Now, if you are looking to increase leg strength and your ability to accelerate fast and sprint, then low-cadence, high-resistance intervals are important for your training. Since your heart and lungs don’t fatigue the same way skeletal muscles do, this shift allows you to keep riding longer before your legs get tired. Pedaling faster reduces the resistance you’re pushing against with each stroke, which shifts a good portion of the stress of pedaling from your leg muscles to your heart and lungs. The trouble is, many of those fibers fatigue quickly, no matter how fit you are. When you pedal slowly, you’re pushing against more resistance with each pedal stroke, which means you have to recruit a lot of muscle fibers in your legs to generate enough power to keep going. Whether ’tis nobler in the legs to pedal hard and slow or to take strokes lightly, and by pedaling fast, save energy? All right, the strained Shakespeare reference aside, the question of whether it’s better to pedal slow or fast depends on your training goals.Įxercise leads to fatigue, and the cadence you use during cycling can affect how fatigue impacts your riding.
