What one hill taught me about real fitness.

TRAINING BREAKDOWN

“It was a harsh lesson, but a helpful one.”

By Emma O’Toole

Hi there,

When I first got into cycling nearly two decades ago, I was hooked on spinning.

The sweat, the music, the buzz of working hard in a room full of people pushing themselves. I loved it. I’d leave each class absolutely wrecked and be proud of it.

So naturally, I thought I was getting fitter, stronger, and better on the bike.

That was until I got out on the road.

8 miles into a ride, I hit a hill with a max gradient of 13.5%. I’ll never forget grinding over the top of it. I had nothing left. My legs were fried, my lungs burning, and all that studio fitness evaporated as soon as the tarmac tilted up.

It was humbling.

Because all those hours in the spin studio didn’t prepare me for the real demands of riding outdoors.

They gave me fitness, sure, but not strength, not durability, not the type of power you need to steadily climb, hold form when your legs are screaming, or finish strong after a long day in the saddle.

It was a harsh lesson, but a helpful one.

Why am I telling you this?

I’m telling you this because this is the same mistake I see runners and cyclists making with their “strength training”.

High-rep circuits, strength classes, bodyweight HIIT sessions that feel brutal, but don’t improve performance and robustness.

And it gets called “strength training.”

They chase sweat, soreness and the burn from banded clamshells, but that’s not the kind of training that builds the strength your body actually needs. Just like spinning wasn’t the same as real cycling.

There’s nothing wrong with bodyweight squats and clamshells and there’s nothing wrong with working hard.

Those movements have a place. They can be fantastic as part of your warm-up, your activation, or your movement prep. But if that’s where your strength training starts and ends, you’re not building the kind of strength that improves your 10k time or help keeps you injury-free when the kilometres add up.

And that sweaty, “I’ve worked hard” feeling? You can (and should) still get it. However, now it comes from loading up a weight that pushes you for 4, or 8 reps. It comes from holding your form under tension while you’re at the bottom of a Romanian Deadlift exercise. It comes from doing the kind of work that actually transfers to the road or the trail.

What does that actually look like?

Let’s take running, for example:

If your stride breaks down at the end of long runs, or your knees ache every time you go downhill, you don’t need another glute band circuit. You need eccentric control, muscle and tendon strength, and the ability to produce force under fatigue.

Or for cyclists:

If your lower back tightens during hard efforts, or you lose power on climbs, it’s likely a core and posterior chain issue. Planks and crunches won’t fix that, but deadlifts, split squats, and rotational work can.

Strength training for runners and cyclists is about building tissue capacity, motor control, and joint stability to support high training volumes and repeated force production.

A good strength plan should:

• Target the muscles most involved in running and cycling (think glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves, core (not just biceps or traps).

• Include progressive overload meaning it gets more challenging over time as you adapt (and no, this is not just through lifting heavier).

• Be structured around your running and cycling training, not just randomly added.

Strength training fills the gaps that running and cycling alone don’t cover. It makes your body more robust, more efficient, and more resilient to the repetitive stress of endurance training.

And when done well, it doesn’t compete with your sport, it complements it. You’re lifting so you can run better, ride stronger, recover faster and fundamentally to train consistently, year after year.

That lesson I learned crushed at the top of Nomansland hill? It’s stuck with me ever since.

Now it’s your turn to take it with you and rethink your strength training.

Check out our fantastic free community for ongoing support and help with your training - this week we’ve been really leaning into your “why”.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday!

Emma x

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