So my blog post on bike fits certainly caused some controversy, which is exactly what I wanted it to do. Being forced to critically think about your position on something instead of just going with it because it is how it has always been done is vital to the growth of a sport.
However, as always the internet is a double edged sword. While it allows me to get thought provoking views on mountain bike training into the conversation, it is very easy to misinterpret what I write. In this case, I think that I need to clarify what I mean by a “bike fit”.
When I hear the term “bike fit” I think of a situation where someone has you sit on your bike (key word being sit) and then proceeds to use everything from their eyeballs to lasers to determine your optimal seated pedaling position. Your seat height, stem length/ rise, handlebars and, in some cases, frame size are all manipulated to get you into the best position possible when sitting down and pedaling.
This same process is used to alleviate pain in the knees, hips, low back, shoulders and neck. I think that this is a pretty well understood definition for the term “bike fit” within the bike industry. While I can respect your personal definition of a “bike fit” for the sake of the discussion we need to establish exactly what we mean.
What a lot of people were referring to in the comments to the post is not a bike fit but simply getting a bike that fits. There is a huge difference between the two – getting a bike that fits simply means getting the right frame size and general stem length so that you are comfortable on the bike. This could also mean optimizing the bike’s set up – like putting a shorter stem on to optimize steering and descending position.
We all need a bike that fits but not everyone needs a “bike fit”. However, I know that a lot of riders are being sold on the value of one, both as a performance enhancer and way to address pain from riding.
I have had countless riders who possessed glaring movement dysfunctions ask me if I thought a bike fit – as defined above – would help them out and this tells me that there is a disconnect in the perceived and actual value of a bike fit. The elephant in the corner of the room for most riders is that they simply can’t move well from poor mobility and strength.
So, if you think that a longer stem feels better then fine, however if you are being told that you need one to optimize your pedaling position based on some sort of bike fit then perhaps you need to think about a few things before you blindly follow that advice. Hopefully this clears up some of the confusion as I think that some people thought I meant that you don’t need any thought put into your position in the bike when that is not the case.
-James Wilson-
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-
Being the first post of 2012 I wanted to set the tone for the rest of the year with a book review. While I read this book a month or so ago I wanted to save the review for today because I think that the message in it is especially appropriate today.
One of my favorite parts of having a Kindle is how you get books suggested for you based on past purchases. Since I buy a lot of training books and books on mindset/ self improvement I was not too surprised to see Mike Mahler’s new “self help” book on my suggestion list but I was a bit hesitant to buy it. I know Mike as a kettlebell expert but I was not too sure what he had to offer in the way of mindset advice.
However, I was finally curious enough to get the sample of the book and after reading the first chapter I was impressed. I got the whole book and quickly tore through it. I can now safely say that “Live Life Aggressively: What Self Help Gurus Should be Telling You” is now my favorite book on the subject of “self help” and one that I strongly recommend it if you want to understand the mindset it really takes to succeed.
Despite what the title may suggest, it has nothing to do with being outwardly aggressive or having a chip on your shoulder. Instead, Mike quickly and effectively challenges you to re-think how you approach life in general. From accepting your current job and financial situation to dealing with past traumas, Mike makes you really think about what you want out of life and how to go about taking it.
Personally, I found the message very refreshing. I have quickly grown tired of the positive attitude-goal setting-self affirmation b.s. promoted by so many self help gurus. Movies like The Secret, “pump you up” books/ seminars and “how does that make you feel” psychiatry always seemed disingenuous to me. Life, when lived aggressively, is hard and no amount of visualization, daily sayings or talking about feelings can get around that.
Most people seek “help” because they want to avoid pain and stress and a lot of people are more than willing to take your money to tell you what you want to hear. Mike, on the other hand, slaps you in the face by telling you things that you need to hear, especially a society raised to play it safe and to think that if it is hard or stressful it isn’t worth it.
For example, if you say you hate your job but don’t quit and follow your dreams then on some level you are exactly where you want to be. This is one message I can relate to 100%. Personally, I am amazingly lucky to be living my dream – but “luck” had nothing to do with the fact that I married the girl of my dreams, live in mountain biking heaven and make a living by helping riders all over the world. It took guts, tenacity and a lot of hard work to make it happen – which happen to be things that everyone can apply as well.
