- cycling strength training
- off-bike training
- cycling power
- cycling endurance
- resistance training for cyclists
- functional threshold power
- low back pain and cycling
- concurrent training
- beginner gym for cyclists
- UK cycling
Cycling Strength Training: The Off-Bike Guide to Power and Endurance
Heavy strength training does not raise a cyclist's VO2max. The newest meta-analysis, in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, pooled 17 studies and 262 trained riders and found no significant effect on VO2max, VO2max relative to power, maximal metabolic steady state or anaerobic capacity. It did find real improvements in cycling efficiency, anaerobic power and time-trial performance. It also rated its own evidence low certainty, and found that nothing it tested - length, frequency, volume, sex, weight, experience - changed the result. This guide is the honest version: what lifting can and cannot do for your riding, then a six-movement programme, a twelve-week progression, and a weekly map for fitting two lifting sessions around hard rides, intervals, a race and a deload week. Ten chapters, named frameworks, and a printable programme card.
- Price
- £4.99
- Format
- Instant digital download
- Published
Opens the secure checkout in a new tab. Instant access after payment.
What's inside
- What did not move. VO2max, VO2max relative to power, maximal metabolic steady state and anaerobic capacity all came back non-significant across 17 studies and 262 riders. Your aerobic ceiling is not a lifting outcome.
- What did move. Cycling efficiency (ES 0.353), anaerobic power (ES 0.560, the largest effect in the review) and cycling performance pooled (ES 0.463). Power up, capacity flat: better sprints, ramps and time trials.
- No dose exists in the evidence. Length, frequency and total sessions were tested as moderators and all came back non-significant. The authors' own conclusion: low certainty of evidence precludes robust recommendations.
- The gap the bike cannot leave open. 64.6% of English adults hit the 150-minute cardio guideline and only 45% strength-train twice a week. The Chief Medical Officers updated their guidelines on 10 July 2026 to put both at the same weight.
- Two fears, both answered. Bulk needs a surplus, high volume and years. The interference effect is real but modulated by intensity, mode, sequence, recovery and lifting speed - five variables you control.
- The Six-Movement Base: squat, Romanian deadlift, horizontal push, horizontal pull, a carry or anti-rotation press, and loaded calf and soleus. Two sessions a week, forty-five minutes, no gym required.
- Phase One, your first six weeks, session by session, with the double progression rule and a four-column log - date, load, RPE, one-line note. Twenty-four rows in six weeks is the target, and the log is what stops you quitting.
- Phase Two, getting heavy: three sets of five at an RPE ceiling of 8, and what changes after fifty, including the note that GLP-1 weight-loss medication reduces fat and muscle, which makes your case for lifting stronger.
- The Weekly Map: three placements that work around hard riding, one absolute rule about never lifting heavy legs within a day of your hardest ride, an in-season protocol, and the four scenarios that will actually happen.
- The problems strength fixes. A 2025 study found cyclists with recent low back pain worked their lower back 19% harder with 8.5% less even recruitment. Your back is recruiting badly, not weak - which makes a loaded hinge the right fix.
- Fuel, recovery and when to stop: 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight, the sedentary point that the Chief Medical Officers say is independent of your 150 minutes, and the symptoms that mean stop and see someone.
How you get it
- Pay securely through Payhip, the store that processes every order.
- The download link is emailed to you the moment payment clears.
- A PDF, readable on any phone, tablet or computer.