I would have to say that 90% of the MTB riders and racers that I have met would be defined as “over skilled”. It sounds absurd since most feel that some aspect of their riding needs work, be it skill related such as gate starts or fitness related such as better power endurance (I define MTB specific fitness as a “skill”). However, when you really understand how the human body functions and best adapts to MTB specific skills and fitness you will see what I mean. First, though, I need to explain the OPP.

The Optimum Performance Pyramid (OPP) was first introduced to me by Gray Cook, a highly influential figure in strength training circles. It is probably the best explanation that I have come across describing how performance training should be viewed. Gray uses the OPP to explain the 3 distinct levels of performance training, their prioritization and how to best integrate them.

The first, and broadest, level is Functional Movement. Contrary to the current fitness trends, this does not mean standing on a wobbly doo-hicky, looking like you are trying out for the circus. Functional Movement simply refers to developing adequate mobility, body control and movement awareness in order to safely handle higher level movements.

Examples of exercises in this level would include single leg box squats, pistol squats, Bulgarian split squats, single leg deadlift, push ups and their variations, inverted rows and alternating DB shoulder press. Bodyweight and unilateral exercises make up the bulk of this type of training. However, bodyweight exercises are extremely humbling when challenging variations are used. Do not underestimate the power of this type of training.

The Functional Movement level should also address any imbalances in the body, both mobility and strength wise, as they are a huge red flag for a potential injury. An athlete without a strong base built in this level of training will be far more prone to injuries, have a harder time mastering new skills and techniques and generally find that their training efforts yield few and inconsistent results.

The second level of the pyramid is Functional Strength. This level focuses on improving your raw strength and power. As I have touched on many times, increasing these areas will effectively add to your raw potential. Riders without adequate time spent on this level will also find that they have a harder time mastering new skills and will probably feel as if they have hit a plateau with their progression.

Examples of exercises in this level would include deadlift, front squat, bench press, military press, weighted pull ups/ chin ups, and DB rows. Compound, core exercises for the main movement patterns make up the bulk of this level.

The last, and smallest, level is Functional Skill. Unfortunately, this is where most training that MTB riders undertake would fall. This includes trail riding, DH runs, dirt jumping, 4X track time, gate starts, sprints, intervals and high level strength training methods such as plyometrics and Olympic Lifts. These methods will only yield the biggest “MTB specific” gains if they are used by someone who has spent time developing the base levels of the performance training pyramid. Believe it or not, over use of training methods in this level can actually slow down and stagnate skill development and fitness progression.

In fact, if you talked with any of the originators of a specialized training method I will guarantee you that they would tell you that they intended that method to be used by someone who had progressed into it. Every good strength coach understands the importance of laying a solid foundation and building on it in a progressive manner, but that approach is rarely reported on in the media or used by less skilled fitness professionals. What you find in the magazines and training boards is someone who reports on the specialized method independent of the progression intended to lead into it. Everyone wants to report on, learn and/ or use the “special” and “secret” training method of the champs, but failure to understand the progression into that method does a great disservice to the pioneers that gave us those methods.

Plyometrics have to be one of the best examples of this. Developed and refined by the old Soviet Union, plyometrics have developed an almost mystical status here in the United States. Almost every training conversation that I have with a rider eventually comes around to “what about plyometrics”, as if they hold the key to all riding goals. Riders who can barely pull off a bodyweight squat are jumping around cones and off of boxes in the quest for a MTB specific workout. However, the pioneers of the plyometric method would be greatly disturbed by this approach.

Some of the old Soviet training texts suggest that an athlete should have progressed (there’s that word again) to a double bodyweight squat before they were ready for depth jumps and other high level plyometrics. While I may not agree with that specific suggestion (more recent suggestions are around 1-1.5 times your bodyweight), it does underscore the fact that no one came into their training program and started off with plyometrics. In fact, it could be years before they would allow an athlete to use those higher level training methods if they felt adequate functional movement and strength had not been established. BTW, the Soviets kicked a lot off butt with this approach and this template has become the model for almost every high level strength and conditioning coach in the world.

So, as you can see from this point of view, most riders spend far too much time and focus on the Functional Skill level of the OPP. A lot of them may not have spent any time working on Functional Movement and/ or Functional Strength. This makes them over skilled, as their MTB specific skill and fitness progression is maxed out compared to the base that they have built. This means that a long term approach with an eye on safely progressing through the 3 levels of the OPP is needed for sustainable results. Without it, you are simply guessing at what will help you and hoping that it will. I don’t know about you, but that approach leaves too much to chance. If I’m going to invest time into training I want to be sure that it is going to pay off.