When I decided to start MTB Strength Training Systems I was managing a gym in Tyler Texas. I owned my house and was making a good salary – and hating it. Texas is known for many things but mountain biking is not one of them. After spending my time riding in Southern California and Hawaii I was burned out on the one trail in the area pretty quickly. Managing a gym meant I had to deal with all of the crap from unhappy customers and I was starting to look at them as the enemy instead of people I wanted help.
After going to my sisters wedding in Grand Junction Colorado I knew I wanted to move there and start training people again. However, the smart move would have been to either stay put and enjoy my 2 weeks of vacation each year or to make a long term plan and slowly work towards moving. Walking away from a well paying job when I had a wife and new born baby girl was not “smart” or “responsible”.
What’s more, I had been discouraged from going into the mountain bike strength training business by a very successful online business consultant since it was not a popular market. The money was in fat loss or muscle building, both markets I cared nothing about. However, I knew that something had to give so I quit my job, rented my house out and was in Grand Junction within a few months of deciding to make it happen, ready to create a niche if I had to.
After trying to make a go of working in a couple gyms I decided that I was over working for someone else and having to conform my training philosophy to them. I had dreamed of opening my own place and running it the way I wanted and so I found a space and signed a lease. I had 3 clients and did not really know how I was going to pay the rent but I knew that I would rather fail on my terms than succeed on someone else’s.
Fast forward 5 years and past countless struggles, set backs and moments of self-doubt and here I am – I have a successful online business and training facility, get to ride some of the best trails in the world whenever I want and gain immense satisfaction from helping countless riders through my blog, articles and training programs. I still have set backs and problems but in the end I can’t imagine doing anything else.
I tell you this not to impress you but to impress upon you that there is nothing special about me – or Mike, who has a very similar story to mine that he relates in the book – except that at some point we refused to be passive and take what life gave us. I am not exceptionally smart, my family is not wealthy and I had no “breaks” along the way. I simply think different than most people and luckily mindset is something that you can learn.
I think that Live Life Aggressively is one of the best books I have read in a long time. You can live life scared or you can live life aggressively – the choice is yours alone and after reading Mike’s new book hopefully you’ll have the perspective to stop being held back by your own mindset.
Being the last post of the year I wanted to reflect on some of the big lessons and take aways I had from 2011…
#1 – Do less stuff and do it better. I got deeply immersed in the kettlebell culture in 2011, attending an RKC course and reading a half dozen or so books on kettlebell training. While everyone likes to show off their fancy kettlebell lifts, one of the central themes among the best is the mastery of a handful exercises.
The Swing, Goblet Squat, Turkish Get Up, Clean, Shoulder Press, Snatch and their variations comprise the bulk of kettlebell training and cover almost everything you could possibly need. I cut out a lot of fluff from my workout programs and hammered people with the basics and saw a marked improvement in execution, strength levels and overall results. You just have to get past the “entertain me” mindset and have a “train me” mindset to appreciate doing the same thing over and over.
#2 – Read more. The best investment I made was in a Kindle. I had started reading more a few years ago but it wasn’t until I was able to instantly download books and easily carry my library with me that I really started to read a lot. The secret to reading is making it convenient and so the Kindle app on my phone and tablet make it amazingly easy to read a few pages here and there which add up to several extra books a year.
Here are some of the best books I read this year:
- Easy Strength: Pavel and Dan John
- Purposeful Primitive: Marty Gallagher
- Convict Conditioning: Paul Wade
- The 10X Rule: Gant Cardone
- Kiss or Kill: mark Twight
- Ultimate MMA Conditioning: Joel Jamison
- Sugar Nation: Jeff O’Connor
- Mind Over Money: Brad Klontz and Ted Klontz
- Little Bets: Peter Sims
- Live Life Aggressively: Mike Mahler
#3 – Bodyweight training needs a place in your program. The book Convict Conditioning completely changed my view of the importance of bodyweight training. I realized that I had been paying lip service to the notion of “master your bodyweight before adding load” – I was far from truly mastering bodyweight and the exercise progressions outlined in the book made that very clear.
