Muscle 'pump' in quads

EarlofBarnet
EarlofBarnet Posts: 673
edited September 2010 in Health, fitness & training
I've been doing a few more miles on the bike recently to try and improve my stamina and my cardio fitness. However, after doing a lot of weight training for over two years I'm finding that my quads are pumping up on the climbs and make it quite hard to keep pushing the pedals round.

Will my muscles in my quads adapt if I keep pushing on and training them on the bike?

It's a really annoying problem and I can't seem to get the blood flowing away from my legs to make them loosen up a bit. They just go hard and make pedalling with any effort nearly impossible. I guess my legs are used to lifting weights and they just need to adapt to cycling again?

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

Comments

  • Chingbling
    Chingbling Posts: 35
    Basically your quads are likely overdeveloped at the mo towards fast twitch movements like weight training.
    I would reduce the weight your lifting and incorporate some spinning during your workout. Maybe do 5mins warmup then fit in what you can (maybe 20mins) of varied resistance spinning at the end.
    Your muscles will adapt quite quickly but don't forget to chuck some calf raises and leg stretches.

    Hope that helps.
  • MountainMonster
    MountainMonster Posts: 7,423
    Yeah it's going to be a problem of them being trained to do only certain workouts. This is why I stopped trainiing my legs a few months ago when weight lifting, I noticed the same thing.

    Squats are quite good, but try to avoid quad presses or anything that works those muscles heavily and you should be ok in a few weeks.
    My London Road
  • EarlofBarnet
    EarlofBarnet Posts: 673
    Thanks veyr much for both your thoughts. I'll drop the weights on my legs at the gym and stick in some more cardio and see how I get on :D

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