Cyclocross is a demanding sport because it requires a variety of full body movements off-the bike including lifting and rotation. There are several exercises that can be included to ensure you have movement skill and capacity to perform in each race this season.
Don’t forget Specificity
Our first best advice is to use the actual sport to help you prepare for the demands!
With all our Cyclocross Training Plans and with the athletes we coach for cyclocross we emphasize time on the cyclocross bike and specific rides where skills are executed repeatedly on a short course. The Short cyclocross course forces many (100+) skill repetitions in the ride.
I remember riding around my parent’s house for an hour twice a week as cross season came so that I could get a huge number of repeats of dismounts/mounts, carries, shoulders and corners (and yes ruin the grass around my parent’s home! This really biases the skill/agility/mobility/strength required for cyclocross and helps prepare your body for the loads of a race. If you are used to dismounting 50-100x in training then 8 laps with 2 dismounts is not a big deal for your body.
Get a Cyclocross Training Plan that includes strength!
Strength Training to Further Build your Cyclocross Capacity
We believe that strength training is an effective and often convenient way to build your body up to resist and produce force. You could ‘just ride’ but the reality is that most adult/masters cyclists can’t put in huge hours and a quick routine can expose you to more range of motion and loads then most things you will do on a bike.
1) Alternating Bent Over Dumbbell Row
-> I love this exercise because it challenges the back/torso to remain stable against the alternating rotational forces of the dumbbell row and the hanging weight . These forces are not unlike the challenge of maintaining your posture on the bike while pedaling hard and while pulling on the handlebars to sprint.
*This could be done as a ‘renegade row’ in the top of a pushup position if you find this awkward or painful.
2) Farmer’s Carry and Suitcase Carry
-> Nothing makes a 16 pound Cyclocross bike seem extra-light after carrying 1/2 bodyweight (or more) dumbbells around. Start with a Dumbbells in each hand and walk out and back 10-50m. The point is more the weight being moved and less about the distance traveled. Keep your shoulders back and torso upright. Try and make it look like the weights aren’t heavy. These carries also make airport travel much less stressful and easy to recover from. Make sure you challenge the weight you use once you are comfortable lifting the weight up to carry. Learning to handle heavier weights before you need them for other exercises makes progressing in your other lifts quicker.
3) Overhead Press
-> A classic upper body movement that will help you in shouldering and also for your remount. While not quite as specific as some of the other movements I think working on basic pushing mechanics and challenging your shoulder range of motion have many benefits beyond pushing your bike up a hill or off your shoulder.Watch that your belly stays tight and your back doesn’t compensate for limited shoulder range of motion. This can be done alternating as well for additional challenge to that stable torso.
4) Split Squat
Barrier hopping is often limited by hip flexion and extension (e.g. we can’t do the splits). The better you can get into a split stance, the better you can hurdle step over the barriers, which means a more athletic, efficient and consistent run over the barriers. (this is a great hurdle step in a classic picture of Jeremy Powers). A great way to improve hip range of motion is with split squat or lunges. Many athletes who haven’t done much strength can start this unweighted and progress range of motion or load or reps each week.
5) Hurdles / High Steps / Step-ups of some kind
Strength training generally will help with coordination and speed but it is well supported to work on some form of jumping and eventually plyometrics (repeated jumping). We like skipping (jump rope) or just pogo hops (ankle focused hopping without the jump rope). This could look like stair sets running, or box jumps or other types of jumps but the key here is to keep the total dose reasonable. Usually around 50 impacts is a good place to work. 5 sets of 10 jumps done every minute on the minute for 5 minutes is a great way to finish off off the workout or work the jumps into a circuit with the exercises above! It is amazing how some practice jumping makes the cyclocross barriers look tiny and very familar!
