Cycling S&C Screen | Foundation, Performance & High Performance

Description

Cycling puts the body in a position almost nothing else does — hips flexed for hours at a stretch, torso held in a fixed forward lean, power delivered through a pattern that looks bilateral but is really an alternating single-leg drive. Generic strength screens don’t know any of that, and they especially don’t know that cyclist glutes are one of the most reliably under-active muscle groups in sport, a direct consequence of sitting in hip flexion for the majority of training volume. This screen is built around what cycling actually does to a body, not a generic athletic template.

Our S&C Screen, is structured as a progressive pyramid, not one fixed battery: Foundation establishes basic movement competency, mobility and strength before anything more demanding is added, and each tier above it is additive. A cyclist who hasn’t yet demonstrated basic single-leg control doesn’t need a reactive-strength or landing-control test any more than they’d need it in any other sport — that testing earns its place once the foundations are there.

Who this is for

Any cyclist — road, gravel or off-road — wanting a genuine dry-land baseline of the mobility, strength and control that actually matters for pedalling position and power delivery. Foundation tier for anyone new to structured S&C or returning after time off the bike, Performance tier once basic competency is demonstrated, High Performance tier for cyclists training at a level where advanced strength, power and (for off-road riders specifically) reactive control under technical terrain genuinely matter.

What’s included, by tier

– Foundation (12 tests) — movement competency (single-leg squat, step-down, single-leg balance, walking lunge), mobility (hip flexor length/Thomas test — the single biggest cycling-relevant mobility marker given hours spent in hip flexion, ankle dorsiflexion, and thoracic rotation in place of a running-specific hamstring test, since cycling cares about tolerating an aero torso position, not stride length), core endurance (side plank, bird dog, dead bug — postural endurance for holding position, not core strength in the abstract), and basic strength (single-leg calf raise, split squat capacity).
– Performance (+11 tests) — additional mobility (hip internal/external rotation, thoracic extension), additional strength (rear-foot-elevated split squat, Nordic hamstring, and hip abduction strength — weighted deliberately heavily here, since glute inhibition from prolonged seated hip flexion is one of the best-documented weaknesses in cycling specifically), and introductory power (countermovement jump, single-leg hop) — a useful baseline even for road cyclists, relevant to standing starts and sprint finishes.
– High Performance — Road (+10 tests) — advanced strength (isometric split squat, soleus endurance) and advanced power (broad jump, single-leg hop for distance). Power and strength depth, with no landing or impact-control content, because road cycling never demands it.
– High Performance — Off-Road/MTB (+10 tests) — advanced strength (isometric split squat) plus landing and reactive control (drop landing, single-leg landing, lateral bound) and dynamic balance under unexpected demand — the technical-terrain-relevant qualities that matter on a trail and don’t exist as a question on the road.

Every bilateral test is scored independently left and right — cycling’s alternating single-leg power delivery makes asymmetry a genuinely common and genuinely important finding, not an edge case.

What you get

A written report with a single 0–100 readiness score, banded from “Ride Ready” down to “Foundation needed,” plus every flagged finding by test, category and side. A separate “ready to progress?” verdict against named competency gates for moving up a tier, checked against your weaker side rather than your average. And at High Performance level, the report is built around the discipline you actually ride — a road cyclist gets a power-and-strength-focused result, an off-road rider gets that plus the landing and reactive-control findings that actually matter on a trail.