'My surgeon told me that without the muscle mass around my neck and shoulders, I would probably have died': Why every cyclist should add strength work to their training

Cyclists will happily spend thousands on carbon upgrades, skip dessert, and dodge the weights room – all in pursuit of the lowest possible weight. On paper, it makes sense: gravity is the enemy, and every extra kilogram is a penalty. But what if this obsession is actually making you slower, weaker and more fragile? A growing body of sports science suggests it is time to flip the script. Instead of asking, “How much muscle can I afford to carry?” the real question should be: “How much muscle can you afford to lose?”

Muscle should not be thought of as ballast holding you back on climbs but rather the engine behind power, resilience and healthy ageing. A new study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine in June was the latest to highlight how regular resistance training can reduce the risk of early death, proving that building strength is not just about riding faster, but staying stronger and healthier for longer.

Chris Gibson and Ellie Black spend much of their working lives trying to change cyclists’ perceptions of strength training. As coaches with Barbells & Bikes, they are acutely aware that many riders still see the gym as the enemy, fearing that lifting weights will make them heavier and slower. “It’s probably the biggest misconception we come across,” says Black. “People think they’ll walk into the gym and come out looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

The duo have a radical view about lifting weights: namely, that it could save your life. Gibson had only been cycling for a few years when he was involved in a catastrophic hit-and-run while descending the Col de l’Iseran in the French Alps. He was left for dead, and spent five-and-a-half months in hospital. “My orthopaedic surgeon told me that without the muscle mass around my neck and shoulders, I would probably have died,” he says.

Not long afterwards, Black suffered a devastating crash in Tenerife, breaking four ribs and sustaining a rare internal ‘degloving’ injury, where her glute muscle tore away from the underlying fascia. “Every orthopaedic surgeon asked the same question: ‘How have you not broken your hip?’” she says. “I genuinely believe it’s because I strength train. I had the muscle mass and bone density to absorb that impact.”

This is not, of course, to suggest that lifting weights makes cyclists crash-proof. But Gibson and Black argue that stronger muscles, denser bones and more resilient connective tissue provide valuable protection when things go wrong, while also speeding up recovery. “Having that structural integrity allows you to recover from inevitable falls much more quickly,” says Gibson. “Ultimately, it gets you back to doing what you love.”

The benefits of weight training extend beyond crash resilience. Cycling is superb for cardiovascular fitness, but because it is non-weight-bearing it does little to maintain bone mineral density. Resistance training helps counter age-related losses in both bone and muscle, reducing the risk of muscle loss (sarcopenia) and improving long-term health.

The fear of becoming “too bulky” remains a major barrier, despite the reality. “Any bodybuilder will tell you how incredibly difficult it is to build significant muscle,” says Gibson. “It requires calorie surpluses and huge volumes of lifting in reps of eight to 12 per set.” For cyclists, the aim is not to add unnecessary mass but to make existing muscle work more effectively: fewer reps at heavier weight.

“The goal is rarely to increase muscle size,” says Black. “It’s to improve the function and capacity of the muscle riders already have.” Much of the early improvement comes from the nervous system ‘learning’ to recruit muscle fibres more efficiently, meaning riders become stronger without dramatically increasing their size. Strength training develops qualities that cycling alone cannot.

Black and Gibson encourage riders to focus on fundamental movements such as squats, hip hinges, pushes, pulls and stability work, using the minimum effective dose to stimulate adaptation without compromising riding. “Cyclists often think a successful gym session is one they crawl out of,” says Gibson, “but strength training isn’t about creating more fatigue. It’s about intent, quality and becoming a more resilient athlete.”

Never mind the performance benefits, there is a health dividend too. “From a health perspective, muscle is not just extra mass,” explains Professor Edward Giovannucci, a specialist in nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in Boston, USA. “It is important for strength, stability, glucose metabolism, physical function and healthy ageing.”

Along with Dr Yiwen Zhang, Giovannucci led the study featured in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, which found that people who performed moderate amounts of resistance training over many years had a 13% lower risk of premature death from all causes, including cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Crucially, these benefits were independent of aerobic exercise, meaning that even committed endurance athletes stand to gain by adding strength training to their weekly routine. “We found that adding resistance training may provide additional benefit across most levels of aerobic activity,” Zhang explains. “For endurance athletes, the goal is not necessarily to build large amounts of muscle, but to preserve enough strength and lean mass to support long-term health.”

