Exercises to Improve Strength for Mountain Biking
Are you a mountain biking enthusiast? Mountain biking can be very enjoyable, but it is pretty challenging, and that is where the fun lies. However, mountain biking takes a lot of strength. This is why many mountain biking enthusiasts are always looking for ways to build strength, especially for their legs.
To be more precise, mountain biking targets your Quadriceps, Glutes, Hamstrings, and Calves. Before you can go ahead with it, you must develop the right strength, and there are many ways to go about it. We will walk you through as many as seven methods of building strength, and we suggest you do each one of these for 5×10 reps.
You wouldn’t have to do all the seven exercises, and you may choose any 3 to 4 exercises as per your requirement and goal.
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Working out on a Treadmill
If you want to develop your leg strength and aren’t familiar with too many exercises, working out on a treadmill would be the easiest and next best thing to do. Just 30 minutes to 1 hour of running on the treadmill could dramatically increase the strength of your legs.
Working out on an Exercise Bike
Working out on an Exercise Bike for about one hour every day can largely strengthen your legs. There are many types of Elliptical bikes around, and getting one good exercise bike helps you a lot in developing the strength you would need in your legs during mountain biking. Finding an excellent Elliptical bike should not be difficult, and we have a comprehensive guide on an elliptical.
Push-ups
Another great exercise to develop strength is doing push-ups, and it can be pretty useful in controlling your bike down a steep descent.
Push-ups help you develop strength in your triceps, shoulders, and pectoral. Even basic push-ups are great for improving strength. Besides, you can try out many variations to make your push-ups more challenging.
Squat
The Squat is excellent for building strength and is pretty popular among fitness enthusiasts. In a Squat, you have to push your hips backward with your knees over your ankles.
Further, you have to have your thighs parallel to the ground, making a straight line from the butt to the head. Just like push-ups, Squat also has many variations, and one popular one is doing Squat by holding a weight.
Plank using dumbbells
Plank puts a lot of emphasis on the back and shoulders. In a plank, you have to have your hips level without putting much force on the shoulders and push out to keep the back strong.
An excellent variation to this is lifting the dumbbells on each side, which helps you engage the back muscles and the arms simultaneously.
Dumbbells lateral raise
In this method, you have to stand in a regular position, holding 10lb dumbbells, and raise your arms straight to form a T.
This will help you with the core and strengthen your arms and shoulders. This will help you handle your bike in any way you want, and you should be easily able to hold a bike even if one is pretty heavy.
Bulgarian Split Squat
Another super effective workout is the Bulgarian Split Squat, and in this workout, you must place one foot on the floor and the other on a bench behind you. Then, holding a 5-10lbs dumbbell in both hands, you must bend your front leg to make 90 degrees.
Next, you could push back up to a straight leg for a rep. This exercise adds a lot of strength to your hip flexors, quads, glutes, and hamstrings.
