Muscle Imbalance

So far as I'm aware, cycling mostly stresses the quad muscles. However, I'm surprised how many people seem to hold the view cycling will build leg muscle. The reverse is probably more true. Endurance training and thousands of pedal strokes on a daily basis will make the legs thinner since more muscle is broken down than can be repaired.
There are some people who will build leg mass regardless of that but I doubt it will be enough to create an imbalance.
If you feel there is any imbalance, try doing leg-curls on a machine and training the lower back is useful as back muscles are drawn on when you ride hard.

mattjf said:

Another quick question for the board. A few years ago, I used to be a runner. Started running for fun, like I did with biking, but then it became competitive. I started doing races and was decent at it. Now I want to start bike racing. My concern though is, back when I was running, I would strength train for muscle imbalances. I wasn't trying to add muscle weight, but instead make sure that my shin muscles were not weak relative to my calf muscle. Is there such a concern for cyclists? I haven't noticed anything yet, but I haven't been training seriously for racing. Do I need to worry about my thigh muscle being strong while my quads are weak? Any other possible sources of imbalances?

-Matt

Carrera said:

So far as I'm aware, cycling mostly stresses the quad muscles. However, I'm surprised how many people seem to hold the view cycling will build leg muscle.

I think we might've had this "discussion" a year ago.....🙂

I'm surprised by people who have your view.

We shouldn't generalize from our own experiences, should we? I would say that people with mesomorphic tendencies are most likely to experience some (at least initial) quad hypertrophy from cycling, provided the intensity is high enough (max sprints, hill sprints, etc), and caloric/protein & recovery requirements are met.

You must know cyclists with huge thighs that have never done weights.

My experience, as a twenty year old, was that my thighs "ballooned" almost 2 inches during the first few months of me beginning a sprint training routine. My legs then plataued and have probably been the same size for the last 15 years, although I don't measure them anymore :p

"You must know cyclists with huge thighs that have never done weights."

The ones that fit that description I recall dropping like proverbial bad habits on the climbs. They usually tend to be too cumbersome and heavy boned. The ones to watch, I think, are the skinny, light riders who put in a lot of miles. I recall one who came whizzing past me at about 25 mph and it was tough holding his wheel.

In short, in my particular zone, the riders with big legs don't tend to be as good as the leaner club-riders and these guys tend to do so many miles, they have a tendency to stay lean. Certainly Lance Armstrong doesn't have huge legs and his body type is mesomorphic.

I agree with you that some riders (or especially sprinters) will get some increase in quad development but, as a general rule, thousands of pedal strokes over long periods of time doesn't trigger muscle growth in the average person. This is especially the case, I think, if you ride every day.

Having said that, I do detect an increase in my own quad girth since I moved to bigger gear riding and maybe due to the fact I still squat once a week and throw in rest days. Plus, I'm not a marathon style rider and opt for two hour burns instead.

So, I agree with you up to a point.

531Aussie said:

I think we might've had this "discussion" a year ago.....🙂

I'm surprised by people who have your view.

We shouldn't generalize from our own experiences, should we? I would say that people with mesomorphic tendencies are most likely to experience some (at least initial) quad hypertrophy from cycling, provided the intensity is high enough (max sprints, hill sprints, etc), and caloric/protein & recovery requirements are met.

You must know cyclists with huge thighs that have never done weights.

My experience, as a twenty year old, was that my thighs "ballooned" almost 2 inches during the first few months of me beginning a sprint training routine. My legs then plataued and have probably been the same size for the last 15 years, although I don't measure them anymore :p

Carrera said:

The ones that fit that description I recall dropping like proverbial bad habits on the climbs. They usually tend to be too cumbersome and heavy boned.

yeah, they tend to be "criterium specialists"

531Aussie said:

... I would say that people with mesomorphic tendencies are most likely to experience some (at least initial) quad hypertrophy from cycling, provided the intensity is high enough (max sprints, hill sprints, etc), and caloric/protein & recovery requirements are met.

You must know cyclists with huge thighs that have never done weights.

