Peloton skipping leg day

allother94

Do I need a leg day if I start riding a peloton hard? Can I skip one of my two current leg days?

Thanks!

sijomial

Depends on your goals but weights and cycling aren't directly interchangeable. Choices have consequences....

I'm a 6,000 miles a year cyclist and rarely do any leg work in the gym but my legs reflect that, they would be a lot bigger/stronger if I did.
(I simply don't have the recovery capacity in the main cycling season to add leg work in the gym.)

Yes a regular cyclist will have stronger / more muscular legs than the general non-exercising public but the effect of working legs hard with 5,100 pedal strokes an hour is very different to working legs with high weight / low reps in the gym.

For your example assuming 2-a-week leg work gives you appropriate intensity and volume then you would be switching to half ideal volume which would be reflected in your results/progress but gain CV fitness and probably high rep strength endurance.

BTW - cyclists with impressively sized legs (Sir Chris Hoy for example) tend to be sprinters and those sprinters will predominantly gain their muscle bulk in the gym and not on the bike.

AnnPT77

Ditto to sijomial. Your goals are the key.

I'm a rower. I'm also old (but I've been rowing for a couple of decades). These days, I don't recover well if I do legs when in my usual alternation of rowing/cycling (boats/trails in Summer, machines in Winter).

I do other strength exercise in my rowing off season (i.e., machine season), and I'd do more of it if I still had serious competitive goals as a rower, even though I frankly don't enjoy strength training in itself, at all. (I'm still serious about decent-ish rowing performance and improving technique, just not pushing for max speed.) Sometimes I back off the row/bike volume a bit in Winter, add some deads and maybe other leg things, 3x a week, for as long as I can tolerate the tedium.)

But my clear priority is rowing, and not max speed even at that. For everyday life, rowing/cycling keeps my legs plenty strong enough for my individual needs. (And I do know how to structure a rowing machine workout to make it a little more strength demanding . . . no, the answer is not "increase resistance setting". Decent rowing machines don't have an actual "resistance" setting, even though many people think that's what the numbered dial is for.) It's still not as good for leg strength as true leg strength work - not as efficient, not as productive for strength per se . . . let alone for building mass.

My sense is that rowing is a little more beneficial for leg strength than cycling, even spin-type cycling with resistance settings . . . but I'm completely, totally biased, so ignore me. 😉

If the goal is preserving muscle during weight loss, probably cycling is enough of a reminder to your body that you want those muscles, so that it won't decide they're optional, and lose mass. Just a guess, though.

SwimBikeRun_Mom

Another cyclist here - remember too that while cycling is a leg workout - you're extremely limited in range of motion, and plane of motion. You would be limiting yourself to just that one movement. I'd encourage keeping lower body strength, do it after or before a peloton ride as a warm up - or right after.

cwolfman13

Another cyclist here...cycling does not replace leg work in the gym. It builds muscular endurance more than size. I was heavy into endurance cycling for awhile and I had to limit my gym leg work for recovery reasons...but my interests were primarily endurance road cycling and the weight room was purely supplemental to my cycling and I tended towards lower weight, high rep leg work in the gym for greater muscular endurance.

sarazintom

Besides working leg muscles, lifts such as dead lifts, squats, and lunges also incorporate muscles in hips, back, shoulders, abs and more. My back sure appreciates it!