You simply work your physique otherwise with the 2 varieties of coaching. With biking, your muscle tissues work repeatedly, however you’re not stressing them with main load. This might help your leg muscle tissues construct muscular endurance, NASM-certified coach and Peloton teacher Jess Sims tells SELF. So hopping on the bike might help construct your leg muscle tissues’ skill to maintain working arduous over a protracted time period.

However, says Sims, “If the purpose is to get robust, I might not advocate to simply take a biking class.”

To try this, you’d want energy coaching: Throughout your working units, you set your muscle tissues underneath lots of load for a comparatively fast period of time: these 5, 8, 12, whatever-it-may-be reps. Then you definitely give them relaxation earlier than you do it over again. This trains them to achieve the sort of energy wanted to deal with these main hundreds—it’s what train scientists name the precept of specificity.

Even when you crank up the resistance as excessive because it goes throughout a hill exercise whereas biking, that may’t evaluate to doing hip thrusts or lunges with heavy weights. “Take into consideration the resistance you placed on a motorbike: I simply did 10,000 reps—you’d by no means do this with weights,” Schneider says. In case you’re capable of pull off 10,000 pedal strokes in a biking class, the load is clearly going to be very totally different from a energy session that asks for simply 10 reps.

All in all? Biking “is certainly not an alternative to a leg day,” Sims says.

However energy coaching will make you a good higher bicycle owner.

Research present that cyclists of all genders can profit from energy coaching. “If you wish to be a stronger bicycle owner, then you must energy prepare,” Schneider says.

Sims factors out that folk who solely cycle miss out on unilateral motion, or workout routines that problem one facet of the physique at a time. That is vital as a result of it’s simple for one facet to choose up additional slack in actions like biking or rowing that use each legs. “Over time, when you don’t right that, then you might be simply including to the dysfunction,” she says. And that may result in damage or pressure because the stronger facet will tackle greater than its fair proportion of the work.

However, when you single out one facet of the physique at a time, you could be deliberate about strengthening each equally so that you don’t find yourself with imbalances. “And when you’ve got stronger quads and hamstrings and glutes, you’re going to have extra energy on the bike,” Sims says.

Energy coaching additionally forces you to maneuver in greater ranges and in additional instructions than the one repetitive movement you do throughout a standard biking session. “If all you do is cycle, you don’t have any lateral motion,” Schneider says, for instance. That implies that your physique is much less ready to deal with the various actions you may encounter in a Zumba class, or on a hike, or whenever you’re attempting to keep away from tripping over your children’ toys.

Energy coaching and biking can complement one another—when you’re strategic.

As Sims places it, “Biking is cardio and energy is energy.” The Bodily Exercise Pointers for Individuals advocate getting at the very least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio (or 75 minutes at vigorous depth) and two or extra days of energy coaching per week. Which means: You should do each sorts of exercises to achieve well-rounded health.