My experience, as a twenty year old, was that my thighs "ballooned" almost 2 inches during the first few months of me beginning a sprint training routine. My legs then plataued and have probably been the same size for the last 15 years, although I don't measure them anymore :p

I'm a meso-endomorph (or maybe an endo-mesomorph? :o ) and I have gained a decent amount of leg muscle by doing exclusively cycling. And I'm not talking about sprint training either. I mean by doing 4 to 5 days per week of anywhere from 70% to 85% MaxHR type stuff. My quads actually measure slightly greater in diameter now than they did when I was into doing squats, deadlifts, hack squats, leg presses and extensions (i.e. powerlifting and bodybuilding) consistently 20some years ago.

Spring '04 while doing 2 hours of stationary cycling at a local gym I was talking to a rather large guy (easily 275 to 300 lbs. I weighed 225 to 230 at the time) next to me and we were discussing our goals. At the time my goal was to complete a first century. The guy's immediate response was "I bet that chews up a lot of muscle." Perhaps in his case this is true but not in mine. It's been a personal observation of mine that many strength oriented people cringe at the thought of any aerobic training so this "chewing up muscle" mentality is probably part of thier programming.

Please note that these are my personal observations & circumstances as I've known ectomorphs that could squat until blue in the face, drink Weider weight gain shakes, pig out at every meal and they would never build up more than modestly. An old college buddy of mine fit that exact description. He was the best training partner I ever had and was willing to commit to it more than most people I've known, but his genetic bodytype just wouldn't allow the poor guy to gain much in the way of size and strength.

This Winter I plan to get serious with the weights and let the cycling take a back seat for a while. Getting a little bored with it I suppose. Now if I can just find a decent inexpensive gym that had plenty of great leg equipment and doesn't play loud horrible music and I'll be set. I'd rather listen to country than the spew that comes accross these top 40 stations. Kill me now!

mattjf said:

Another quick question for the board. A few years ago, I used to be a runner. Started running for fun, like I did with biking, but then it became competitive. I started doing races and was decent at it. Now I want to start bike racing. My concern though is, back when I was running, I would strength train for muscle imbalances. I wasn't trying to add muscle weight, but instead make sure that my shin muscles were not weak relative to my calf muscle. Is there such a concern for cyclists? I haven't noticed anything yet, but I haven't been training seriously for racing. Do I need to worry about my thigh muscle being strong while my quads are weak? Any other possible sources of imbalances?

-Matt

Thighs and quads aren't the same? 😕

I don't think you'll have anything to worry about. If something does crop up then you could modify your approach.

Any strength imbalance, if it becomes large enough, will cause injury. That is my belief. I had a lot of problems until I started to do ad and abduction exercises for my legs, to improve the inner and outer thigh.

I also suffer from a severely dominant right-side, which needs correcting this off-season. I also intend to bring up my core conditioning for better power transfer.

I personally find that if I do one full body workout a week and cycle the rest of the time, I tend to gain weight slightly. But in order for my legs to stay big, rest days have to be thrown in too.
This week, for example, I did loads of cycling, working in big gears and doing 30 mile training runs. On top of that, I blitzed to work and back.
Last night I did my Mentzer style weights session that's working well for me. This consisted of:
(1)Squats 3 sets of high reps with 225 pounds on an Olympic bar.
(2)Bench press (4 sets to failure).
(3)Chins (4 sets to failure)
(5)Overhead military presses (3 sets)
That was it!
The above seems ridiculously brief and curtailed but I'm finding I get fantastic results from it. Somehow the hours of cycling I do prior to this makes me far more receptive to the shock of an aggressive weights session. After this session I slept for 11 hours and will be taking today off to rest and recuperate.
But we need to bear in mind I'm not training for the TDF or anything like that. A TDF cyclist carries very little muscular mass and the average bicep measurement averages around 12 inches or so. Neither do I see TDF riders as carrying much in the way of leg muscle mass. This is because the guys ride some 6 - 8 hours a day and are strictly geared to endurance training.
With my weight being around 197 pounds the TDF would destroy me as I don't cycle in order to be a marathon style rider. My cycling training is kind of hard and I max out my effort occasionally for 2 hours. This week I did some 30 miles of climbing and descending within 1 hour and 15 minutes. The pace was so fast I was blinded by sweat and passing every other rider I encountered up in the hills.
But a 5 hour ride would kill me.

