So I’ve been riding on the road a bit more recently, and have made some quite noticeable improvements in my speed and how easily I can go up steep hills.

Initially I put this down to improving my cardio vascular fitness, but I’ve noticed that when I go (fell) running, my speed up hill doesn’t seem to have improved and I’m still puffing away as usual!

So is the improvement actually due to more efficient use of my muscles when cycling?

I don’t think it’s a technique thing – I’ve been riding relatively regularly for 20 years so I doubt that has changed much.

It makes them stronger by continually stressing the little fibres and allowing them to repair themselves bigger stronger and faster than before.

Your lithe cat-like body also requires less energy to move itself around which means you can either do the same with less energy or do more with the same energy.

I certainly haven’t lost any weight. Are stronger muscles more efficient?

Dont forget cycling works different muscle groups to running so you may not expect an improvement there

Muscle is heavier than fat

I get puffed out far quicker running than I do cycling even if I’m really blasting it on a 20+ mile ride.

In fact cycling doesn’t seem to affect my running ability at all. The obvious reason is that you don’t use the same muscle, but my heart rate always gets somewhat higher during running as well.

Running up a hill is at a different intensity to most cycling (unless you’re doing tts, hill climbs, racing, etc.), so you can improve your endurance on the bike, but that won’t help your high intensity efforts much. You may have noticed your recovery has improved though. For high intensity you need to do (shocking this) high intensity training.

Yeah Realman, never really thought about it until now!

I certainly haven’t lost any weight. Are stronger muscles more efficient?

Yes they become more efficient at making & storing glycogen

Muscle is denser that fat.
Efficiency? Will the muscle do the same amount of work for less calories? Not sure but it’ll certainly require less oxygen.
Running and cycling do use different muscles, and in different ways.

Yeah Realman, never really thought about it until now!

It’s a gradual process, so very easy to not notice it – that’s why testing is important.

If you’ve built up a reasonable base, go do some sprint work, hill reps (groan), intervals (bigger groan), and chaingangs (arghaghghggahghhhhhhhhhh). Then you’ll be flying. Remember, you want to be fresh at the start of a speed session – you can’t do it properly if you’ve done 100 miles tempo the day before. And at the end, you don’t have to be completely messed up, you can still feel reasonable fresh.

Yes they become more efficient at making & storing glycogen

+ also more efficient at using oxygen. i.e. you need less oxygen for a given task. and this is something that crosses over between sports. swimming is possibly the best sport for training oxygen efficiency at a high level.

Yes they become more efficient at making & storing glycogen
+ also more efficient at using oxygen. i.e. you need less oxygen for a given task. and this is something that crosses over between sports. swimming is possibly the best sport for training oxygen efficiency at a high level.

This is what I was trying to get at. I don’t expect my running to improve much off the back of cycling, but my question was how I seem to be able to go up steep hills more easily on the bike when (judging by the running), my CV fitness hasn’t changed much.

Running places a higher load on the CV system and an individuals VO2 max is usually higher for running than cycling. Last lab test I did for both my running VO2 max was 5ml/kg higher.

That’s not really answering your question but you can see how it’s possible to increase cycling efficiency while not making improvements to the level where they will affect running.

running and cycling uses different parts of the muscles

swimming is possibly the best sport for training oxygen efficiency at a high level.

Why is this?

Because your breathing is compromised by having your head under water. So the body adapts by being more efficient with oxygen usage and so needing less of it.

This is why swimmers are often targeted to make the switch to pro triathlon as the efficiency translates across to run and bike.

At the end of the day oxygen processing is probably the biggest limiting factor in performance.