Life In The Saddle

Riding a bike is not just about turning the pedals. Your body and cycling will benefit from integrating strength and conditioning exercises that build your core strength, leg power, and help reduce the risk of injury. These five exercises are simple strength-building drills taken from yoga and 'functional trunk strength' (a.k.a. core stability) workouts; they will help increase your comfort on long endurance rides, and also aid cycling performance improvements. 1. Squats If you do one thing, SQUAT. Squatting is the most natural but most powerful weight training exercise that we can use for building cycling strength. The motion uses our powerful quadriceps, glutes, and lower back muscles in one fluid motion. The key thing with squatting is to display good form. You do not want to be bent over like a hunchback. A simple set of instructions for good squatting technique: Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder width apart, splayed at 30 degrees With your arm...

Supporting the arch and heel of your foot when cycling is crucial to both performance and injury prevention. Supportive insoles such as those from SOLESTAR help to hold your foot in a safe and secure position—allowing for maximum power transfer and maximum support throughout your pedal stroke. When you push down on the pedals, it places great force through the arch and ball of your foot. You transmit power through a relatively small surface area underneath your shoe's foot bed, so cycling shoes are made to be stiff, so power transfer is not lost by flex in the shoe. However, few riders consider the lost power from the foot itself flexing during the pedal stroke; equally they do not consider the potential for injury when your foot abnormally contorts. During work I did with Phil Burt, the lead physiotherapist at British Cycling, he highlighted how important the structure of a cycling shoe is to power transfer. For the Beijing and London Olympic Games they designed custom carbo...

I have met a lot of riders that complain of aches, pains, and sores when cycling; I believe a better bike fit could have cured 95-percent of those problems. Phil Burt's book 'Bike Fit - Optimise Your Bike Position for High Performance and Injury Avoidance' is undoubtedly the best written advice that I have come across on the subject. I met Phil a few months back, on a business trip to Italy. His expertise was immediately obvious, and his list of past and present clients is a great accolade for the quality of his work: he is the Lead Physiotherapist at British Cycling, and also the main consultant for Team Sky, with riders such as Sir Chris Hoy, Ben Swift, Geraint Thomas, and Chris Boardman all praising him for his work. The human body is a difficult being. Every one is different, and every problem is unique. Optimising your bike position will not only make you more comfortable while cycling, but it will also likely make you faster and more efficient. Phil's boo...