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.

For example, on the trail just riding your bike is not “deliberate practice”. Going on a ride with a very specific thing you are going to work on, say leaning your bike and not your body in corners, is the start of the process. While on the trail you must be conscious of what you are practicing going into a corner, executing as best you can and then taking stock in how you did and what you can improve next time. That entire process qualifies as deliberate practice.

In the gym you should also be engaging in “deliberate practice”. You should pick specific things about an exercise that you need to improve on and spend each rep going through the “think-execute-analyze” process. This is how you improve functional movement through exercise instead of just laying fitness on top of your current dysfunctions.

- Bad performances are opportunities to grow: Average performers blame outside forces, great performers look at how they can learn and grow. In the gym this takes the form of writing off an exercise just because it is “tough” and feels “awkward”. It is also seen in people who do an exercise wrong, feel some pain and then decide the exercise is bad instead of their execution.

On the bike this is the rider who blames trail conditions or equipment for performance. While these things can play a role, the biggest factor is the rider. Only by looking at a bad ride as a chance to learn more about your strengths and weaknesses and using that info to create “deliberate practice” activities can you really hope to improve every year.

- Being a great performer is fun but the process of getting better isn’t: The fact that deliberate practice and critically analyzing performances isn’t fun came up more than once. Trying to “play” your way to great performances just doesn’t happen very often, if at all. This is the main reason great performers are so rare – most people simply are simply not willing to put off some “play” for the deliberate practice that will make them better. This is good news for those that are willing to put in the work but really puts a damper on the “just ride your bike” philosophy.

If you want to understand more about how great performances on the trail, in the gym or in business is really achieved are you should really read this book. It will help you gain a better understanding of what is truly holding you back from achieving the results you want. Your mom was right – you can do anything you want, if you are willing to put in the work needed to grow.

-James Wilson-

 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.

While Brett and I worked on other things, the snatch test was a priority in the program. I wanted to see what it took physically and what the results on the trail would be once I had that level of strength endurance. My program included a lot of heavy TGUs, heavy snatches and heavy presses, all to get me used to much more than 24 kg over my head. This strategy made the top of the snatch feel like a “rest” since I was doing TGUs with up 93 pounds and snatches with 32 kg/ 70 lbs.

The other part of the strategy was a density training based workout program with the kettlebell snatch itself. While there was some preliminary stuff with a 16 kg and 20 kg KB, the heart of the program was when you started at 5+5 (5 snatches with each arm) for 10 X 1 minute rounds with a 24 kg KB, starting each round at the top of the minute. This means that you did 5 snatches on each arm with a 24 kg KB, parked the KB and waited/ rested for the rest of the minute (usually another 35 seconds or so), starting the next round of 5+5 when the next 1 minute round started. You repeated that sequence for all 10 rounds.

When that was “easy” you would add 1 rep per arm and subtract 1 round/ minute. This would have you doing 6+6 X 9 rounds, then 7+7 for 8 rounds, 8+8 for 7 rounds, 9+9 X 6 rounds and then finally 10+10 for 5 rounds/ minute.

10+10 X 5 rounds/ minutes = 100 reps in 5 minutes, the RKC snatch test standard. You would move up to the next level when the current level was easy, making it a very Easy Strength sort of way to achieve the goal. Brett wrote an article on this workout and I encourage anyone interested in either the RKC certification or in simply finding a killer strength-endurance workout to check it out.

With Brett’s help I was able to achieve my 100 reps in 5 minutes, and I was pretty stoked to say the least. A monkey that had been on my back for well over a year had been accomplished and I was happy to be able to say I had done it.

However, there was a downside to accomplishing the goal and I ended up in a pretty sever state of overtraining a few weeks later. My performance, both in the gym and on the trail, went into a tailspin that I struggled to pull out of. It took several weeks of reduced activity and backing way off in the gym to get back to feeling like I had some snap in my legs again and I learned a couple really valuable lessons throughout the experience.

