How To Stop Your Legs Hurting From Cycling

Every cyclist knows the struggle of sore legs! While soreness can be a sign of your hard work and progress, it can also make your rides tougher. Luckily, Manon & Conor have some great tips to help you prevent and manage that muscle discomfort!

00:00 How do you prevent sore legs?
00:34 Are sore legs normal?
01:17 Take rest days!
02:19 The Importance of Recovery
02:55 Always Warm Up
03:42 Get your nutrition and hydration right
04:30 Gearing
05:24 Final advice on stopping sore legs

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What did you do to get your sore legs?🦵 Did we miss any tips?

Let us know in the comments down below! 💬

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[gcn]

What has been your worst experience with leg pain after a long ride?

[brokenrecord]

One of the most important things to avoid is getting old.  
If you can stay under 35 years old the whole time you're cycling, you should be good.

[zubayrbhyat]

Yoga and Zone 2. Works great for me. Stopping the grind in the bigger gears also helped.

[HeraldOD]

Just did my first 50km ride and this came at the perfect time!

[struancochrane]

I think you overlooked a key prevention tactic that helps me. A warm down, last 3 to 5km knock it back to bring your heart rate down and flush out your legs somewhat. Finishing the club ride with a sprint to the speed limit sign or the top of the hill, then jumping off, into the cafe or car leads to loads of problems for me the next day. It's an idea to knock it back before a cafe stop say 2km out, I suffer with really badly with cafe legs more akin to rigormotis. All the very best to Manon in her future endeavours, I will miss her contributions on GCN.

[L.amanda]

My "easy, recovery rides" always ended up being "whoops I went too hard rides", so I've started to call them "small ring only rides". That helps me keep a relatively high cadence at an easy gear, no matter what.

[cweaver]

I picked up a more upright bike (Specialized Sirrus) for rest days. I find that I tend to push a little too hard on my road cycle on recovery days while the Sirrus is a more "slow down and enjoy the scenery" sort of ride.

[richardmiddleton]

An easy ride is great for sore legs as is proper nutrition. If I want sore legs (DOMS), I just go out for a run if I haven't run for 2-3 weeks!

[AussieInJapan]

Watching this with sore legs after a morning 62km in the heat a day after a fast 45km morning! Well timed.

Finding as I get older taking time to stretch seems to help.

[drkneesandtoes]

I never got sore legs from cycling no matter how hard or long the ride until I started riding recumbents. First ride on my new machine (recumbent trike) was from Altringham (collecting from the maker) to Kendal (home). A journey of 100+ miles and well within what I was used to on an upright. Even before the end of the ride my hip flexors appeared to have been replaced with rusty bolts. The next day I was pretty much unable to bend my legs as the quads were replaced with burning steel hawsers, my glutes felt like they were on fire with any movement. But from the waist up I was fine - no sore neck, wrists or back. Had a few days' recovery then a week later I rode the recumbent from Kendal to Monte Carlo, through Switzerland so I got chance to descend the Gotthard to Airolo, and didn't have a twinge. Your body's capable of far more than you think.

[jacktuber]

The value in a light spin the day after, or going for a walk, is the blood needs to move more and supply the healing to the legs. Do it if you can, and don't push much at all

[NicoleGarrow]

Thank for this video. I though I had something wrong with me “ my legs gets really sore. “ now I know what to do. 😊

[npdf]

I had a hard couple of sessions earlier this week, achy legs this morning but 30 mins yoga and indoor MyWhoosh endurance 1hr 30 of z2 and a little z3 sorted 😊 🚴🏻Pete

[jameslee-pevenhull]

The cycling action is same as climbing a ladder. "If you can climb a ladder, you can ride a bike up a hill".
The Prime Movers are the Gluteus group. These are really hard to tire. Use the buttocks before any other muscle group. Quads will come in automatic. Tertiary groups are Hamstrings and Iliopsoas together. Calves stabilise the foot.
Don't think so much of pedaling is 'pushing the foot down on the pedal', think of it as pulling the knee down with the hip. Power comes from the hip. Remember, you are climbing a ladder to the handlebars. How many steps per minute would you climb a ladder?

In a nutshell, cycling is NOT twiddling.

[mommamooney]

I had quite sore legs yesterday. Took a hot soak last night and a rest day today

[johne]

Riding too long in the red (not your kit, anaerobically) will do it every time. Back when I was starting this lark 100k through the Vosges (mountains) would leave me stiff for 3 days, though that was probably exacerbated by sitting in an office chair 10 hours/day. Now that I'm old & creaky a decent ride still leaves me stiff for three days, mainly because my aerobic range is down somewhere around my ankles.

[paulbyrne]

I can highly recommend magnesium
Powder in your water bottle as well as electrolyte tablet like a voorst. I also take magnesium before bed- no kore sore legs after long rides

[timtaylor]

more important than warm up is cool down to reduce soreness, then compression in cold water. also incorporating weight training can help reduce leg soreness from the bike, but its always relative to how hard you go on the bike stronger legs means stronger efforts on the bike. like they say cycling doesnt get easier you just get faster.

[walterperuzzi]

More to the point is how to stop my butt hurting from cycling 😂

[Grizzrock]

I find dry needling works amazingly well (I had no luck with acupuncture), far more effective for me than massage/traditional physio