Mid 50s here do plenty of MTB but still find my core / arms need a strength boost. I joined PureGym or more specifically my wife did, on a deal that is unlimited for her but gives me 4 passes a month, which I use to go to strength / lift classes there as I find it hard to motivate myself to work as hard on my own, it's pretty cheap £34.99? for both of us / month.
Nup, just practical. It works.
I thought that. I don't need to do strength, I'll just run or cycle more. No bother, I hate the gym anyway.
....
So yeah, do some strength, particularly as you got older. You might hate it but it's really good for you.
There's no doubt that following a weights or fitness regime will build muscle. The problem is most people aren't dedicated enough to put up with the grind. Dedicated athletes will. I'm not aiming my advice at dedicated athletes though.
That's why I advocate doing something that gives you all those benefits as a by product. Have fun and work your musculature at the same time. Results won't be as quick as doing weights, but you're more likely to keep doing it years from now.
I'm assuming we're looking for functional fitness rather than a Schwartzenegger body.
As for what works as you age, I believe I'm one of the oldest here. I'm still strong, and that's from just having fun on my bike.
That's why I advocate doing something that gives you all those benefits as a by product
My point is that it doesn't give you all those benefits at all. It gives you some, and that might be enough for you and many others. But it's not all and there is shed loads of research that suggest doing strength work is a really good thing, irrelevant of what else you do.
I didn't enjoy it when I started but now the habit has formed, I can feel the benefit and I know what I'm doing I enjoy it more. And there is no way I'd get all of those benefits from cycling, running or anything bar shifting bits of metal around a gym.
You are the voice of experience epicyclo, but you have it the wrong way around. Lifting heavy weights is piss-easy, for most people, compared to grinding a single speed up hill and down dale.
Main problem with sticking to the bike is the back of your body. Hamstrings and back as weak as a kitten.
It doesn't just build muscle, lifting weights loads your bones and prevents bone density loss. Especially important for postmenopausal women. Cycling and swimming are both poor for this.
Of course the weights don't have to be plates of cast iron they could be large flower pots, paving slabs, root balls and barrow loads of soil, if you like gardening that is - like my other half.
That's why I advocate doing something that gives you all those benefits as a by product.
Conveniently, GCN put out a video this week which handily disproves this
The dedicated, cycling only, presenters are, to put it frankly, absolute dweebs, whereas Olly having done some weight training alongside his cycling, is significantly stronger than them
I'd counter the above disagreement with both sides having a point. People build habits doing things they enjoy more easily than things they have to force themselves to do.
I agree, and I'd go further to say it's personality dependent. Some people enjoy things that other people don't enjoy.
Both Mrs Reeksy and I very rarely have a day where we don't exercise. I am, to paraphrase "not very nice to live with" if I don't exercise. For me that means riding 3-5 times a week, home gym 1-3 times a week, a run or two, maybe a 1–2-hour walk. But I rarely repeat the same routes or workouts. Just the thought of repetition puts me off.
Mrs Reeksy - 1 hour walk up and down our (very long) driveway every day, or a one-hour session on the ergo. The exception is when she walks at a trail centre while the boys are riding... in which case she does the same route.
Double post
Which muscles does singlespeed cycling use that geared cycling doesn't?
Cycling with gears has that result. That's why I said ride rigid singlespeed.
Single speed uses the same muscles as gears do. You may work harder (arguably more inefficiently) but it’s still the same muscles.
Strength/gym is different and hugely beneficial. Just because you don’t like the gym doesn’t change that.
40 years old here. I will be the first to admit that 'just ride your bike as much as possible' would have been my answer for decades. Just as it is for many who have posted.
But honestly, its not the best advice. I would implore people to properly research and look at the benefits of proper resistance training and the dramatic effect it is proven to have on your quality of life. I didnt go in a gym for at least my first 37 years, I wish I had.
This is all I have at home (and just enough space to swing a kettlebell as long as I'm not too enthusiastic because the rafters are quite low). Amazing how many different workouts you can do. There's a YT KB channel I use which has loads of 10-15 min no repeat ones. Also have a couple of resistance bands initially for shoulder rehab but again bit of variety. Doing press-ups, chest flys on the big gym ball is a proper workout!
I would implore people to properly research and look at the benefits of proper resistance training and the dramatic effect it is proven to have on your quality of life. I didnt go in a gym for at least my first 37 years, I wish I had.
I joined just after school with mates, when everything we did, every set of everything, was to fail - week and a half of that and I was done, I've dreaded gyms ever since. Three things changed that:
1 - an awareness that, at 52, I'm not as strong as I was, and it's only going one way if I don't do anything about it.
2 - Mrs Pondo started having sessions with a PT last summer to improve her core, just once a week but after two weeks she claimed she could feel a noticeable difference. I was sceptical, but also thought "I'd like that...", see if it could sort out my slightly moany lumbar.
3 - Daft as it sounds, Paddy Haynes - we always watch World's Strongest Man over Christmas, I always think "I should do some strength stuff, I'd like to be strong", and this cheeky, cheery Oxfordshire bloke kind of inspired me to get off my arse this year.
