Why Strength Train?

Doing the same thing day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year can get repetitive. Repetitive things get boring. Boring things are eventually quit. The off season is a great way to freshen things up. I know of no better way to keep things fresh than strength training.

There is no denying that strength training can help improve your time to exhaustion (endurance) and your anaerobic/sprint power. But I know what you’re thinking. There are two reasons you don’t have to worry about “bulking up”. The first is in order to gain significant lean mass you have to eat a ton of food. The second is you can’t burn a lot of calories from cardio. Even though it’s the off season we are going to keep burning calories on the bike or cross training. These two reasons are why as endurance cyclists we will never bulk up.

I would even argue it would be beneficial for us to gain a pound or two of muscle to improve anaerobic/sprint power. Unless you’re a grand tour GC rider more anaerobic power is only going to help. How many people usually finish the race? Almost everyone. How many people win? Only one. How did they win? Nine out of ten times they out sprinted someone or made a huge anaerobic attack to win.