Quote Originally Posted by zencentury View Post

You don't need a gym membership to build the muscles you need for riding. Your "core" is the base for your extremities, that should be your greatest strength training effort. This does NOT mean sit ups, it means working your transverse abdominus which is the deepest layer of abdominal muscles (hence the "core")
Planks and push ups are good for this but go to http://www.about.com for more
core exercises. Also a good site for cycling info. Actually a pretty good site for almost everything.
Yoga and especially Pilates- great for core strength. Which is VERY important for any activity that requires balance- like riding a bike. I used to dance, and it really makes you feel like you can do just about anything when you have a solid core. Especially lower abs, since a woman's center of gravity is centered there. My core has weakened some in the past year or so (grad school), and I really feel a difference in just about everything I do.

And yoga is also good for your arms- I rock-climb, which can really crank your forearms. But yoga works your triceps/biceps- endurance as well as strength, and it really improved my climbing as I don't grip as much with my forearms. And triceps are hard (and often annoying) to train, but if you do yoga properly, it's a great workout for them without having to do those annoying tricep extensions with hand-weights, etc.