I realized that strength training is as much about handling your own bodyweight as masterfully as you can handle an external load. I also realized that some exercises, like the bridge and handstand presses, were really vital to overall fitness and health. Your body responds to bodyweight training differently than weighted training and it needs a place in your program.
#4 – Energy Systems Development is a much better term than “cardio”. In the book Ultimate MMA Conditioning Joel Jamison does a masterful job of laying out the concept of Energy Systems Development (ESD). I have often said that you don’t want “cardio”, you want better endurance and ESD is how you can systematically develop better endurance. By understanding how your body both supplies fuel and utilizes that fuel for different types of efforts you can develop a plan to optimize both.
I’m sure I feel this way every year but 2011 was a great year overall. I came into the year knowing that I had a few holes in my game as a strength coach and I did a pretty good job of shoring them up and seeing my programs evolve as a result. Of course, now I have some other areas I want to work on in 2012 but I’ll worry about that next year.
So, what were some of your big lessons/ take aways from 2011?
-James Wilson-
One of the things that really separates strong riders from everyone else is the ability to stand and hammer on their bike. If you are a downhill or 4X/ Dual Slalom rider then this seems pretty self evident – the fastest guys are just as strong while standing at the end as they are at the beginning of a run while everyone else is fighting the urge to sit down and rest.
However, this also holds true for trail and XC riders as well. Sure, you’ll hear from all he detractors who will tell you that standing is less efficient, that it makes your suspension bob or that you get less traction on the rear wheel but the truth is that the fastest riders, like single speed world champ Ross Schnell, do not run a granny gear up front and tend to run a 34 or 36 tooth chainring. This means that they will stand and hammer a lot more than us mere mortals will.
I look at it this way – sitting down to pedal is like jogging, standing up to pedal is like sprinting. Sure, jogging is more efficient IF you are running a marathon but sprinting is the best way to go if you are running a100 meters. If you are riding in the Leadville 100 then you better jog, if you are out on a 1-2 hour trail ride then being able to easily throw some sprints in will help you cover more ground and have more fun in the process.
What most riders mean when they say that standing up to pedal is less efficient is that it is much harder for them and they can not sustain it for very long. The fact is that standing pedaling is more powerful, which is why you can go increase speed or grind up climbs faster when standing, but it does place more of a strain on your core and upper body to support your weight while also requiring more hip drive to pedal. When you are sitting down your seat supports a lot of your weight and you are in a more quad dominant position so your core, upper body and hip weaknesses are masked.
This is why single speed riding has gained a reputation as a great way to train or to increase core strength. Because single speeds force you to stand up in sections that you would normally just downshift you expose your core, upper body and hips to the demands of standing pedaling and therefore get them stronger. It is not that there is something magical about single speed riding, simply that it exposes your weaknesses and forces them to adapt and get stronger.
But you can use strength training to make those gains in a faster, more efficient manner. One of the most common bits of feedback I get from clients is that they simply feel stronger on the bike and that standing pedaling efforts don’t seem as hard anymore. This is from nothing more than getting the core, hips and upper body strong in a systematic manner.
Using core exercises like planks, side planks and bird dogs to increase core stability is very important since the less stable your “platform” the less strength and power you can produce when relying solely on it.
Using upper body exercises like push ups, chin ups and inverted rows to increase upper strength is important because standing pedaling requires you to hold yourself up and stabilize your position with your upper body.
Using hip dominant exercises like deadlifts, single leg deadlifts and swings to increase hip strength is important because standing pedaling requires much more hip drive than seated pedaling does.
So there you have it, a blueprint for overcoming the weaknesses that keep you from easily standing and hammering out singletrack. Standing pedaling is only a bad option if you don’t have the strength and endurance in the core, upper body and hips to sustain it. Attack those weaknesses with a good training program and that is no longer an issue. Sure, you’ll have riders in your group tell you that you will tire yourself out quicker, you’ll just have to wait for them to hear what they were saying at the top of that steep hill you were killing them on.