That message is reflected in current physical activity guidelines, which recommend combining aerobic exercise with muscle-strengthening activity rather than relying on endurance exercise alone. Scientists are also changing the way they think about muscle itself: not only as the functional tissue driving movement, but as an organ in its own right. “Calling muscle an organ means that it does more than produce movement,” adds Giovannucci. “Skeletal muscle can release signalling molecules called myokines, which may communicate with other tissues, including fat, liver, pancreas, bone, brain, blood vessels and the immune system.”

For cyclists, this means muscle is not only a tool for generating power. It is also part of a broader metabolic and signalling system that influences long-term health. “It doesn’t just help you climb faster – it helps regulate processes throughout the body,” says Giovannucci.

Muscle also plays a vital role in metabolic health. It is one of the body’s largest storage sites for glucose, taking sugar out of the bloodstream, ready for use during exercise. Maintaining muscle mass therefore creates a larger reservoir for glucose, while improving insulin sensitivity, allowing the body to regulate blood sugar more efficiently.

Fitness trainer Theo Calvert helps cyclists to develop strength – and encourages them to broaden their view on muscle. “Muscle regulates energy, glucose and fat metabolism, accounting for 75 to 80% of the body’s post-meal glucose uptake,” he explains. Beyond producing power on the bike, functional muscle improves metabolic health, insulin sensitivity, cardiovascular fitness and immune function. “The goal shouldn’t be maximal size, but sufficient, functional muscle alongside endurance capacity,” says Calvert.

Those qualities become increasingly important as we age. “From our 30s onwards, muscle mass and strength naturally decline, and cycling does little to protect bone health,” adds Calvert. “Resistance training increases the resilience of muscles and tendons that endure thousands of pedal revolutions every week.”

Strength-and-conditioning coach Emma O’Toole of Built to Endure concurs, adding that the biggest misconception among recreational cyclists is that effective gym work requires hours each week. In reality, she says, consistency matters far more than volume.

“Cycling is fantastic for cardiovascular health, but it provides relatively little stimulus to maintain maximal strength, bone mineral density or the load tolerance of muscles, tendons and connective tissue,” says O’Toole. “For the vast majority of recreational cyclists, around 60-90 minutes of well-planned strength training each week is enough.”

O’Toole prescribes sessions built around fundamental movement patterns: squats, hinges, pushes, pulls, presses and core stability. Split squats, Romanian deadlifts, press-ups, rows and shoulder presses all feature regularly, with bodyweight exercises providing an ideal starting point before progressing to dumbbells or barbells.

All the trainers consulted for this feature agree that 90 minutes to two hours per week is an appropriate amount of time for cyclists to dedicate to strength workouts. “This is sufficient for muscle hypertrophy [growth], increased power output, and improved overall efficiency which will directly result in increased performance,” says Black.

“Typically, this is divided into two sessions per week, allowing for sufficient recovery between workouts, and ensuring no impact on cycling performance from excessive fatigue.”

Black suggests allocating 20-30% of total training time to strength work. “During competitive seasons, cyclists may prioritise cardiovascular training to sustain endurance, whereas the off-season provides an opportune time to increase the volume of strength training.” O’Toole echoes this approach.

“I’d much rather see someone complete two 30-45 minute sessions every week throughout the year than spend hours in the gym during winter before abandoning it once the riding season starts.”

Strength training should not be regarded as a rest day activity. “To achieve the desired stimulus, you need to lift with intent and positively stress the body,” insists Black. This means finding a suitable place in your schedule. “If you are combining cycling and lifting on the same day, do so on days with a shorter or easier ride. Ideally leave around three hours between to allow for adequate refuelling.”

Cycling always rewards efficiency, but as you grow older the future of riding longer, stronger and healthier may not come from losing weight – it may come from building more strength. Building and maintaining muscle mass, as the coaches and the research show, is not the enemy of endurance, nor is it a threat to cycling performance. On the contrary, it is precisely what allows cyclists to produce power, absorb impacts, recover from setbacks and continue riding for many years to come.