Riding rigid I find over 20 miles off road my arms and shoulders suffer. I need to strengthen them but without ending up looking like Arnie & the associated weight larger muscle mass would bring as I want to be as light as possible for climbing etc
What are the best exercises? Lots of reps with low weights or larger weights fewer reps?
I’m currently resembling a T-rex, all legs & spindly arms

Strength isn’t proprtional to muscle size afaik. We all know strong wiry people.

I think it’s more reps of lower weight for strength without size but someone more knowledgeable will be along shortly I’m sure. It might just be a case of conditioning though rather than strength. I used to ride fully rigid all the time until 2001 and I could ride all day – I was just used to it.

I’m currently resembling a T-rex, all legs & spindly arms

same here 🙂 Unless you’re seriously hitting the gym hard you’re not going to be getting big arms. I think press ups, pull ups, tri dips might help, it’s more about not getting fatigued than strength. Lots of reps not so much weight, but yeah more riding should help.

You will only really gain size by taking on additional calories, mostly protein. If you want strength you need to lift heavy for low reps, you will still look like T-Rex though!

Press ups & chin ups. Google around for Royal Marine press ups, they know so many different types & combinations to fek you up proppa. Or… ride more.

It might just be a case of conditioning though rather than strength.

^^This^^

Stay loose on the bike (heavy feet light hands works well rigid I find), stretch out your forearm and shoulder muscles after a ride, or maybe look at your set-up (bar position/angle/height, type of grips etc).

2 sets of 20 reps tricep dips, pressups, bench press (only about 30-40k) is what I do to my arms 2 or 3 times a week…and my arms are f***ing RIPPED 😉

I find indoor climbing/bouldering helps a lot.
I also like that it doesn’t feel like a gym workout ,but it is 🙂
Just about to get the rigid bike back out for the Winter, and the fun boulder comps start this month .

2 sets of 20 reps tricep dips, pressups, bench press (only about 30-40k) is what I do to my arms 2 or 3 times a week

I have no idea what most of that means 🙂

press ups – help with shoulders, upper back and triceps.
tricep dips – shoulders, forearms and triceps
pull up curl into a stationary bar (like a bike stand) – shoulders and biceps

low reps, 3 times a week

swimming?

I have no idea what most of that means

you didn’t say you needed definitions and meanings of common terminology 🙂

kettle bells, meant to be better for functional strength rather than “merely” acquiring “big guns”

You haven’t said what equipment you have, but I would be looking at more of a conditioning workout, keep it simple!

3 x max press ups will work your chest, front delts and triceps.
3 x max pullups/chins will work your back, biceps, forearms.

You can vary the grip and hand positions to change the focus, but don’t worry about putting on much size, it doesn’t happen by accident.

I used to do hardtail DH a fair bit and my upper back seemed to fatigue the most.

Go bouldering. It’ll kill your arms but you’ll enjoy it more than just doing an excercise

Pressups.

Mix it up with normal, wide and narrow pressups, holds at 6 inches etc.

1 x set of each to failure 3 times a day.

You won’t get big, you will get stronger.

Be careful with the Royal Marines press-ups (I assume that they are the version where you push hard enough that your hands leave the floor) as they can seriously damage your shoulders.

Terminology:

reps = repetitions. This is the number of times you do the exercise so pressup – 20 reps means do 20 pressups.
set: one group of repetitions so 1 set of 20 reps means do 20 of whatever. 2 sets of 20 means do 20 then have a rest then do another 20.

I don’t think you need to be that strong to ride rigid – I do and I’m a skinny weakling.

Strong lifts 5*5 u will get stronger but not bigger unless u carry on for a long time take supplements and loads of protein.

To gain any meaningful size you need to eat for it. Unless you’re taking on loads of food, you’ll not gain a lot of size. Your muscles will get larger, but it will not bulk you out.
I’d recommend strict form press ups (it’s not as obvious as it sounds) and strict dead hang pull ups. If you have a TRX or gym rings, maybe some bodyrows or face pulls as well. In fact, if you have a TRX or gym rings, I’d do all of the exercises on there. The instability of the rings will make you very strong.

I’ve always found that using a cross trainer helps my arms. The action feels very similar to climbing out of the saddle, but lower intensity and long steady(ish) state that you wouldn’t get on the bike.