First, I noticed something very interesting about the density based snatch workout I had been doing. Up until I hit the 8+8 X 7 rounds/ minutes, when I finished the workout I felt like my lungs/ cardio was the limiting factor – I was breathing very heavily but my muscles felt alright. At the 8+8 level, though, when I finished I wasn’t breathing nearly as heavily but I felt like my ability to keep firing those leg and pulling muscles was the limiting factor.

At some point the stress stopped being placed maximally on the cardio system and started being placed more on the muscular system, specifically the ability of the nervous system to continue to forcefully contract the muscles in the face of fatigue. This just underscored for me the difference between High Tension and Rhythmic Cardio and the importance of understanding and including both.

This also shifted more stress to the nervous system, which recovers much slower that the cardio system. I could feel that I was not recovering as well, which leads me to my second lesson which is to know and, more importantly, listen to the signs of overtraining. I could feel my tension producing capabilities starting to suffer but it took me not being able to stand up and pedal on the trail and having to dump a heavy TGU halfway through a rep that forced me to admit that I needed to back off.

I got caught up in trying to maintain a true peak – I had trained hard, heavy and often for 2-3 months and had seen my strength and strength-endurance improve dramatically and I didn’t want to back off and “lose” any of it. However, after a peak you can step off or fall off and I chose to fall off right onto my face, and like I tell my little girl you don’t want to lead with your face.

The last thing I learned is that you have to roll with the punches. Did it suck doing what I tell thousands of other riders not to do, end up overtrained and having to watch my strength and fitness suffer? Yeah, sure it did but I also knew that the best thing I could do is change my focus to recovering and get back up to speed ASAP. Training is never a linear line and being able to suffer the valleys is what allows you to enjoy the peaks and you can’t get discouraged when you find yourself in one.

So, to sum it all up -

1. Be aware of the difference between cardio and muscular stress and how to manage them both.

2. Listen to you body and don’t lead with your face falling off after a peak.

3. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging and just look for the fastest way out – any time spent worrying about anything else is time wasted.

Part of my mission with MTB Strength Training Systems is to help other riders out through the lessons I have learned along my personal journey into strength training and mountain biking and I hope that this manifesto of my recent journey into peaking hard and crashing harder can help you along your journey.

-James Wilson-

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.

Hope you’ve found these tips helpful, use them to master the swing and get everything you can out of this essential mountain bike exercise.

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. For example, knowing how to generate max tension in your body can help brace yourself for a fall. While you want to roll out of a fall (making tumbling drills essential for trail riders) sometimes the trail just throws you down in a way that doesn’t allow you to do much more than take the impact. I’ve credited heavy deadlifts and the tension I learn to generate from them with helping be walk away from some hard falls.

The guy who has really championed the use of unilateral training is Mike Boyle and even he sees a benefit to and uses bilateral exercises. When I did his mentorship a couple years ago he told me that the idea was to build a certain amount of strength with the bilateral lifts and once that was achieved, maintain that strength and turn the focus on getting stronger with the unilateral exercises. This made a lot of sense to me and is the model I follow – at a certain point the amount of stress you put on the body with bilateral exercises reaches a point of diminishing returns and the focus needs to switch to improving the strength in “less stressful”, and arguably more functional, unilateral exercises.

I’ll also say that time becomes a concern when using exclusively unilateral exercises. For this reason I use a lot of alternating reps for the upper body (where you alternate sides for the prescribed number of reps) and save the true unilateral stuff for lower body exercises.

-James Wilson-

• “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-

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-

Simply using dumbbells does not constitute unilateral training. Even though both limbs are moving independently, using both of them at the same time is still bilateral training.

True unilateral training means that you are either doing one side at a time or at least alternating between the two sides. For example, a regular dumbbell bench press is still considered bilateral training while doing only one side at a time falls under the unilateral category.