Note: do not confuse “over skilled” from a performance training point of view with having “adequate skill” from a pure performance point of view. Most of us will never be satisfied with our skill and fitness levels in every aspect of riding so we will always be looking to get a little better in some aspect on the bike. What I am saying is that at a certain point you must re-solidify the base of your OPP in order to continue to realize the gains offered by the higher level strategies.

-James Wilson-

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Mountain Bike Cardio Training, Mountain Bike Mobility Training, Mountain Bike Strength Training

I love to train and I love to play but I hate to workout. Confused by that statement? According to emails I get from riders trying to piece together a program to take their riding to the next level, if you are confused then you are not alone. However, knowing the difference and how to balance the 3 is the key to being able to see progress month after month and year after year without burning out.

First up is the word Training…

The definition of the word training is “deliberate practice in the attempt to acquire or refine a skill”. This means that you know exactly how what you are doing relates directly to the specific skills and/ or fitness you want to acquire or improve on the trail. Training has to be at the cornerstone of any training program but that is rarely the case, especially when it comes to trail riding.

For example, knowing how a deadlift relates to proper body position on the bike and the creation of a strong, powerful pedal stroke and then thinking about that as you are in the gym is training. Knowing how a windmill applies to the lateral hip movement you need to corner a bike is training. Spending time with some cones in a parking lot working on your basic handling skills is training. Simply going through the motions and trying to act it out is not enough – you have to know what you are supposed to be feeling.

I tell my clients that you can not look at the programs I create as a list of exercises to get through without any thought of the lessons behind each of those exercises. If you don’t walk out of the gym feeling that you learned something about how you move and how you can apply that to the bike then it wasn’t “training”. Just going for a ride with no idea of how to execute basic skills and a plan on how to practice them on the trail isn’t “training”.

At the heart of it is a desire to understand the “Spirit of the Thing Itself” (to quote Miyamoto Musashi from The Book of Five Rings) and, more importantly, a desire to understand how you suck and can tap into that spirit to get better. A humble attitude is needed to really train and, to be honest, is probably the biggest obstacle for most riders to overcome – knowing that you simply aren’t that good no matter how you stack up with the riders in your local riding group is tough for a lot of riders to accept.

Next I want to delve into Playing (I’ll get into Working Out in minute)…

Playing is on the opposite end of the spectrum from Training, when you don’t think about or worry about how what you are doing is going to help you improve. As you can see from the definition above, true training requires as much mental as physical effort and no one can do it all of the time without burning out, meaning that playing is also in integral part of a program.

For a mountain biker this means simply going out and having fun riding your bike, playing another sport or even goofing off with your family. Sometimes I get the feeling that a lot of us have forgotten how to do this – we want everything to count towards our fitness goals.

I get questions all the time from well meaning riders who are trying to calculate how their morning bike ride to work or weekend hike with the family is going to count towards their fitness goals and how to fit it into their program. While I will admit that a pro rider who is “peaking” (an overused term that I really hate) for an event needs to make sure that they don’t overextend themselves in the days leading up to it the vast majority of us need to relax and just have – gasp – fun!

Remember that bike riding, and on a larger scale life, is supposed to be fun and that adults have the uncanny knack of taking the fun out of everything. Most of us can simply relax and enjoy most of our rides and extra-curricular activities without having to worry about how it will impact our training plan.

Don’t feel that every ride you go on has to take your overall training goals into account. Don’t pass up a chance to play with your family and friends because you are afraid that it will affect your “mileage” or “training hours”. If you can’t go on a ride with your wife because waiting for her at the top of a hill lets your heart rate drop and interferes with your “training” so you can finish 15^th instead of 18^th in Cat 2 in your local race series then you need to chill out. If you can’t go on a hike with your kids because it might kill your legs for your big “training” session at the gym the next day then you need to get a clue.

No one will be lying on their deathbed wishing that they had trained or worked more but countless people realize – too late unfortunately – that they did not have enough fun when they had the chance.

Now, I’ll dig into the worst of the 3 – Working Out…

You don’t have to be religious to appreciate what Jesus meant when he said “‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out.”

Working Out is the lukewarm area of a program and the one that we should spend the least amount of time in but, unfortunately, where the vast majority of riders end up. They know they need to be doing something but they don’t really know what and so every time they hit the gym or the trail they are neither training (with a specific understanding of what they are working on and how it applies to the trail) nor are they playing (just having fun with no thoughts as to how it applies to the trail).

Most training rides are not really “training”, they are hammerfests with riders going as hard as they can for as long as they can with no real plan or idea of how their previous ride set them up for this ride or how this ride is going to set them up for the next one. Most gym time is not training, it is a list of exercises that was acquired from a magazine or off the internet that riders rush through in an attempt to build up their “cardio” or “fitness”. And don’t get me started on skills training – the epidemic of riders on $5000 bikes with $5 skills is out of control.

