benefits running?

Ric Stern can answer better than I, but I find Swimming with mini fins the closest to cycling for muscle toning. Running off the bike is also good training.

I believe running up hills uses simlar muscles to riding up hill. But normally runing is the hamstring and cylcing is the quods. Running you sweep a straight leg back and cycling you straighten a bent leg down. Not qualified in this are but have done alot of tri's in the passed and thats what the coach's of tri's would tell me.

wnowak06 said:

clearly, running helps work out your heart, which is a good thing...however, i was wondering whether or not running helps build the muscles you use while cycling at all. obviously, it must help a little. but, to me it always seems as though the muscles involved are fairly different...does anyone know if the same muscles are used, or if they are a totally different set?

Interesting. IIRC I've seen coaches/Exercise Scientists state that there aren't any studies indicating that there's a cycling benefit from running. Having said that, if one travels it's a great deal easier to pack running gear than a bike. Personally, I run due to the travel requirements of my job. I guess I don't really care if there's direct benefit from running to cycling (other than keeping the excess weight off). It just helps to keep me fit.

DK

Where as running does not directly help improve cycling power, speeds, average, it also not counterproductive to cycling. Any work that you do to improve your cardiovascular capabilities will only benefit you in that respect. As you have already said, the muscles used in each discipline are not specific to one another, so you also will not automatically see grand improvement. I would encourage cross training to tax the muscles that usually are in the antagonist category. With overall health in mind, this is a good practice. If you are training to win the Tour de France like so many of the riders on this site, you should probably just stick to riding.