Cycling strength training: best exercises for endurance
Cycling eats your legs. Long rides build endurance, but they also eat muscle and grind joints. The fix is two strength sessions per week. A meta-analysis found that cyclists who strength trained improved time trial power by 8% and peak power by 11% [1]. That's not marginal; it's the difference between holding a wheel and getting dropped. Dorsi builds workouts around your schedule, not the other way around. Our 20-minute routines (see How to Get a Great Workout in 20 Minutes) pair strength work with recovery so you don't junk your next ride. The modules below cover movement selection, loading parameters, and how to fit strength into a cycling week without wrecking your legs.
Practical Playbook
Test your baseline bike-specific strength
Before you add weight to a bar, find your weak points. I'd test a max squat, deadlift, and a 3-minute plank. If your squat is under 1.5x bodyweight or your plank fades before two minutes, that's your bottleneck. Those numbers come from coach data: cyclists with at least those numbers hold power longer and crash less late in rides.
How often should you lift during cycling season?
It depends on your race calendar. In base season, two heavy sessions a week build the foundation. Once race season hits, drop to one, and make it a maintenance day, lower volume, one tough set, then go. The mistake? Trying to push strength PRs during race week. Your legs will hate you for it.
Prioritize unilateral and core work for pedaling efficiency
Single-leg deadlifts, Bulgarian split squats, and side planks. Why? Your pedal stroke is a series of unilateral, anti-rotation actions. When you're fatigued, your core gives out, your hip drops, and you lose watts. Strong glutes and a stable midsection keep your power transfer clean. I've seen 20-second improvements on 40km TTs from fixing that.
Deload your strength work before race weeks
Three days out, cut your lifting load in half. Heavy squats the night before a crit? Bad idea. Your nervous system needs recovery, not another stressor. I've watched friends skip this step and bonk 10 miles in. Instead, do a light version of your main lift at 60% of max, just enough to grease the groove without trashing your legs.
Common Mistakes
- Mistake
- Treating strength training as just more leg day.
- Why
- Cyclists already hammer their quads and glutes on the bike. Neglecting upper back, chest, and core creates muscular imbalances that hurt bike handling and lead to lower back pain over a season.
- Fix
- Add pull-ups, rows, and overhead presses twice a week. Your legs will thank you when you can hold aero position for an extra hour.
- Mistake
- Scheduling heavy squats the night before a century ride.
- Why
- Leg strength sessions spike CNS fatigue and microtrauma. Recovery takes 48+ hours, so you'll show up to your ride with legs that feel like wet concrete.
- Fix
- Put your hardest lower-body session at least two days before a key ride, or do it right after a hard ride (for extra stimulus).
- Mistake
- Sticking to high reps until the bar feels light.
- Why
- Endurance in the gym doesn't carry over to the bike, you already get that from pedaling. You need heavy loads (80%+ of 1RM) in the 3, 6 rep range to actually drive strength gains.
- Fix
- Pick a compound lift (deadlift, squat, or hip thrust), work up to a weight you can only do 5 clean reps with, and add 5 pounds each week. Progressively overload, don't just pump out sets of 15.
- Mistake
- Abandoning strength training entirely when race season hits.
- Why
- In-season strength drops fast, within two weeks you lose up to 10% of peak force. That means less sprint power and more crash risk on technical descents.
- Fix
- Maintain with one or two short sessions per week. Cut volume (3 sets → 1, 2) but keep intensity (heavy). Fifteen minutes of heavy deadlifts on Wednesday beats skipping it entirely.
From the Dorsi blog
The 'Cycling Strength' Circuit Class Isn't Doing What You Think
Twenty squat jumps, twenty walking lunges, twenty kettlebell swings, twenty plank shoulder taps. The cyclist's circuit class is everywhere — and the cycling literature is unusually blunt about its actual effect on performance.
After Thirty-Five, the Cyclist Who Skips the Weights Loses More Than Watts
There's a quiet shift that happens to cyclists around forty. The gym session that was an optional performance edge in your twenties becomes the most cost-effective medical intervention of your week.
One Strength Session a Week Is All Your Cycling Season Needs
The most quietly powerful finding in cycling strength research isn't about how to build power in winter. It's about how cheap it is to keep it through summer.
Just show up. Dorsi handles the rest.
- HRV-driven readiness — today's plan adapts to how recovered you actually are.
- Adapts every session — no decision fatigue, no second-guessing your numbers.
- Apple Watch native — log a set with your wrist, not your phone.