-James Wilson-
So I’m going to piss some people off with this statement but I feel it needs to be said -
A bike fit is extremely overrated for mountain biking.
I know that they have a place in some cases but for your average trail rider I think that they are close to worthless. First, bike fits usually just help you maximize your dysfunctions, which may result in a short term performance gain but does not really make you a better rider. Second, I strongly believe that seated pedaling is simply bad for the body in the first place and should be minimized, not fortified. Lastly, bike fits rarely take the technical skill side of trail riding into account.
Maximizing Your Dysfunctions
If you are performing a bike fit on a rider who does not have a clean Functional Movement Screen (2s on everything with no asymmetries) then you are no better than the doctor who prescribes pills before trying to get the patient to make the lifestyle changes needed to fix the real problem. How can you “fit” anything when someone can’t even touch their toes or perform a half-ass bodyweight squat without falling apart?
The only thing you are fitting is their dysfunctions to the bike. Allowing someone to lean even harder on bad movement so they can go further and faster is not really helping the situation. The fact that no one ever gets a fit that lasts forever should tell your something – since the fit did not fix the underlying problem of bad movement habits the body eventually develops pain in new areas. Fix the movement issue first and then see what needs to be done.
Seated Pedaling Should be Minimized, Not Fortified
A bike fit only “works” as long as you are sitting down – as soon as you stand up all the precious measurements go out the window and you are no longer benefitting from your investment. The problem is, as a trail rider you should be spending way more time standing up and only using seated pedaling to get ready for your next standing effort.
Standing up naturally takes care of any “fit” issues as it forces full knee extension, fuller hip extension, a straighter spine and less strain on the neck. Sitting down to pedal places your body in a jacked up position and a fit is simply trying to make the best of a bad situation. The less you are laying down hard efforts when sitting down the less you have to worry about your seat being 4 mm too low or some absurd thing like that.
On a side note, this is why singlespeed riding has gained the reputation it has as a way to “train” for riding your regular bike – it simply makes you stand up more and push a harder gear instead of clicking down and keeping your 90+ rpm spin going. It shouldn’t take a singlespeed to make you stand up and be a man on the trail.
Sure it’s harder but mountain biking is not about seeking the path of least resistance. On the trail, standing up more is the mark of a strong, confident rider and it also naturally takes care of “fit” issues.
The Technical Skill Side of Trail Riding
Trail riding requires a large degree of technical skill, which is something that most bike fits don’t take into account. To maximize your trail riding your want to outfit your bike in a way that will allow for maximum skill and efficiency – which means prioritizing the bike, not the rider.
For example, in order to corner effectively and feel confident on steep pitches you need a stem that is 60 mm or less – period. A longer stem makes steering sluggish and makes it tough to keep your weight back as the trail gets steeper. Switching out to a longer stem because your hip mobility sucks (see Maximizing Your Dysfunctions above) and the bike fit formula said that an 80-100 mm stem would “fit” you better is actually screwing up your trail riding, which is probably not what you wanted to spend money on.
On the trail you need to select your tool based on its ability to do what you want on the trail and then fit your body to that tool. Don’t force an inferior tool on yourself when what you really need is some good ol’ mobility and strength work.
I always have to bring some perspective back to the argument so people don’t think that I hate bike fits and that you should go get an angry mob and some torches and go get the guy who put that longer stem on your bike in the name of a “better bike fit”. Like I said before before, at the highest levels stuff like that does matter. Once you have a clean Functional Movement Screen then a bike fit can be helpful, especially if you spend a lot of time in the saddle.
However, they are a Q4 method for Q4 athletes (check out my article on the 4 Quadrants of Training (link to post) if you don’t know what Q4 means) and, like clipless pedals, can quickly become a crutch being sold to desperate riders who really need to re-evaluate how they ride and how they prepare for riding. Most people will always look for a magic bullet and I know that this will mostly fall on deaf and defensive ears, which is fine. However, if I can get a few riders to scratch their head and think about the points I’ve made then I’d happy.
So, I know that you have an opinion on this subject and I’d love to hear what it is. Post a comment below to let me know what you think…
-James Wilson
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