Strong Core = Fast Ride

So you want to be a stronger faster cyclist huh?

Well guess what?! The secret is in the core!

Yup that’s right, you need to strengthen your core. Strengthening your core, the foundation for your extremities will help improve posture, reduce injury and prevent fatigue making you fast. It is the one thing that can improve your power with just a little bit of work. It is also detrimental to keeping you comfy in the saddle for long hour rides and important for your economy of motion. Having a strong core will keep you efficient in the saddle and limit your unnecessary energy sapping upper-body movement slowing you down. You’ve seen some riders rocking side to side, yanking aggressively on their handlebars trying to muscle their way up a difficult ascent wasting a ton of energy. This is avoidable with a strong core and will make you more efficient, increase the power to your pedals and make you badass fast.

So what exactly makes up the core? The core muscles include your postural muscles, which includes the muscles of the lower back, abs, hips and glutes.

I created a little 5 min core workout below that you can add into any training routine to improve core strength. I would start out with one set which will take you about 5 min.  These exercises can be performed daily, but if you are new to core training I would start with every other day to give your muscles recovery time. (Progressive-add 2-3 sets giving and or increase duration of each exercise from 30 sec to 45-60 sec. Regressive-start with 15-20 seconds for each exercise and add time each time you do this routine.)