It seems that you have stayed at home for quite a long time during COVID-19.
When you think of staying at home and having nothing to do, you find you might not keep up on the flats, get dropped on the climbs when you can go out to have a group ride with your pals. You really want to change the situation, right? Unfortunately, you don’t have a bike trainer at your house, so how can you start training? Well, let me tell you some work-outs that you can train at home to strengthen your riding skills.
01 Push-up
The purpose of doing push-ups is to strengthen your core and back muscles, you might wonder since we use legs to ride but why do we need to train our upper muscles? Well, because the upper muscles are correlated to the control ability of your bike, a stronger body will prevent you from swinging left and right when climbing, which causes a resistance of riding forward. In a nutshell, strengthening your upper muscles properly can’t be underestimated.
02 Plank
In my opinion, doing plank is the most effective for cycling training, because it can strengthen not only your core muscles but also your thigh muscles. If you can add some variation, for instance, raising your leg while doing plank, it can make your training more efficient. As for me, my daily routine for planks is 5 times and each time will last for 1 minute. I may add some leg raising if I have more time.
03 Squat
Squat is suitable for training your lower body muscles, but it can also train the upper body muscle, compared with plank, which can also strengthen the whole muscles. Squat emphasizes lower body muscle while plank emphasizes upper muscles. Before you start doing squats, watch some videos about how to do a proper squat because wrong positions may make you feel really uncomfortable, or even worse, injuries. For me, I do 50 squats everyday, and have some rest depending on my physical conditions.
04 Stretching
Never forget to stretch after every sport, just some simple activities can make a big difference. By the way, stretching can improve your body’s flexibility, letting you get lower on the bike to gain some aerodynamic advantage. The importance of stretching can’t be ignored, because it has a great influence on your recovery speed (especially during a multi-day ride) and your body’s flexibility.
Conclusion
These are my indoor training must-do, it usually takes me about half an hour. You can take it for reference or you can do some research and arrange your own routine. Although having a bike trainer is the most efficient training for cycling, once you stick to your fitness routine, your cycling ability won’t drop too fast or maybe have some improvement. After the pandemic when you can finally go outside for a group ride, you might drop your pals whether on flats or climbs. Well, start to work out!
▎Download Velodash App, Let’s ride together!
Comments