Being able to differentiate between Training, Playing and Working Out is vital to your ability to improve on a consistent basis while also staying mentally fresh and keeping your passion for mountain biking. Understand that being lukewarm in your approach is the worst thing you can do – you either need to be training or playing, which means having a plan that you have confidence in and execute with a purpose and also being able to chill out and have fun.

In conclusion, the real key to this is having a coach. We are both our own worst critics and our biggest cheerleaders and relying on ourselves to evaluate what we need to improve on and how to do it leads to a lot of the mental stress and lukewarm working out that most riders find themselves caught up in. Remember that the rider who has himself for a coach has a fool for a client, myself included. Being humble enough to seek help, and actually pay for it if necessary, gives you the peace of mind that you need in order to train when you needed and be able to play when you can.

-James Wilson-

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Mountain Bike Cardio Training, Mountain Bike Strength Training

My buddy Lee McCormack (www.leelikesbikes.com) recently sent me this question…

James!OK dude. I’ve been doing longer rides lately, and it’s starting to feel
good. My climbing legs are coming back, and I’m comfortable for 2+ hour
rides.

The weak link is actually appearing on the DH. I’m training and riding the
way I always do, but my mid-back is starting to get tired. More
specifically, the erector muscles along the right side of my spine.

I can think of two influencing factors:

1) Bike setup. For many years, I’ve rocked 50mm stems. My new Stumpy has the
stock XC setup, with a 90mm stem. I’m trying the stock setup for testing
purposes, since that’s what most people roll.

2) The lack of a right clavicle. As you know, I have a non-union, and the
only thing holding my arm on is muscle. I definitely get tired in the
chest/shoulder/upper back area faster than I think I should. I’ll be getting
the shoulder fixed pretty soon.

What do you think, my brother? I’m really interested in the James Wilson
perspective.

- Lee McCormack -

Here is the first thing I always think when someone tells me that something hurts as a result of exercise – bad movement causes pain. Bad movement also robs you of performance so the trick is to hunt down the bad movement and fix it.

Typically, if someone is getting pain in the erector muscles as a result of riding they will have a mobility deficit in the hips and/ or upper back and the body is coaxing excessive movement out of the lumbar spine. It sounds to me that you have upper back mobility issues as a result of your shoulder traumas.

You should be able to hold your arms straight over your head (elbows locked out and in line with your ears when viewed from the side) while keeping your head and lower back in a neutral position. If you can’t then you need to work on increasing your upper back, and specifically scapular, mobility.

Our body is designed to be a series of mobile and stable joints. In this case we want mobile hips, a stable lumbar spine and a mobile thoracic spine (upper back). You have to restore balance to the system first before you can really hope to address the real causes of the back pain.

As far as it hurting more on the right side, there are few things that could cause that. My guess would be that it is extra movement on that side. Since our left side lower body works with the right side upper body that would make sense if you are weaker with the left leg and you are compensating with the right lower back.

Here is my advice – don’t do any two legged strength training exercises for the time being. Do everything one leg at a time and get your left leg’s movement patterns cleaned up. Cue in on the lumbar movement and stop it by squeezing the glute even harder when it happens.

Also, get super aggressive with your soft tissue work. Get a tennis ball and put it between your back and the wall and dig in. The main areas to concentrate on are the right trap and lat but you should dig in all over the place and get the tension levels back there under control. It will hurt like hell but it has to be done.

Long, repetitive efforts like XC riding will expose small “chinks” in your movement patterns and cause pain. That is why strength training and mobility work is so important – they are the only chance you get to fix those “chinks”.

Bad movement causes pain – find the bad movement and fix the pain. Pretty simple theory but one I have found to work pretty well.

Hope this helps, let me know if I can answer any more questions for you…

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Mountain Bike Cardio Training, Mountain Bike Mobility Training

Most exercise professionals would agree that there are many components to fitness. A well rounded approach to fitness that addresses all of them is usually the best way to achieve lasting gains and continual progress from a program. Being deficient in even one of these components leads to slow progress and results in a condition I call “false fit”.

“False fit” is when someone perceives themselves to be fit when there are glaring holes in one of the 5 Fitness Components. While each area can cover other, more specific concepts here is a list and brief description of 5 Fitness Components you need to work on:

1. Mobility – Your ability to move freely while maintaining good posture. Also includes elements of body control and body awareness.

2. Core Strength – Your ability to properly use your core to create a strong platform around which movement is created. Emphasis is on stabilizing the lower back and mobilizing the hips and shoulder blades.

3. Power – Your ability to coordinate your muscles in order to create quick, dynamic movements. Life is dynamic and so everyone should have some sort of power training in their program, even if it is something as simple as slamming a medicine ball into the ground.

4. Strength – I define this a little differently than most. I define strength as your ability to create proper movement and maintain that proper movement under load. Creating a movement through compensation, such as using your lower back during leg exercises, is not true strength no matter how much weight you move.