I've been amazed at the difference it's made. I've not been THAT diligent, I'm really just messing around with it, I've not lost much weight and no-one's gone "oh, hello Geoff Capes." 🙂 But it's made a massive difference, even in three months, even with Easter off, in how I feel. I walk different now (and not in a bad way), and things like climbing stairs, picking heavy things up, even getting up from a low seat, things I didn't even feel I was struggling with, all feel easier now. 🙂
I think there are as many different ways of doing it as there are people willing to share opinions but, to bastardise the Eddy Merckx quote, "lift heavy or light, for ages or just for a bit - but lift". 🙂
There's a YT KB channel I use which has loads of 10-15 min no repeat ones.
Please can you share a link to the channel.
This one mostly: https://www.youtube.com/@WorkoutWithRoxanne/featured - she has members only ones but they tend to come on the "free' channel later. As I do a few of them, I get loads in the recommendations for other channels and sometimes pick those.
Not much strength training here, but I find that it helps to swing a pair of 1kg dumbbells around, just to get the circulation going.
When my groceries aren’t delivered, I like to just carry my shopping home, on foot.
i guess that fulfills our primal hunter/ scavenger workout.
Cycling with gears has that result. That's why I said ride rigid singlespeed.
Single speed uses the same muscles as gears do. You may work harder (arguably more inefficiently) but it’s still the same muscles.
You definitely work harder. Guess what that does to those same muscles...
Strength/gym is different and hugely beneficial. Just because you don’t like the gym doesn’t change that.
There's no argument about the effectiveness of using a gym. The problem is most people do not persevere with the gym. Sadly there's only a small % of the population who find regular attendance at the gym fun.
That's the whole point of me saying do something fun that works your muscles and you'll likely continue it.
You definitely work harder. Guess what that does to those same muscles...
Sure it helps improve those same muscles but it will also increase the imbalance between those and other muscles.
I always hear about cyclists get sore backs, hamstrings etc. Well I don’t get sore anything.
You definitely work harder. Guess what that does to those same muscles...
Sure it helps improve those same muscles but it will also increase the imbalance between those and other muscles.
I always hear about cyclists get sore backs, hamstrings etc. Well I don’t get sore anything.
Never had a sore back or hamstring or anything else, despite being old. All I can say is what I have been doing works and has kept me fit into advanced age.
I'm not saying what you're doing doesn't work, just that very few people have the self discipline to keep doing it. That is well known in the fitness industry.
I have a slightly different view as to just using what you have ie your body. There is loads of fully body workout stuff you can do just using your body.
One benefit of let's call it standard weight training - ie doing two or three sets of an exercise for main body parts using weights that are so heavy you can only do eight or so repetitions with reasonable form - is that you absolutely will grow muscle and get stronger, and if you're new to it you will be able to add more weight each week. You will see and feel yourself getting measurably stronger which should give positive feedback to make you want to keep doing it.
You do have to try really hard, hence short sessions, and do need to go until you really do fail on an exercise. Mild discomfort is not enough.
Loads of related benefits - more muscle means you burn more calories, and seei food as building your body rather than something you need to have less of to lose weight, destination skinny fat. You won't look like a bodybuilder though unless you have the right elite genetics, really go for it over years, and take a wheelbarrow full of steroids.
I'm not dissing kettlebells, circuit training, gardening or whatever which each have their benefits but you don't have the same potential for progressive overload and seeing maximum strength/muscle gains in minimum time.
So why don't people do it? Dunno, lack of knowledge or other priorities maybe? I put surfing, climbing and mtb (Kentmere horseshoe on weds this week meant I skipped legs on Thurs) well ahead of one or two gym sessions a week which are a bit of a background thing for me. I'm 63 and holding it together okay for now - oh yeah, you can also vary exercises to work round injuries...
Slight ressurection and continuing a tangent, but SS definitely uses different muscles to geared riding. Geared, you're sat down 75% of the pedalling time, SS you're standing, so you're using your leg muscles differently. And when it gets steep you're hauling on the bars and using your arms, shoulders and back in a way you just don't on a geared bike. Obviously you could stick the geared bike in the same ratio and yard on the bars, but you'd be nuts to do that.
Different muscles or same muscles differently.... ? I think the latter. And while SS might need a bit more power pretty often , different muscles? Hmm
I'm 60 this year, started doing a smallish amount of weight training. I do a lot of climbing, so yes, good upper body training, but again some muscle groups don't get worked. I tested myself and some stuff was just plain weak. Training these with a few simple exercises means I'm less sore, and my climbing is improving as a result, and it's a lot of gains for very little work.
I asked copilot to create me a programme. It was pretty much what I was doing at home. I added kettlebells swings and that was about it.
Different muscles or same muscles differently.... ? I think the latter. And while SS might need a bit more power pretty often , different muscles? Hmm
Maybe I phrased it badly. Perhaps I should have said some muscles are used more heavily, some less.
You use muscles in your upper body that barely get used with gears. That's quickly apparent riding SS anywhere hilly. Your arms sometimes give out before your legs.
As for legs, I don't know much about biomechanics, but different muscles are prioritised I think. As far as I know, seated pedalling uses quads heavily and calves, ass etc less so. Standing uses quads less, with other muscles more involved.
Not saying either's better, just different. But if you're trying to work different muscles, riding SS isn't an awful suggestion. Although as many others have said, I'd go to a gym too.
