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| *Vultures Knob>>>Mountain Bike |
How can I work out my lower body by biking? |
I do my upper body at the gym, but the idea of going to the gym 7 days a week just doesn't fly with me. Can I do intense bike rides to build my lower body? If so, what should I do? What kind of biking and how long? I have a mountain bike with all the gears and stuff and other proper equipment. What should I do? Thanks, I appreciate it. If you're looking for strength training you want to do hills and sprinting in high gears. Steep short hills like often found on mountain trails is great. On the road find a hilly area, or if you must do 1 hill over and over. Ride steep and or in a high gear it will replicate reps in the gym. Road riding allows more control of your work out. If you have no hills sprint very hard in high gears for 15 to 30 seconds followed by a couple minutes rest and repeat. Sounds like the gym doesn't it? Legs need longer and more reps than the upper body. 3 times a week for 30 minutes or so will do it. If you have the energy you can do same day as upper body too. Finally, keep your RPMs lower than 80, read high gears, this works the legs but good. Great question. Depends on your goals. I'd guess you want definition and tone, which will come best with high intensity efforts - look up a few cycling articles on "intervals" to learn how to do them. If you have skinny legs now but a bulky upper body, it'll take a good long time to get more mass. Lots of the cycling training articles are oriented toward racers and long distance riders. If you just want to look good, much of the advice is not necessary or relevant - for example, putting in 2000km of base miles before starting intervals. Good luck Scott If you do Gym work, then you are already familiar with the sort of exercises that develop bulk! Cycling training, such as intervals, will be of no use to you whatsoever. You need to ride in a high gear, preferably uphill!, don't race as fast as you can, but push hard!! This will accelerate muscle mass of the quads, the calfs however may need a little help by flicking the foot around at the bottom of the pedal stroke. Quite frankly, if you use use a Gym already and you only want mass and strength, Why not use the leg press???? Anyway, hope this helps. Try pedaling. - You can most-definately bulk up your muscles with bike riding. I suggest that you find a riding route that has a steady incline. Climbing hills increases the resistance and stresses your muscles so that they can grow larger. On or off road is really up to you, but find a trail that challenges you and keeps you interested. - If you make it fun, you will stick with it. And wear a helmet so after you crash, you can still find a date. 11 years mountainbiking experience. Here is all you need to do. I work with a ton of cyclists (strength coach), and I have them come in 2x/week for only 60 mins each time. They do a total body workout each session and integrate their legs into their upper body movements. This is by far the most efficient way to work your body if you are an endurance athlete. For example, they will squat as they pull, lunge as they press, etc. We also do a lot of single leg pushing/pulling since endurance athletes spend a lot of time on one leg producing force. This is an extremely effective method that has gotten results from all of my riders regardless of if they are the Pro/1/2's roadies, Expert MTBers or the century riders looking to be more comfortable in the saddle for 100 miles. This book will help you get a better idea of what I'm talking about: http://www.tri-ihp.com/store/index.php?c... Hope that helps! |
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