Now on to the 4 indispensable advantages of unilateral training:

1) Increase pedaling power- The first advantage of unilateral training is that it is more specific to the function of pedaling a mountain bike. Pedaling occurs one leg at a time with each leg working independently of each other. Since unilateral exercises also require each limb to act alone it only makes sense to include these exercises in your program.

They also ensure that there is not a strength imbalance between your legs. You may find that one leg is significantly stronger than the other, meaning that you are getting less horsepower out of the weaker leg. This makes your pedaling far less than optimal and something that can only be discovered and addressed through unilateral training.

2) Injury rehab and prevention - Another advantage of unilateral training is that it helps to rehab and prevent injuries. After an injury it is extremely common to find that the injured side is weaker than the non-injured limb. When this happens it is impossible to restore that balance without using unilateral training. Even if you are not rehabbing an injury, making sure that you have balance between your limbs is also one of the best ways to decrease your future injury potential.

3) Recruit more muscles – Without getting too technical into anatomy, when performing unilateral exercises you are forced to use stabilization muscles that are simply not recruited during bilateral training (and no, standing on a wobble board or balance ball does not do the same thing). As an example, unilateral leg exercises require that the adductors and abductors (the inner and outer thigh muscles) to fire in a synchronized manner in order to maintain balance.

In fact, this is the main reason that many people feel so unbalanced when starting unilateral leg exercises; they simply have not used those muscles in that way before and the body does not know how to efficiently accomplish the movement. Getting the body used to the demands placed on it by unilateral training will make for more fluid, athletic movement on the bike.

4) Build strength in a “spine friendly” manner – Just like anything in life, overuse of something will start to cause problems and while I love the squat and deadlift, after a while they will start to put undo stress on the spinal column. Using a unilateral version of these lifts will not only give you all of the previously mentioned advantages, they will allow you to do so with literally less than half the stress on the spinal column. Over the years this will add up to far fewer back problems and injuries. This aspect will also breathe new life into the training program of those who have suffered a back injury since it allows them to train hard enough to elicit strength gains in a way that does not greatly increase their chance of re-injury.

Add all of these up and you must include unilateral exercises if you are serious about getting everything that you can out of your training program. Some of my favorite unilateral exercises are the unilateral dumbbell bench press, unilateral shoulder press, unilateral deadlift, Bulgarian split squat and the unilateral squat (or if you have the strength and mobility a full pistol squat)

One of the best ways to introduce unilateral training into your program is to replace one of your normal training days with a unilateral training day, performing nothing unilateral exercises on that day. Be forewarned, though, since unilateral training will produce some muscle soreness in places that you did not know you had and has also been known to increase performance to previously unattainable levels.

-James Wilson-

Knowing that humans tend to be lazy thinkers should get you into the habit of routinely questioning a lot of stuff that makes sense on the surface

System 1 is our unconscious thoughts, the stuff that goes on below the surface that we don’t really know is even happening. It is quick and often right and is sometimes thought of as our instincts. It is the first filter that info passes through and it is responsible for a lot of the faulty logic that we fall victim to.

System 2 is our conscious thoughts and requires us to slow down and think about the info we have been presented with. Since it is slower and requires more energy than System 1 to use it only comes online if we consciously engage it or if something about System 1′s conclusion regarding new information throws up a red flag, alerting us to a potential mistake that we need to investigate further.

Problems arise, though, because System 1 is fooled more easily than we like to admit. For example, try this simple problem:

If a bat and a ball cost $1.10 together and the bat costs $1.00 more than the ball, how much does the ball cost?

The answer is not 10 cents, although that is probably what popped into your head and you are still trying to figure out why it is wrong. 10 cents makes sense (no pun intended) on the surface and when that happens we are loathe to bring System 2 online to check our logic. Just to clear it up, the ball costs 5 cents – the bat costs $1.00 more than the ball so if the ball costs 5 cents then the bat costs $1.05. If you went with 10 cents then the bat would cost $1.10, making the total $1.20.

