Numerous variables are a factor to successful cycling, including the bike, appropriate training, mental toughness and proper nutrition. Principally, cycling is most dependent on the ability to generate power to the pedals. Power is dynamic and since your legs do most of the work, there are abundant training workouts done on the bike that focus on amping up that powerful pedal stroke. However, cyclists really rely on the capability to create pedaling power from where power originates . . . the abdominals and lower back. A strong core provides a sturdy platform for the lower body to drive power transfer to the pedals. Simply put, cycling relies on core strength but does not develop or sustain it. Therefore, it is critical to strengthen the core off the bike to maximize your power potential on the bike.

I train with a Pilates expert weekly to develop this core of power (Egg for Power™), which in turn enhances the on-the-bike power potential. As a coach, I encourage all of my clients to work with an expert in Pilates; to put the icing on the cake to their power-based training workouts. Pilates is an effective way to boost core strength, flexibility and power transfer. Pilates conditioning is guaranteed to develop the cycling positions innermost abdominal muscles in which the saddle, pedals and handlebars support your weight. Pilate’s expert Kathleen Conklin, owner of Pilates Spa, explains your “Egg for Power™” and key dynamic movements designed to stretch, strengthen and balance the body.

Think of your power as coming from an egg shape. The ‘small end’ of the egg is the pelvic floor and the big end of the egg is the diaphragm with which you do most of your breathing. Physiologically, the functional “core” is considered to be comprised of that pelvic floor and diaphragm, in conjunction with the Multifidi and the Transversus. The latter, the Transverse Abdominus, is the deepest of what we consider to be the four layers of abdominal wall. It wraps all the way around to the connective tissue at the spine. Generally, each Multifidus is a set of muscles connecting each vertebrae in the spine to the next.

When we refer to your Egg for Power™, though, and not just the core, we include the back muscles between the lower rib cage and the top edge of the pelvis. The cool thing is that those muscles, which support your spine in the back, are also your breathing muscles. They assist inhaling during exercise.

If you have your Egg for Power™ engaged, you have much more muscle strength and synergistic capacity than if you are just using your legs and back to power the pedals. When you use your Quadriceps to turn the pedals, the muscles pull the hip-bones forward in space. This in turn pulls the lower spine forward in space and the back muscles tighten. Here, the position of the body on the bike forces the lumbar spine into a backward (upward) curve. So the muscles are taut while working. The discs between the vertebrae are being squeezed in a flawed direction, encouraging your belly to hang out, adding weight to the problem.

To turn this bike position into bike power, turn on your Egg for Power™. Sitting on the bike, attempt to curl the pubic bone to the base of your throat. It is like pulling the bike seat forward with your pelvic floor. Note whether you are doing this by tightening your hip-flexors, and then let go of those. Practice by letting the legs hang and just pulling the seat forward with your pelvic floor, your pubic bone, your sitbones. You want to pull your bellybutton up to your spine, activating Transversus. Think of having a belt around your waist, right at your navel, and visualize someone gently pulling up on the belt. If you don’t do this, you are just using your Abdominus Rectus and that pulls other belly muscles away from the spine rather than supporting it. If you pull up Transversus, the Obliques get to help flex the spine.

Curling the tailbone and sitbones forward, engages the functional power of the abdominal muscles from one end of the muscles. You should condition the muscles to that powerful action from the other end as well. That is, pull the handlebars back toward the pelvis. By keeping your arms unlocked, the work comes from the top of the External Obliques and other anterior (front of the body muscles).

Imagine or visualize yourself on your bike from a sideview. Picture a circle running the line of your spine, through your arms, through the bike frame, up through the seat, through your pelvic bones to connect again with the spine. This is a seamless, unbroken closed system of muscle connection. Your body uses the stability of the frame of the bike itself. You power along within the bike rather than on top of it – and being within something is much more stable than balancing on top of it.

You can add a concentric circle of power by pulling the pedals up the backstroke. Then the hamstrings are engaged with the abdominals and Egg for Power™, rather than just using the Quadriceps which overwork the back muscles.

To strengthen your core off the bike, a Pilates Reformer can be used, which can oftentimes be found at your local gym.  Although there are several exercises to enhance core strength, the following two techniques are key.

Using the Pilates reformer: Elephant

A full body exercise on the Reformer which closely approximates the functional muscle work on the bike, is the “Elephant”. It may not look like the position on the bike, but the abdominals are working in their support of a flexed spine; the hamstrings are working in their support of a full pedal stroke independent of moving or relying on the lumbar spine especially; and the power supplied by the arms through the shoulder girdle and latissimus dorsi can be fully conditioned.

