leave any of them for too long, they gradually drain.

Let’s go one level deeper. If we are to project cycling into this example, we might further distinguish two types of sub-ingredients to fill your physical bucket. On-bike and off-bike. Off-bike including items like core strength, ankle stability or flexibility. On-bike could include your 20-mins power, your 4-minute power, your leg speed or your yearly volume. Let’s take the latter to illustrate a scenario. Say, you are 18 years old and aspire to compete in the Tour de France or Giro Rosa, knowing that you need to be able to handle 1,000 hours of volume at that level. Exercise physiology teaches us that after you start training seriously, you can roughly increase your annual volume by 5 to 10%. Knowing that, if you aim to do that race at age 24, how much should you be training now? It’s simple math.

Each sport and profession have their own unique mix of physical, technical and tactical demands. What is interesting is that many items that you might consider for your cognitive bucket, seem to be more universal and apply to all kinds of sports and walks of life. As such, some of them are finding their way in to pop culture and regularly hit the best-sellers lists. These include “Grit” and having a “Growth Mindset”. You might have already read about them. Other universal cognitive skills include the ability to overcome adversity – or resilience – the ability to self-evaluate, coping with pressure and others.

Step 3: Big rocks and marginal gains

Team Sky made the moniker “marginal gains” famous. This approach implies that no stone that can increase performance – or decrease the impact of items that dampen performance – should remain unturned. While hugely impactful as a philosophy, it is important to also remember that there are big rocks alongside marginal gains. Getting a fancy new jockey wheel with ceramic bearings might increase your drivetrain efficiency ever so slightly. While improving your nutrition, sleep and recovery have a vastly larger effect on your performance and could be called big rocks.

If your name is Ross Wilson, Emily Batty, Kelsey Mitchell or Mike Woods, your nutrition, sleep and recovery are of vital importance to both the ability to train and the ability to perform.

Nutrition and sleep share the same universality as the cognitive items mentioned previously and are the most common areas in which both fast and significant improvement in performance can be found. Of course, not all big rocks that present themselves are general. A domain specific example in cycling of big rocks over marginal gains might be prioritizing improving your position on the bike over getting a lighter saddle. While working on your position might, let’s hypothetically say yield a 5% increase in performance, your new saddle that shaves 50 grams off your bike might only account for a 0.01% increase. Always identify your big rocks and take care of them first.

Concluding, here is my challenge to you: you now should have a framework to build a roadmap that will unlock your potential. What is it that makes you tick and how are you going to become superhuman at it?

By Scott Kelly, Owner of the Dundas Speed Shop, Assistant Mechanic for the Norco Factory Team, Program Manager for the Canadian Cyclo-Cross Team and Director-at-Large on Cycling Canada’s Board of Directors.

Do you remember the excitement you felt when you walked into your local bike shop when you were a kid? The smell of the rubber and oil and grease and the glimmer of all the anodized parts nestled in the glass counters. Rows upon rows of shiny new bikes and displays filled with every accessory you could ever need, hope for, imagine or want. I still remember visiting my local bike store; John’s Cycle Shop in Orangeville, Ontario when I was young, and picking out my very first proper mountain bike. It was a 1998 Norco Nitro.

Little did I know that 22 years later, after group rides, joining the local club, participating at local races and training hard for Provincials, that I would find myself working for the Norco Factory Team; building and maintaining the bikes for some of our best Canadian athletes to pilot to National Championships, World Cup podiums and countless top performances around the world. That one $1,500 bike, placed on layaway and paid off two weeks at a time, 22 years ago, was the first step in a career that has allowed me to travel all over Canada and then all over the world, supporting our top Canadian cyclists. My personal journey in cycling began with the purchase of my first real bike from my local bike shop.

I have the good fortune to have met a lot of bike shop owners and employees throughout Canada and my story is not unique. Bicycles can be a means of achieving fitness for some and to others, they can be a tool for exploration or competition. Some folks enjoy riding bikes and other folks enjoy fixing bikes. For some it’s a solitary pursuit and for others, they enjoy the camaraderie found in their weekly local ride.

The local bike shop is like our own little clubhouse and gateway into the world of cycling and almost every small town in Canada has one.

When you bought your first nice bike, you likely bought it from the local bike shop. Your first Wednesday night ride probably met up in the parking lot behind the shop. Your helmet didn’t fit quite right and you still wore underwear under your spandex. You were a little intimidated and a little excited and it was the folks from the local bike shop that helped ferry you across the tumultuous waters that divide newbie from seasoned veteran.

After a few years in the sport, you joined your first club and in exchange for your membership dues, you received 15% off parts, accessories and tune ups at that very same shop. Their name was emblazoned on your jersey and you wore it with pride.

Your first bike race? Sponsored by the local shop. Your first podium? A set of tires donated by that very same shop.

You see where I’m going with this; bike shops are the backbone of our local cycling communities and they’ve likely played a big role in each and every one of your journeys through the sport.

No one is quite sure what the future is going to hold right now. Many bike shops in Canada are able to stay open, albeit with a locked front door, as they are considered an ‘essential service’. Some have figured it out and are making ends meet, others are thriving, many are suffering.

In much of Canada, it’s still too wet and muddy to ride the trails without damaging them; so maybe consider dropping your bike off to have the suspension serviced.

Were you thinking about buying some new bar tape and a new saddle this spring? Now is the time to shop local, as opposed to online; many shops are able to take your order over the phone and arrange for delivery or curb-side pick-up.

Maybe you don’t need a tune up right this moment and your tires have a few more months left in them; consider calling your local shop and purchasing a gift card in the interim.

Big online stores don’t sponsor your local club, they don’t donate prizes to the local Thursday Night Time Trial Series and they don’t inspire excitement and wonder in the next generation of young cyclists. They won’t show you how to fix a flat or properly adjust your helmet or pull you aside, after a ride, and let you know you don’t need to wear boxer shorts under your bib shorts. Our local bike shops have given each of our cycling communities so much over the years, and now it’s our turn, if were able, to give a little back.

By Tara Lazarski, Registered Sport Physiotherapist and Head Therapist for Cycling Canada’s Mountain Bike Team

Virtual rehab, telerehabilitation, telemedicine and telehealth are just a few of the words you may have seen more of recently. Although it has quickly emerged in light of COVID-19, it is not a new concept and many medical clinics have been offering this service for some time.

Telehealth allows access to medical and health related services via telecommunication technology (video and phone). A practitioner and patient can connect regardless of location.

Now more than ever, it is important to understand how it can be helpful for you, as we cannot currently physically access our local health care providers. Family doctors, physiotherapists, chiropractors and even dentist have moved their practices online to be able to provide care to people while they are isolating in their homes.

It can be hard to imagine how a video session can replace hands-on treatment in the clinic. A lot of what goes on in a therapy session can happen very effectively online, as movement assessments, education and home exercise programs can be prescribed and monitored.

As many of us have transitioned to home office set ups, indoor riding, and home workouts, new aches and pains, and areas of discomfort may have started. If this is you or you want to prevent this from happening—reach out to your local therapist as it is highly likely they are set up to do phone and video consultations. This would also be the perfect opportunity to connect with a practitioner that is not local to you that maybe you have always had questions for.

No injury or discomfort is too small and it is a lot easier to get control on your own if you have the right advice as early as possible. Thankfully many extended medical programs across Canada are covering telerehabilitation sessions, and more are being added as clinics and medical facilities remain closed.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions on this topic or if you need help finding a cycling specific provider at taralazarski@gmail.com.