Some very smart people at the best colleges in the country fell for that false logic so this problem is apparent in all of us, although some people tend to be much more “lazy” thinkers than others and just accept whatever System 1 throws out there. So, what on earth does this have to do with strength training for mountain biking?

For starters it explains some of the faulty logic I see riders falling for everyday…

- If I am exhausted after a trail ride then I must exhaust myself in training or I am not improving my endurance for trail riding. This faulty logic is one of the main reasons that things like Crossfit and other bootcamp type programs are so popular with well meaning mountain bikers since the intensity of the workouts leaves you feeling tired, much like a hard ride. However, the truth is that you need to address things in training that you need on the trail but don’t use enough on the trail to significantly improve.

Strength, power and mobility should be the priority and everything should not be turned into a cardio effort. We get plenty of cardio and endurance training when we ride, we don’t need to focus on it in the gym. You also need to leave some energy for your rides and if you are constantly draining your tank in training you won’t have the fuel for actually getting out on the trail. Sometimes the best thing to do in training is the opposite of what you do in your sport.

- Clipless pedals are “faster” so that makes them “better”. This one needs to be an article in itself but the mistaking of “faster” with “better” is the number one reason that riders fall for the faulty logic of using clipless pedals as soon as they start riding and using them all the time for every ride. At the highest levels of competition clipless pedals can be slightly “faster”, but when you step back and look at the big picture you see that flat pedals have a very important place in a rider’s development and in the prevention of long term overuse injuries, meaning that they can be seen as “better” under a lot of circumstances. However, the faulty logic of “faster = better”, which is reinforced by the advertising hype behind them, creates a picture in most rider’s minds that even if they are not at the highest levels of competition they must use clipless pedals or suffer being a mediocre rider.

- Anything that makes riding “easier” is “better”. While clipless pedals fall into this faulty logic category (it is much easier for a new rider to attach their feet to the pedals than it is to figure out how to smooth out their pedal stroke and maneuver their bike without them), lighter weight bikes, bigger wheels, sitting down all the time to pedal and full suspension bikes are also part of it as well. In my humble opinion every rider should start out on a 30+ pound hardtail with flats, 26 inch wheels and standing up to pedal on all hard efforts – that combination certainly isn’t “easy” but it will force you to be a very smooth, efficient and powerful rider. Challenging yourself and forcing yourself to overcome those challenges will make you a better rider in the long run and if all you seek is “easy” then don’t be surprised when your riding doesn’t improve much year to year.

There are other things I could point out but I hope you get my point – sometimes we need to step back and engage System 2 instead of listening to the first thing System 1 tells us. I am certainly not saying that intense cardio workouts, clipless pedals and things that make riding easier should be avoided – everything I listed above has a valuable place in a rider’s development but only if it is used at the right time for the right reasons.

So yes, Crossfit, Clipless Pedals and 29ers can be valuable (well, maybe not Crossfit) but just make sure that you check your logic when using them and don’t just fall for what makes sense on the surface.Knowing that humans tend to be lazy thinkers should get you into the habit of routinely questioning a lot of stuff that makes sense on the surface and when you do that you start to see that a lot of what we took for granted is, in fact, faulty logic biting us in the butt.

-James Wilson-

The new No Gym, No Problem Workout Program has almost 50 bodyweight exercises and shows you how to create the perfect workout for your current strength and fitness levels. With video demos of each exercise and a Quick Start overview video you can literally be doing your first workout 15 minutes after downloading the program.

Don’t wait, click here to learn more and get your copy today!

A mark of a great rider is excellent body control and confidence in their ability to execute that control on the trail.

The last few months have been an interesting journey into the world of bodyweight training for my clients and me and that journey is what spawned the idea for this new workout program. I’ll admit that I was not as interested in bodyweight training as some of my online clients were but I kept getting requests from them for more bodyweight based workouts that allowed them to train at home with minimal equipment.