Stand dorsi-flexed at the ankle on the Reformer bed, with heels against the shoulder rests and pressed deeply into the mat, and toes dorsi-flexed, or pulled up. Hands are wrapped around the footbar as if holding your handlebars. You should be “light on the wrists”. That is, pull up from your spine and abs so that your body weight is not sliding down your arms into the collapsed bones of the wrist. The wrist angle is almost as straight as if you had a wrist-guard on.

Practice:

First pull the carriage toward the footbar until it stops. Hold this. Notice the abdominals working to keep the carriage from moving even the least little bit from the home position. Keep the abdominals enaged up toward the spine; think of pulling the pubic bone toward the navel and the forehead to the knees. With that unwaivering engagement, press the shoulder rests backward one inch with the hamstrings and gluteals. Repeat 8 times. For variation, pull one thigh bone straight up against the chest wall and repeat 8 times. Practice again on the other leg. A final variation, called an “Arabesque”, is the full extension of one leg out behind you and up in parallel without rotation of the hip. Press the standing leg back one inch and control the return stroke.

Using the JumpBoard of the Reformer:

One of the most powerful ways to strengthen your center, your Egg for Power™, is to get ‘airtime’. Vertical jumping is airtime. Vertical jumping is a fight with gravity and jars your organs and impacts the joints and distends the abdomen if you are not aligned properly. Horizontal jumping is a dance with gravity, allows the joints to act like the fluid hydraulic systems that they are, permits the organs to lie in their proper relationship to each other, and gives immediate feedback to alignment and works the daylights out of your Powerhouse (Joe Pilates defined as abdominal muscles, lower back and buttocks). Start with back pressed flat, neck long but not arched, pelvis not over-tucked. Feet are in a “V” position, heels pressed together, big-toe knuckles only a couple of inches apart. The knees are aligned over the second toe, which creates lateral rotation in the leg bones at the hips, or “turnout.” Carriage and footbar should be set so that in the start position, your knees are not right over your hips. Use one light spring and one medium spring.

Practice:
Begin the move by pressing the heels to the jumpboard.
~Then extend the knees.
~Then lift the heels.
~Lower the heels.
~Bend the knees keeping the heels down on the jumpboard as long as possible (they will lift at the end of the stroke).
~Repeat a few times to get the sense of using the legs like hydraulic pumps, to move the legs fluidly through the positions, and to notice keeping the back flat through the move.
~Hint: pull the feet downward on the face of the jumpboard to be sure you are using the hamstrings equally with the quadriceps. But then don’t let the legs drop lower when you are in the ‘air.’

Jumping with two legs:

Next, actually add enough power to jump and leave the jumpboard.
Move through all of the positions above.
When you are in the ‘air’, feet off the board and carriage flowing through space, work the back of your legs and keep the back absolutely still and the belly absolutely still and flat.
Jump twenty times continuously.

Take the light spring off.
Turn the legs to parallel.
Pull your belly into your back (pull, don’t suck).
Fold one leg up over your belly, using your abdominals and Psoas (big flexor muscle which is attached at top four vertebrae of your lumbar –lower back- spine and the lowest vertebra of your thoracic spine where your ribs articulate, and runs through the groin to attach at the back of the top of your femur – thigh bone).
Move through the ankle and knee joint as above, pressing through the heel, lifting the heel, landing on the jumpboard and keeping the heel down as much as possible. Switch to the other leg after twenty jumps.

Making it more difficult:
Exchange the medium spring for the light spring. So you have one light spring hooked on. Lighter spring creates less drag on the carriage so it takes longer to return to Start or resting position. You are ‘in the air’ longer, which requires more work from your belly for a longer time. This is the physics of Less is More. Less spring is more work!

It is the little things that you do in the now, that are critical later. By incorporating the proper alignment of the pelvis and strengthening the core body muscles used in cycling you will strengthen the foundation where power originates to maximize your power potential.

Resource:
Egg for Power™ Kathleen Conklin
Kathleen Conklin is the Owner of Pilates Spa, Madison WI; studied at Pilates Studio of the Midwest in Evanston, IL; The Pilates Center in Boulder, CO; University of WI
www.Pilatesspa.com

Angie Sturtevant
Specialists in Sports Performance, LLC
Saris Cycling Group Fitness Education Director
CycleOps Power Master Training Specialist
USAC Elite Level 1 Cycling & Power Based Coach; USAT Triathlon Coach
ACE & AFAA Trainer and Continuing Education Provider
Metabolic Testing Specialist