The Role of Strength & Conditioning in Amateur Cycling

When many cyclists think of strength training, they think of DOMS or gaining unnecessary upper or lower body mass that will have a negative impact on performance. Particularly if this is discussed within the in-season racing period.

Many elite amateur cyclists who are also working a day job are time conscious when planning their weekly training, where does strength training fit into this and is it worth it?

Is it worth spending another hour to two hours per week invested in a strength & conditioning programme and should you replace one of your cycling sessions with a strength training session if you’re stuck for time ? These are the areas I will provide more insight into below.

Cycling First

I want to begin by mentioning that nothing will replace sport specific training. Training on the bike should be the number 1 priority, replacing 3 of your 6 weekly on-bike training sessions with 3 strength and conditioning sessions won’t be effective.

The addition of strength & conditioning sessions to your weekly training plan will not transform your performance but….it will improve your performance. Which is enough to warrant investing even 60-90 minutes per week. Strength training serves a purpose and one that is overlooked by many amateur cyclists.

The Focus of S&C Training for Cycling

When I work on an S&C programme with elite or amateur endurance cyclists, the first thing I cover are the myths you hear on how strength training can negatively effect your cycling performance. I do this to ensure both the coach and rider are on the same wavelength about what to expect.

If an elite rider or athlete is unsure about the direction and effect of a new training intervention. They will be less likely to be on board and comply with the plan going forward.

These myths include, “You’re going to put on 4-5kg of extra muscle” or “You’ll have DOMS and won’t be able to train properly the next day”.

These are comments you hear when a cyclist has strength trained incorrectly. A well planned S&C programme will not have this effect on muscle mass or muscle soreness for a cyclist. An experienced coach will know how to prescribe S&C sessions during the off-season and during the racing season.

It takes years of mainly hypertrophy focused strength training combined with a highly structured approach to your nutrition to gain even a couple of kilograms in muscle mass. So if you're an endurance cyclist worried about putting on too much muscle mass, don't worry, you don't have the slightest chance of doing so with the right strength & conditioning programme.

The Key S&C Areas Within Cycling

Getting the most from a strength and conditioning programme as a cyclist comes down to two things: relevance and timing. The goal is to support your cycling, not detract from it. That means targeting the areas that directly influence on-bike performance.

For most amateur and elite cyclists, this includes:

1. Maximal Strength Development – Improving force output, particularly in the lower limbs, can help you produce more power at a lower relative effort. Increased neuromuscular efficiency means better pedal force, especially during the initial stages of short efforts, sprints, and climbing.

2. Muscular Endurance & Fatigue Resistance – Proper strength training can improve local muscular endurance and delay the onset of fatigue, particularly useful in long races or during repeated accelerations.

3. Injury Prevention & Structural Balance – Many cyclists are quad dominant, have underdeveloped glutes and hamstrings, and limited core stability. This creates imbalances that increase injury risk over time. S&C can address these weak links, keeping you consistent in training and racing.

4. Core & Pelvic Stability – A strong and stable core allows you to transfer power more efficiently from your upper to lower body. This is about anti-rotational control, hip stability, and maintaining a solid position on the bike over long periods.

Next, I'll discuss the various approaches to S&C work during the off-season and in-season.

Winter S&C vs. In-Season S&C

Winter (Off-Season) S&C: Building the Foundation

The winter is the best time to focus on the strength development phase of strength and conditioning. With less emphasis on volume or intensity on the bike during the early part of the winter, this period gives you the opportunity to lay the physical foundations that will support your performance in the season ahead.

Key focuses during winter S&C:

• Hypertrophy and General Strength: For some cyclists, particularly those with a low training age or clear muscle imbalances, some hypertrophy (muscle growth) can actually be beneficial. It doesn’t mean bulking up, but rather building stronger, more fatigue-resistant muscle tissue.

• Movement Quality: Winter is the time to address poor mechanics, mobility restrictions, and asymmetries before your on-bike volume ramps up again. I use functional movement screen tests to identify these issues.

• Progressive Overload: This is your chance to gradually increase load and intensity in the gym, safely and consistently.

• Session Frequency: 2-3 gym sessions per week are ideal. You have more bandwidth to recover and adapt.

Your motto during the off-season should be: build capacity. This strength base will carry you through the racing months when you begin more maintenance S&C work.

In-Season S&C: Maintain and Support Performance

Once the season begins and you have an off-season strength training block under your belt, then your S&C approach needs to shift. You're no longer trying to build, but rather maintain what you've developed and prevent breakdown over the course of a long racing calendar, generally from March to September.

Key focuses during in-season S&C:

• Maintenance of Strength and Power: Even just one session per week can help retain many of the strength gains made in the winter.

• Low Volume, High Intent: Sessions should be short and sharp, often 30-45 minutes using lower volume but still moving moderate to heavy loads to keep neural drive high. However, most of the in-season work involves core stability with small blocks of both bilateral and unilateral exercises.

• Exercise Selection: Stick to familiar, low-risk movements with good return on investment (e.g., box squats, trap bar deadlifts, split squats, plyos).

• Timing Around Races: Sessions should be placed carefully in the week, ideally away from races or key intensity days. For example, keeping S&C work away from rest days and including it on a weekday where you have a shorter bike session. During the in-season, including S&C on your rest day might seem like a good idea, but it can be counterproductive. When do you rest if you do both your S&C sessions on your rest days? This means you go through each week without a rest/recovery day.

Some riders can tolerate this workload but many amateurs need a full day of focused recovery, either active or complete rest.

Just like a cycling session, an S&C session also requires you to be fresh and an S&C session also requires adequate recovery as there is an added element of neuromuscular fatigue from S&C sessions. So doing these on the Monday after a long endurance ride of 4+ hours or a race is not advisable on a regular basis.

Your motto in-season should be: support performance, don’t interfere with it.

Strength and conditioning doesn’t need to be complicated, time-consuming, or at odds with your cycling goals. When programmed right, it fits seamlessly into your training week and supports what matters most, riding faster, staying injury-free, and performing consistently. Whether it’s the off-season or the height of race season, the right S&C plan should meet you where you’re at, not compete with your time on the bike. For the time-crunched amateur cyclist, one to two short S&C sessions can make a difference, not transformative, but noticeable.

In the next post I'll give examples of how an off-season S&C programme will differ from an in-season S&C programme.

Thanks for reading.

Graham O' Brien

OBN Performance