Strength training without additional body mass - 1

I often hear that cyclists skip strength training because they are afraid they will gain additional body weight. In this series I will try to explain how cyclists can strength train without gaining extra body weight. You can read the rest of the series here: 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 

1. Why additional body weight should be avoided

Larger muscle cells (that will say larger square diameter) can generate more power. That is the most commonly known way to increase power, though it is not desirable for cyclists. The problem is that a large muscle mass is heavy to carry and there is a dilution of mitochondrias. Additional body weight will slow you down when you climb or accelerate your bike. Notice that I include accelerations, because many riders forget that their body weight also matters when they accelerate their bike out of a corner. Enthusiasts riding with power meters may have introduced you to the term ‘power to weight ratio’. That refers to how many watts you can push compared to your body weight. That ratio has a huge impact when you climb (or accelerate…)

Thus, an increment of maximal strength made through hypertrophy will probably not result in a better overall cycling performance. When I recommend strength training for cyclists, I focus on strength gains through neural adaptations. 

So I should drop strength training to avoid additional body weight?
No, it is very unlikely that you will gain weight if you use the principles I advocate for here in this article series. There are some simple tricks you can do to minimize or in fact eliminate hypertrophy. As you can imagine, there are millions of people in the world trying to bulk muscles, but only the most dedicated people are succeeding in their project. The reason for this is that just like in cycling you will have to be very determined about how you train, how you eat and how you live if you want to be successful. So building muscles is not as easy as you might think. And they won’t come overnight.