This is absolultely no help if you don’t have access to a cross trainer 😀

over 20 miles off road my arms and shoulders suffer

I think a lot of it is down to grip strength

A few years ago I had a wrist injury and looked up some grip strength exercises on Tinternet. It’s been useful to develop an iron grip without it being a death grip so you can keep control of the steering and keep your arms/shoulders loose

Works well ime

The old “high reps low weight” advice is a load of old bollocks. If you want to get strong, lift heavy weights, it’s as simple as that.

To gain any meaningful size you need to eat for it. Unless you’re taking on loads of food, you’ll not gain a lot of size. Your muscles will get larger, but it will not bulk you out.

This.

You don’t really need strength technically, just endurance. So either just riding (a lot) more or something like the Royal Marine (they have reasonable endurance right?) style training above would definitely help.

however: getting stronger actually would be a big help as you’ll be using a lower fraction of your total strength so you will fatigue a lot slower.

I think a lot of it is down to grip strength

This is true. Now that can do a reasonable deadlift “arm-pump” is a thing of the past!

You want to be really careful. I was doing 20 press-ups a day and bulked up almost instantly – I actually had to give virtually all my formal shirts to charity shops and buy new ones. The trouble was that my arms just kept growing, almost exponentially – after six weeks I was unable to walk through my front door front on and had to turn sideways to get through it. My shoulders became so broad that we had to buy a wider bed so we could still share it and because of that, eventually a much larger house to accommodate both my shoulders and the wider bed. The net result was that it cost us thousands, drove us into debt, my partner eventually left me for a spindly-armed ectomorph and after attempting to rob my local Co-op to pay off the debt I was sent to prison for five years. And all because I was too tight to buy some front suspension.

You are right to be wary… 😉

ps: if you are really, really tight, buy a bigger front tyre.

lol

You will only really gain size by taking on additional calories, mostly protein. If you want strength you need to lift heavy for low reps, you will still look like T-Rex though!

This.

kayaking/canoeing for wiry but ripped arms

if you are really, really tight, buy a bigger front tyre.

29×3 on a 45mm is the plan

http://www.brobible.com/sports/article/muscle-hypertrophy-explained/
This isn’t a bad article on explaining muscles despite it being by a ‘bro’ website. For strength I would do 5×5 heavy sets, it will give you the strength but maybe not the endurance

Could it not be that your stupendous beard is pulling you forward, putting untoward stress on your arms? Perhaps shaving could be the solution?

bodyweight excercises like pressups etc and climbing . i think you need ‘conditioning’ rather than strength but then i dont know very much

29×3 on a 45mm is the plan

There comes a point when tyre size gets so big that you can’t claim to be riding rigid any more 🙂

Put suspension forks on the bike. Problem solved.

Do pyramids, providing the weight used in the smaller sets isn’t too big you’ll build strength AND stamina. You need a set of dumbbells of varying weights. Start with 20 reps at a light weight, then do 15 reps at a heavier weight, then 10 then 8 then 5, each time using a heavier weight then finally 3 using the heaviest pair of dumbbells you’d decided on. Now go back down the weights while increasing the reps. By the time you get back to the final set of 20 you’ll be screaming!

use 5kg weights

stand up straight and:

– lift weights from your hip to eye level in front with straight arms – x10
– have weights by your sides and lift up to be level with your ears with straight arms – x10
-shoulder press – hold weight by your ears and push up – x10
-then x10 bicep curls

rest then do x3 sets a day 😉

Do Pyramids,just make sure that you are on the bottom.

For the past 6 or 7 years, having all but stopped windsurfing , which I’d done for the previous 17 years or so and am also able to go surfing much less. Rather than being something I did as an infill between these, MTB has become my main sport.
I have been simply doing a quick daily lightweight ( think 2kg each) dumbbell routine, mostly for flexibility as I’m gettin old now, but also to maintain some arm and shoulder strength. Whole think takes about as long as running a bath.
40 bicep press, 60 tricep curls, 40 military press and 40 upright rowing pulls.
Two plastic coated Dumbbells just get put in the bottom of a wardrobe when done.
There’s no sport ” science” gone into this, but arms and shoulders hold up well without much bulk and I get no fatigue on the bike, although I probably only do between 25 and 50 miles a week off-road .
To be honest, if I’m going to get any aches or pains at all in my arms it will be winter time. I guess that although average pace will be well down in the gloop, as against hard pack and whilst believing in the heavy feet light hands thing, I also reckon there’s a whole lot more subconscious gripping of bars going on in winter with the bike slipping and sliding about !