The Muscular Fitness Benefits Of Cycling

Bike riding is one of those sports that anyone can enjoy and the benefits are almost limitless. Lots of people ride a bike just as a means of transport, whilst others include cycling heavily in their fitness regime. Generally speaking the type of cycling you do will affect how your muscles will adapt. Cycling for long periods of time, but at reasonably low force, will encourage your muscles to build slow-twitch fibers and improve their endurance levels. Conversely, it is powerful fast-twitch fibres that are built when your riding style is of high intensity but over shorter periods of time. But which are the muscles that are demanded the most of when riding.

Quadriceps (thighs). Without doubt the muscles that produce most of the force when cycling are the quadriceps. These muscles work to extend the knee joint and provide a downward force on the pedals, which is then passed onto the crank. Racing bikes in fact are designed to locate the quads directly over the crack so that maximum efficiency is achieved. The quad muscles thankfully adapt quite quickly to exercise, which is lucky as bike riding forces them to work at quite a rapid rate.

Gastrocnemius (calf muscles). Although the calf muscles are much smaller than the quadriceps, they still do and important job of transferring power to the pedals.When the leg is straightened by the quadricep muscles, there is still a percentage of power that can be gained by flexing the calf muscles and pointing the toes downwards. Pinarello make pedals that dynamically pivot to squeeze every last bit of power juice from the calf muscles.

Hamstrings. It may be the thigh muscles that provide most of the forward momentum when riding, but in order to flex the legs and prime them for the next downward push, it is the hamstrings that do the work. This doesn’t require much force on a standard bike as the rotation of the pedals pushes the leg up but when you use cycling shoes that clip to the pedals, a large amount of additional force can be generated by these muscles in the upward movement