As the days grow shorter and cross gets into full swing, many cyclists are beginning to think about strength training, and their winter (booo!) training.
But.
There is not only a little bit of time before winter arrives, but a vital step to helping you improve mobility, keep your tissues healthy and happy, and allow you to ride stronger through the fall. And that is the strength training phase called “Anatomical Adaptations”.
This is the part of the annual strength training program where we work on helping your body “unwind” from all the sport-specific and demand-specific stress placed on it.
For the average Joe or Jane, we’ll think about things like yoga or static stretching. While these are great thoughts, and each one can serve as a great piece in this phase, the big money lies in two major areas:
Soft tissue work
Bodyweight movements with a focus on technique
These two serve as the foundation of next year being built atop the year you’re now wrapping up.
Why Not Just Stretch?
It’s a wonderful, and very logical, thought that stretching or yoga will be the “fix” to what ails you after spending hours on your bike. “I feel tight, so stretching will help”
Cause and effect, right?
Well, our bodies are actually far smarter than we give them credit for, which throws us all for a loop.
The body will respond to whatever stimulus we REGULARLY put it through, and adapt itself to be able to perform those movements or positions with less effort, in an attempt to be efficient.
Sounds pretty amazing, right?
It is. Except this often means that forces and stresses are placed on tissues, joints, and structures that were not designed to work in that fashion.
And over time, these tissues wear down, or straight up break.
The key here is to essentially recalibrate the tissues to move back towards their designed postures and positions.
Think of it being like the factory warranty only being valid so long as you use the product as intended. If you don’t, the warranty is voided.
Simply stretching in an attempt to counteract these adaptations doesn’t actually bring things back into order.
A Better Path
Stretching and yoga can absolutely play parts in your regaining a balance, but only when you add in moving the body through light or bodyweight movements, focusing on technique and how you’re performing the movement, combined with targeted soft tissue work, will you really unlock their full potential.
This may sound like a big task, but it’s actually quite simple!
Three to four days a week set aside 4-8 minutes to do some soft tissue work, like foam rolling. However, don’t focus on the areas that you feel are tight!
Instead you’ll want to focus on the muscles that are being bossy and pickin’ fights with the rest of your body. These muscles, for most cyclists, tend to be:
Quadriceps
Latissimus (the big muscles on the sides of your back)
Pecs (chest muscles)
Adductors (inner thigh muscles)
Each of these areas should be massaged with either a foam roller or, believe it or not, a hard medicine ball. While this kind of massage doesn’t feel nice, by performing these exercises 1-2 times 20-30 seconds each, over three to four days a week, they will begin to “tone down”. This, paired with light or bodyweight movements like squats, hinges, pushes, pulls (vertical and horizontal), pressing overhead, and a rotary stability exercise can work magic on a body after a long cycling season.
While the first 3 are pretty easy to figure out how to massage, the adductors can be a bit tough to figure out. Here is a short video on how to hit those inner thigh muscles with a Medicine ball (or basketball) to help them “retune”.
Soft Tissue Recovery for Cyclists & Triathletes: Medicine Ball Adductor Release
Conclusion
The fall leaves us each with a huge opportunity to cement in our fitness gains, or gain more fitness on the bike. But the biggest gains offered are by combining your riding with tissue preparation for heavier strength training later in the winter, as well as retuning your muscles, tendons, and joints to be in better balance for when you do move from Anatomical Adaptation into a full on resistance program. Just 3-4 days a week of a few minutes can help right the ship and have you on a course for your best year yet!
If you’d like to work with me on a personal strength program this fall and winter, I’m offering the first 3 readers who email me at Brodie@HumanVortexTraining.com a 30% discount on their first 3 months (October- December 2024 only). Not sure it’s the right fit for you? Email me and we’ll set up a live call to figure it out together and point you in the right direction.
The post Anatomical Adaptation To Build For A Stronger 2025 appeared first on PezCycling News.
