Cycling and well-shaped leg muscles
Cycling will make my legs too bulky! If you belong to those who worry about this, don’t panic. Contrary to the myth, cycling alone won’t give you huge legs. To get that you’d also have to focus seriously on increasing muscle size with weight training. However, you can build nice muscles just by cycling! Strengthen your leg muscles with the following exercises Low-cadence “Grind”: set […]
Cycling will make my legs too bulky! If you belong to those who worry about this, don’t panic. Contrary to the myth, cycling alone won’t give you huge legs. To get that you’d also have to focus seriously on increasing muscle size with weight training. However, you can build nice muscles just by cycling!
Strengthen your leg muscles with the following exercises
- Low-cadence “Grind”: set the gear as high as possible and keep your cadence under 65 rpm. Perform 3 sets of 5–10 minute intervals.
- Standing climb: find a hill that takes 10–15 minutes to climb and, while riding, stand out of the saddle two to three times for a few minutes each.
- One-legged drill: focus on the upward phase, because your hip muscles can limit the movement. Do 3 sets; work one leg for one minute each.
Plus one more non-cycling exercise
Squat: the shin-to-thigh angle should be 100–110 degrees (that is, don’t sit back on your heels!). If you don’t like free weights, the leg press machine at the gym may be safer for you. Whichever you choose, do 3–5 sets of 10 reps. Regular practice of this exercise produces nice leg muscles.
This is how cycling can give you nicely toned legs
If you want to “lean out” your legs, focus on exercises that promote endurance and sustained effort. The legs of average cyclists are perfectly toned and this gives them a very sexy appearance.
You can see that in fact you don’t need any extra training besides cycling for your legs to become nicely muscular.
Male and female cyclists' leg muscles
Because adult men produce larger amounts of testosterone (7–8 times more than adult women), they gain an “unfair” advantage over women.
Compare, for example, the leg musculature of track cyclists Victoria Pendleton and Chris Hoy — the difference between them is striking.
And if you have such a device, use the “cool down” program after your cycling workout, which speeds up the clearance of metabolites. More effective muscle recovery allows higher training intensity, which leads to faster performance improvements.
