Talent is Overrated a book that had been recommended to me by a couple of people in the coaching world. It is an in depth look at what exactly fuels great performance in any field and challenges the myth of the “natural talent”. Time and again, when you look at story behind the performance you find that even those who were supposedly blessed with “talent” worked hard to achieve those results. After reading it I wanted to share some of the lessons I took from it with you.
The take home message from the book is that “lack of talent” is usually not the real issue. Instead, the author of the book looks at the traits shared by great performers and identifies several things that, if applied, can help anyone achieve greater performance in anything.
Average performers blame outside forces, great performers look at how they can learn and grow.
Here are a few of the things that really stood out for me:
- Deliberate Practice: Great performers all engage in a lot of “deliberate practice”. Deliberate practice is a term coined by the author to distinguish it from the mindless activities that usually define “practice” for most people. For practice to be deliberate you have to identify specific things that you are trying to work on and be mindful of how you are doing. Post Continued :: Click to Read More
For those that don’t know, part of passing the RKC (Russian Kettlebell Challenge) certification is being able to perform 100 kettlebell snatches with a 24 kg/ 52 lb. KB. This is a physically daunting task to say the least and when I took the certification a year ago I was not up to it. While I have some legitimate excuses (I got into the habit of falling onto and injuring my right wrist for the 3 months leading up to it, making it tough to train) at the end of the day I hadn’t done it and I wanted to be able to say that I could.
However, there was a downside to accomplishing the goal and I ended up in a pretty sever state of overtraining a few weeks later.
After screwing around with trying to figure out how to accomplish it, I had the opportunity to work with Brett Jones via his online coaching service. Brett is a highly respected figure in both the RKC/ kettlebell and Functional Movements Systems worlds, making him someone who I greatly respect and I was excited to get another set of eyeballs on my training program and some direction on how to achieve the RKC snatch test standard. Post Continued :: Click to Read More
The kettlebell swing is one of my favorite exercises for mountain biking for one simple reason – they are as close to a trail ride as you can come without throwing a leg over your bike. The hip action, core strength and grip strength demands of the swing are all very similar to what you need on your bike over the course of a tough, technical ride, plus you can safely do a high volume of them, making them a much better conditioning choice than other power exercises like the Olympic lifts and plyometrics. This is one of the reasons they are featured prominently in a lot of my programs, including the MTB Kettlebell Conditioning Program.
Kettlebell swings have become a very popular exercise (you can now buy kettlebells in Wal-Mart) but along with popularity comes a lot of really bad form. Most people end up doing a squat with a front raise, missing the hip action and specific core strength we are looking for. They also drive the movement through their arms and lower back, gripping the kettlebell handle far too tightly and missing the subtle “on-off” grip strength action we need on the trail.
Here are two tips to help you clean up your kettlebell swing. The first one shows you how to time the fall of the kettlebell to force more hip action out of the movement and the second one shows you how to use the Towel Swing to ensure that you are using the hips and not the arms and/ or lower back to power the movement. Post Continued :: Click to Read More
I got this question from a blog reader after seeing my blog post on the benefits of unilateral training for mountain biking…
I’ve credited heavy deadlifts and the tension I learn to generate from them with helping be walk away from some hard falls.
Q: “Hey James, given all the benefits of unilateral training why would you want to use bilateral training?”
A: My primary reason would be because you can expose your body to higher intensity levels (i.e. weight) with bilateral training and often more than simply your unilateral weight X 2. For example, if you can single leg squat with 50 pounds I guarantee you that you can front squat far more then just 100 pounds.
This does provide your body with a stimulus you can not get from unilateral training, namely the amount of muscle tension needed to move that much weight. This skill of being able to produce more muscle tension can be beneficial. Post Continued :: Click to Read More
I wanted to remind those of you who live in the Denver area that I will be in town this Saturday the 12th conducting a 2 hour MTB Fitness & Skills Seminar. During this seminar I will be covering:
• “Barefoot Pedaling” – applying natural human movement to the bike to improve performance and decrease injuries.
• The difference between High Tension and Rhythmic Cardio and why High Tension Cardio is the key to helping you improve your endurance on the trail.
• Metabolic Skills Training – Turning Strength Training into Skills Training to help you ride with more confidence on the trail.
• Top 5 MTB Strength Training Exercises to help you improve your technical skills while also helping you ride faster and with more power.
• How to properly execute and practice the 5 Basic Technical Skills that you need on the trail.
The cost is only $25 and you can find out more and sign up by clicking on this link. I’ll be hanging out after the seminar as well to answer questions and talk more about everyone’s favorite subject – mountain biking! Hope to see you there…
-James Wilson-
A few weeks ago I did this interview for Josh Henkin’s Ultimate Sandbag Training podcast where we actually talked very little about sandbag training. After seeing my videos I had done with sandbag training Josh was interested in learning more about my unique perspective on training for mountain biking and sports in general and I was happy to oblige.
In this interview we talk about how I got into mountain biking and combined strength training with mountain bike training, my thoughts on applying Metabolic Skills training and I even get a refrence in to Miyamoto Musashi and The Book of 5 Rings.
You can listen to the interview by clicking on the link below. Not sure how to download the mp3 file by itself, it isn’t my podcast so I don’t have much technical control over it but I think you’ll enjoy it either way.
http://ds1.downloadtech.net/cn1086/audio/43115116131274-001.mp3
-James Wilson-
