Outdoors

Cycling is a fantastic sport that is enjoyed all over the world by millions of people each day. The motivations for cycling vary, from just wanting to get a bit of fresh air, to wanting to dramatically enhance your fitness. The fitness benefits for your muscles varies quite a lot depending on which type of cycling you do. If you cycle very long distances at relatively low intensity, your muscles will become very good at endurance and will build many slow-twitch fibres. On the other hand, if you cycle hard and fast, your muscles will build fast-twitch fibers and become more powerful. But which are the muscles that are demanded the most of when riding.

Quadriceps (thighs). When cycling, its is the muscles at the front of the legs that provide the majority of the forces and thus are worked hardest. These are the muscles that provide the rotating movement of the crack by placing down-force on the pedals. Racing bikes in fact are designed to locate the quads directly over the crack so that maximum efficiency is achieved. When cycling fast, these muscles are contracted and relaxed hundreds of times a minute and so they need to be in good shape.

Gastrocnemius (calf muscles). Although the calf muscles are much smaller than the quadriceps, they still do and important job of transferring power to the pedals. Flexing the calf muscles when the leg is in a straight position, points the toes towards and adds a small boost to the overall power output. Pinarello make pedals that dynamically pivot to squeeze every last bit of power juice from the calf muscles.

Hamstrings. After the quads have forced the leg down and helped move the bike forwards, the hamstrings work to to pull it back up again and reset the leg ready for another push. This doesn’t require much force on a standard bike as the rotation of the pedals pushes the leg up but when you use cycling shoes that clip to the pedals, a large amount of additional force can be generated by these muscles in the upward movement