What a 2025 Meta-Analysis Found That Most Cyclists Are Ignoring
A new meta-analysis published in 2025 in the European Journal of Applied Physiology reviewed 17 studies covering 262 trained cyclists. Sixty of those were women. The interventions ran anywhere from 5 to 25 weeks, with participants doing one to three strength sessions per week. The researchers were looking at what heavy strength training actually does to the things that determine cycling performance.
Here's what they found.
Heavy strength training produced significant improvements in cycling efficiency — meaning you produce more power for the same oxygen cost. It produced significant improvements in anaerobic power, the kind you need to respond to attacks, close gaps, and punch over climbs. And it produced significant improvements in time trial performance and time to exhaustion tests.
And it had no significant negative effect on VO2 max. None.
That last point matters because for years the fear was that lifting heavy would make you bulkier, hurt your power-to-weight ratio, and drag your aerobic fitness down. In trained cyclists, the data just doesn't back that up. Better efficiency, more power, better race performance — and your aerobic capacity stays intact.
So if you're over 40 and spending every available training hour on the bike, you're leaving a lot of performance on the table.
Why This Matters More After 40 Than It Does at 25
After age 40, you lose roughly 8% of your muscle mass per decade. That's published research, not opinion. After 70, the rate nearly doubles to around 15% per decade.
But it's not just total muscle mass. The fibers you lose fastest are your type 2 fibers — your fast-twitch muscle fibers. These are the ones responsible for explosive power, surges, closing gaps, standing on a steep climb and actually accelerating rather than just grinding over the top. Research shows that type 2 fibers can be 10 to 40% smaller in older adults compared to younger ones. They physically shrink. And if you're not doing anything to stimulate them, they keep going in that direction.
On top of that, VO2 max declines with age. For sedentary people, it drops roughly 10 to 12% per decade from age 40. If you're training well, you can cut that roughly in half — around 5 to 6% per decade. But even at the reduced rate, you're still declining. And if life gets busy and your training drops to mostly moderate intensity riding, the decline accelerates.
So you've got muscle disappearing, fast-twitch fibers shrinking, and your aerobic ceiling slowly coming down. What most cyclists do in response is ride a bit more. Same sessions, same effort, just more volume. That's exactly the wrong response.
The meta-analysis answered this question directly. More time on the bike isn't the solution here. It's how you spend the time off it.
Why Heavy Strength Training Actually Transfers to the Bike
Heavy strength training is one of the only ways to preserve and rebuild type 2 muscle fibers. Zone 2 riding won't do it. Even threshold intervals don't fully address this. The only way to maintain the fibers responsible for power and force production is to load them heavily. That means squats, deadlifts, leg press — heavy compound movements.
The research points to three specific reasons this transfers to better cycling.
First, cycling efficiency improves. Your muscles get better at producing force, so each pedal stroke requires less metabolic cost. You're doing the same work with less effort. Over a two-hour ride or a four-hour road race, that adds up.
Second, rate of force development improves. That's how quickly your muscles can generate power. It's what lets you respond to surges, accelerate out of corners, and push over the top of a climb instead of getting slowly gapped. This is also one of the first things to decline with age, which is why older riders often feel like they've lost that snap even when their endurance feels fine.
Third, fatigue resistance improves. When your muscles are stronger, every pedal stroke represents a smaller percentage of your maximum capacity. The last hour of a ride feels different when your legs have reserves they didn't have before.
For riders over 40, the benefit is equal to or potentially greater than it is for younger riders, because you're actively fighting muscle loss that 25-year-olds don't have to think about yet. This isn't just an add-on. It's a direct countermeasure to the things that are actually slowing you down.
The Exact Protocol the Research Supports
The studies in the meta-analysis used one to three sessions per week. For trained cyclists specifically, two sessions per week appears to be the sweet spot — enough to drive meaningful adaptation without wrecking your recovery for riding.
Here's what a session looks like:
- Exercises: Barbell squats, leg press, Romanian deadlifts, step-ups, calf raises. Heavy compound movements, lower body focus.
- Volume: 3 to 4 exercises, 3 to 4 sets each.
- Reps and load: 4 to 6 reps at high load. The load should sit in the 4 to 10 rep max range — meaning the weight is genuinely challenging by the fourth to sixth rep. If you can comfortably do 12 reps, the weight is too light.
- Time: 30 to 40 minutes per session.
This isn't bodybuilding. You're not doing sets of 15 with light weights. You're lifting heavy with good form and full recovery between sets. The load is the point. Light strength training does not produce the same adaptations. The studies that showed the biggest improvements used loads in that 4 to 10 rep max range.
Two sessions a week, 30 to 40 minutes each. That's roughly an hour and a half per week. If you're currently spending 10 hours on the bike, trading two of those for the gym might be the single most effective swap you make.
The Mistake That Wipes Out Every Gain You've Built
Here's something the research is very clear on that most cyclists get completely wrong.
If you stop strength training for 6 to 8 weeks, the key adaptations — power output, rate of force development — return to baseline. They disappear. You're back to where you started.
This is why the off-season block approach fails almost every time. Cyclists do a few months of gym work in winter, feel the difference in spring, then drop it entirely when the race season starts. By mid-summer, the gains are gone.
The good news is that you don't need to keep doing two sessions a week year-round to hold onto what you've built. Research shows you can maintain most of the adaptations with as little as one session per week. One session. But you have to keep going. You cannot bank it and walk away.
For scheduling, give yourself at least 48 hours between a heavy strength session and a key workout or race. A lot of riders find it works well to stack strength sessions on the same day as interval sessions rather than the day before or after a key ride. There's some individual preference here and it takes a bit of trial and error to find what works for your week.
Key Takeaways
- A 2025 meta-analysis of 17 studies and 262 trained cyclists found heavy strength training significantly improves cycling efficiency, anaerobic power, and time trial performance with no negative effect on VO2 max.
- After age 40, you lose roughly 8% of muscle mass per decade, with type 2 fibers shrinking 10 to 40% compared to younger adults — heavy strength training is one of the only ways to counter this.
- Two sessions per week is the optimal frequency for trained cyclists.
- Each session: 3 to 4 exercises, 3 to 4 sets, 4 to 6 reps, at a load of 4 to 10 rep max. 30 to 40 minutes total.
- Adaptations disappear within 6 to 8 weeks of stopping — you cannot do a winter block and coast through the season.
- One session per week is enough to maintain the gains you've built once you're there.
If you want coaching that actually applies this research to your training — structured programming, strength sessions built around your riding week, the lot — apply here: roadmancycling.com/apply