Doctor Morbius said:

I'm a meso-endomorph (or maybe an endo-mesomorph? :o ) and I have gained a decent amount of leg muscle by doing exclusively cycling. And I'm not talking about sprint training either. I mean by doing 4 to 5 days per week of anywhere from 70% to 85% MaxHR type stuff. My quads actually measure slightly greater in diameter now than they did when I was into doing squats, deadlifts, hack squats, leg presses and extensions (i.e. powerlifting and bodybuilding) consistently 20some years ago.

Spring '04 while doing 2 hours of stationary cycling at a local gym I was talking to a rather large guy (easily 275 to 300 lbs. I weighed 225 to 230 at the time) next to me and we were discussing our goals. At the time my goal was to complete a first century. The guy's immediate response was "I bet that chews up a lot of muscle." Perhaps in his case this is true but not in mine. It's been a personal observation of mine that many strength oriented people cringe at the thought of any aerobic training so this "chewing up muscle" mentality is probably part of thier programming.

Please note that these are my personal observations & circumstances as I've known ectomorphs that could squat until blue in the face, drink Weider weight gain shakes, pig out at every meal and they would never build up more than modestly. An old college buddy of mine fit that exact description. He was the best training partner I ever had and was willing to commit to it more than most people I've known, but his genetic bodytype just wouldn't allow the poor guy to gain much in the way of size and strength.

This Winter I plan to get serious with the weights and let the cycling take a back seat for a while. Getting a little bored with it I suppose. Now if I can just find a decent inexpensive gym that had plenty of great leg equipment and doesn't play loud horrible music and I'll be set. I'd rather listen to country than the spew that comes accross these top 40 stations. Kill me now!

By the way, you should have seen where I trained in Latvia. There was a crumbling gym built into a huge tennis court and nobody hardly used the gym. All you had was a bench press stand and squat stands with square-weight dumbells. And when you showered the water was brown.
Still there was an indoor bar where vodka and coffee was served.

Doctor Morbius said:

I'm a meso-endomorph (or maybe an endo-mesomorph? :o ) and I have gained a decent amount of leg muscle by doing exclusively cycling. And I'm not talking about sprint training either. I mean by doing 4 to 5 days per week of anywhere from 70% to 85% MaxHR type stuff. My quads actually measure slightly greater in diameter now than they did when I was into doing squats, deadlifts, hack squats, leg presses and extensions (i.e. powerlifting and bodybuilding) consistently 20some years ago.

Spring '04 while doing 2 hours of stationary cycling at a local gym I was talking to a rather large guy (easily 275 to 300 lbs. I weighed 225 to 230 at the time) next to me and we were discussing our goals. At the time my goal was to complete a first century. The guy's immediate response was "I bet that chews up a lot of muscle." Perhaps in his case this is true but not in mine. It's been a personal observation of mine that many strength oriented people cringe at the thought of any aerobic training so this "chewing up muscle" mentality is probably part of thier programming.

Please note that these are my personal observations & circumstances as I've known ectomorphs that could squat until blue in the face, drink Weider weight gain shakes, pig out at every meal and they would never build up more than modestly. An old college buddy of mine fit that exact description. He was the best training partner I ever had and was willing to commit to it more than most people I've known, but his genetic bodytype just wouldn't allow the poor guy to gain much in the way of size and strength.

This Winter I plan to get serious with the weights and let the cycling take a back seat for a while. Getting a little bored with it I suppose. Now if I can just find a decent inexpensive gym that had plenty of great leg equipment and doesn't play loud horrible music and I'll be set. I'd rather listen to country than the spew that comes accross these top 40 stations. Kill me now!

Doctor Morbius said:

Thighs and quads aren't the same? 😕

I don't think you'll have anything to worry about. If something does crop up then you could modify your approach.

Oops. Hate it when you write a sentence, makea bunch of changes, and words from the previous change stay stuck in there.

-Matt