Ready to be a better trials rider? Get stronger.

To get better at bicycle trials riding, nothing beats time spent on the bike. Whether it’s serious practice (or serious goofing off), the way to get better is to log productive hours on your bike. Pick a move that you want to learn. Practice it consistently, and it’ll come. No puzzle there.

But there is another way, off the bike, to improve your riding. It’s simple–get stronger. 

Understanding strength is easy. It’s just your ability to produce force against something. Think of strength this way–it’s how hard you can push or pull on something. That’s it. 

Strength training will give you an improved ability to influence your bike. In simple English, when you are stronger, you’ll better direct the bike to do what you want it to do. 

Take the pedal kick. If you’re learning or practicing it, your nervous system sends a signal for your leg muscles (among many others) to contract and push hard on the pedals to thrust you, and your bike, off the ground. The stronger rider can do this with more force to the pedals, and as a result, can propel you further. 

It gets better. Stronger riders get less fatigued, so they can practice longer. Strength is also correlated with accuracy. Stronger riders are more precise riders. We’ll cover the details of this phenomenon in a future article. 

So how do you get strong? Pick weight lifting movements that train a lot of muscle mass. For 99.99% of us, Squats, Deadlifts and Presses are the most effective strength builders. 

In future articles, we’ll cover the process of getting stronger in more detail. For now, get your mind focused on improving your strength to complement your riding. When you increase your strength, you’ll feel the difference-guaranteed.

Danny has been a strength and conditioning coach since 2004. In that time, he has trained thousands of people to get stronger and to perform better. He was one of the first Americans to become certified in Kettlebell lifting, and has himself certified hundreds of personal trainers across the USA. In addition to getting people strong, he's an author, speaker and consultant for several large nationwide fitness chains. In his spare time, you'll see him riding both bicycle and moto trials. Currently he is the owner and head trainer at Team1Fitness.