5. Conditioning/ Endurance – Your ability to engage in your chosen activities without excessive fatigue. A good conditioning program will also act as a catalyst for fat loss. For most people proper conditioning should focus more on intervals than on traditional steady state aerobics.

Do you do yoga and/ or Pilates but do not work on power and conditioning?

Do you run or bike but don’t work on mobility and strength?

Do you “body build” but don’t work on mobility and conditioning?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, or if you see something on the list above that you are not addressing, then you have developed the “false fit” condition. You are fit as it pertains to the particular activities and exercises you engage in but the truth is your fitness is limited. Get you outside of your comfort zone and your true fitness levels will get quickly exposed.

Our body wants to maintain a balance between the 5 Fitness Components. When we lose that balance we slow down our progress and set ourselves up for pain and injuries. Sometimes the answer to achieving the fitness levels that you want is not in looking for different twists on what you are already doing but in looking outside your box for new elements.

I tell people all the time that if you do not want to look and/ or perform like everyone else don’t train like everyone else. Most people are dissatisfied with their current fitness condition so don’t take the same approach they do. Make sure that you work on developing true, well rounded fitness and avoid the pain and frustration that goes with being “false fit”.

-James Wilson-

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Mountain Bike Cardio Training, Mountain Bike Mobility Training, Mountain Bike Strength Training

One of the biggest mistakes that people make when getting into mountain biking is to think that it is a great way to get into shape. This mindset is actually a big problem with the fitness world in general – playing a sport is not how to get into shape. Things work out much better when you have a base level of fitness going into trail riding and it becomes a way to apply and hone your fitness.

There are a couple of problems with trying to use mountain biking as a way to get into shape. First, riding a bike is great fun but it is not the healthiest thing to do from a structural point of view. Sitting in a hunched over position while taking your  legs through a shortened, repetitive range of motion a few hundred or thousand times a ride causes all sorts of imbalances. Sitting down also takes your core and hips out of the equation and will cause movement dysfunctions that can lead to problems down the road.

Sure, you may lose some weight and gain some cardio fitness but you don’t create the type of broad based fitness you really need to be healthy from a larger point of view. Remember that you are a human being first and a mountain biker second – don’ ignore the need for basic human function before you try to develop specialized fitness.

Another pitfall to the mindset of using sports to get healthy is a lack of perspective on the training plans of the pros. As I mentioned before, sport is not really about health, especially at the highest levels. To get your body into shape to be excellent at a few things means that other types of fitness and movement patterns will suffer.

There is an old Greek saying – where good sport begins, good health ends. Pros know that there is a physical cost for what they do to hone their bodies into peak shape for the demands of their sport. However, your average rider who looks at riding as “healthy” doesn’t have the same perspective.

They think that the pros represent the pinnacle of “fitness” and try to emulate the lopsided, unbalanced programs they use. They don’t realize that the pros usually spent years developing their fitness base and go back to work on it often – all they see is the amount of time spent working on specialized fitness qualities and think that copying their approach is the key to achieving their fitness goals.

The truth is that most riders have no business following a program inspired by a pro rider – they need to focus on building their fitness and movement base through a strength and conditioning program and then just getting out on their bikes and riding hard. In fact, focusing too much on the narrow fitness qualities needed to excel at the pro level of mountain biking may lead to short term gains but will lead to long term stagnation and injuries.

My point is that if you love riding then ride for fun, not for “fitness”. Use a smart, balanced strength and conditioning program to address your basic fitness and then ride hard to hone that fitness into “mountain biking shape”. Riding is a great way to take your fitness to another level, just don’t come into it thinking that it is a great way to get into shape in the first place. Keep some perspective on what the pros do to excel at the highest levels and you’ll progress further, enjoy riding more and avoid overuse injuries by taking this approach.

-James Wilson-

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Mountain Bike Cardio Training, Mountain Bike Strength Training

In my training facility I use circuits like this for riders looking to build some strength and cardio in a, high energy package. I recommend at least 2 days a week of regular strength training along with a circuit like this one.

You can find more workouts from my facility like this on my membership site at www.mountainbikeworkouts.com.

August 2011 Punisher 2 Circuit

Circuit #1 – 10 reps per exercise/ Keep going through the circuit for 10 minutes

Exercise #1 – Guard Press

Exercise #2 – Lunge

Exercise #3 – Row

Circuit #2 – 40 seconds work/ 20 seconds rest X 4 rounds

Exercise #1 – Uni Swing

Exercise #2 – Jump Rope

Exercise #3 – RDL + Single Arm Row

Exercise #4 – TRX Single Leg Push Ups

Exercise #5 – Ab Rollouts

You can watch a video demo of this routine below

- James Wilson -

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Mountain Bike Cardio Training