To maintain general health, fitness and performance, we need some combination of aerobic activity, resistance training and flexibility. As a cyclist, you’re getting good aerobic activity every time you get on the bike.
Resistance training includes weight lifting of any sort, bodyweight exercises or the straps and springs that much Pilates equipment uses. Flexibility primarily means the ability to move your joints through their ranges of motion without restriction.
By adding Pilates into your weekly routine, you can accomplish both those goals in as little as an hour a week and support your longtime health and enjoyment of our sport.
Pilates serves two main purposes for you as a cyclist: either as a way to improve your fitness for cycling or as a way to counteract the specific, limited physical demands of cycling.
Using Pilates to build fitness for cycling could look like:
- building core strength to ensure you are comfortable on a road bike for a long ride without compromising posture or ending the day with back pain
- flexibility at the hip, hamstring and low back to allow for easy cadence
- strength and organization at the shoulder girdle and arms to support your upper body weight for long durations
- ankle support and flexibility
- coordination and coherent development of leg muscles to support long term knee health
- ability to recruit posterior chain (glutes and hamstrings) in addition to quadriceps
On the other hand, using Pilates for cross training would mean putting your body into a wider variety of situations, positions and shapes than you’re experiencing on your bike, such as:
- spinal flexion, extension and twisting movements
- detailed, controlled movements, either fast or slow
- using breath specifically
- isometric (holding) movements at the lower body to build strength and endurance
- eccentric and concentric contractive (lengthening and shortening) movements at the upper body to build strength and endurance
- development of the medial and lateral (inside and outside) of your legs to build injury tolerance, protect joints and encourage better total muscle engagement
- twisting and sidebending abdominal work to engage obliques and transverse abdominals
- range of motion at the hip and shoulder socket
When I talk about riding form or good bikefit, I’m talking about the way we can ride to limit any excess or unnecessary strain on your body. The same thing applies with Pilates - by building strength and flexibility in this way, we improve cycling posture, respiration, and power, while decreasing our risk of injury and our necessary recovery time.
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