Even for someone like myself that owns a training facility that is a 15 minute drive from my house and has every piece of equipment I could want to train with having a good bodyweight program had some appeal and so I started to learn more about it. Little did I know that what started as a mission to learn more about it for other riders would turn into an experience that would change how I fundamentally view training forever.

I now realize that bodyweight training offers 3 unique advantages that every mountain biker can benefit from:

1 – Getting stronger without excessive wear and tear on the body. Let’s face it, after a while lifting heavy weights starts to catch up with you and can really take a toll on your joints. Loaded exercises can also leave you pretty sore for a few days afterwards if you are not careful and if you are sore then you can not ride effectively. Since getting stronger is essential to improving your performance on the trail you need a way to improve your strength without interfering with your ability to get out on the trail and enjoy it.

Something about bodyweight training (when done intelligently) leaves the joints feeling good and the muscles feeling strong and powerful instead of tight and sore. Since making bodyweight training a big part of my programs I have noticed a marked improvement in how my knees and low back feel and I my chiropractor has also noticed areas that were chronically out of whack have been holding in place much better (my chiro is also a client who loves the new bodyweight stuff I’ve put in his program). My clients have also noticed improvements along the same lines so I know that it isn’t just me.

2 – Improved body awareness and control. A mark of a great rider is excellent body control and confidence in their ability to execute that control on the trail. As you gain strength through bodyweight exercises you also become better connected with how you move. Body awareness and control are paramount to executing technical skills on the bike and being able to flow over technically challenging terrain.

In fact, when teaching a rider new skills I will work first on their body control and awareness and then show them how that applies to the bike – too many riders are trying to “act out” what they think they good riders do without having the body control and awareness to understand what they are actually trying to accomplish. When you have mastered your bodyweight you will find that everything you do on the bike will just come easier and new skills will be easier to learn.

3 – Access to a high quality workout anyplace and anytime. In a perfect world we’d all have access to a great training facility right around the corner that was open 24 hours a day/ 7 days a week. However, this is not the case for a lot of riders. For most the closest facility is a commercial gym stocked with machines, tank top clad dudes staring at themselves in the mirror while they do bicep curls and spandex clad ladies looking in the mirror to see who is checking them out. Even if you do have access to a gym that you actually want to go to sometimes their schedule doesn’t match up with yours and you end up missing some workouts when time gets tight.

With a good bodyweight program in your arsenal you don’t have to worry about any of that anymore. Wherever you are you can get a high quality training session in at any time. I own a training facility 15 minutes from my house and I still have days that I am either too busy or just don’t want to make the drive – and with my No Gym, No Problem Workout I don’t have to. In the time it takes me to drive to and from the facility I can get a great workout in, keeping my results on track when my schedule just doesn’t allow me to get into the gym.

These 3 reasons are why I wanted to bring the power of bodyweight training to mountain bike riders everywhere through my upcoming No Gym, No Problem Workout Program. While there are some great bodyweight workout programs out there I felt that none of them did the best job possible addressing the movement and strength needs of mountain bikers – we have a unique sport that makes it hard for outsiders to understand everything we need to ride faster, longer and with more confidence on the trail.

For example, we need address three lower body movements – squatting exercises, single leg hip dominant exercises and split stance exercises. Squatting exercises address standing pedaling power, single leg hip dominant exercises address seated pedaling power and body position on the bike and split stance exercises allow us to gain strength and stability with either foot forward on the bike. Without addressing all three types of movements you don’t address everything you need on the trail.

So there you have it – the back story on what inspired this new program, why you need bodyweight exercises in your training program and why the No Gym, No Problem Workout Program offers mountain bikers insights no other program like it does. This will be the only bodyweight program created by a mountain biker for mountain bikers and will have some unique twists based on my experience working with riders at all levels and I can’t wait to share it with everyone this Friday.

-James Wilson-