The Kettlebell Clean seems like a simple exercise on the surface – swing the kettlebell back like you were going to do a swing and then stand up, pulling the kettlebell into the “rack” position. And, in truth, it really is simple if you know how to do a good swing and have a solid [...]
Humans are funny creatures because of our ability to forget just exactly how bad something sucked in the heat of doing it. For example, if a woman really remembered what childbirth felt like they’d never do it more than once. Luckily that isn’t the case and the further away we get from something like that [...]
Deadlift Dynamite is a book I read last week going over all things deadlifting. Written by Pavel Tsatsouline and Andy Bolton, it is a detailed look at perhaps the most important exercise you can do as a mountain biker. In case you don’t know, Pavel is the guy behind the modern day kettlebell movement and [...]
While I love a good deadlift, the squat is still a very important exercise for a mountain biker’s lower body strength development. When done properly, it is a great way to build the core and leg strength you need to improve your standing pedaling power and endurance. In my experience, the Goblet Squat is the [...]
If you’re old enough (or a fan of old school hip-hop) then you probably remember the old Eric B & Rakim song Don’t Sweat the Technique. Personally, I love those old jams and have a Boogie Down Productions station on my Pandora shuffle when I train. Of course, I also have some Knife Party, Swollen [...]
This week I’ve been going over the 3 parts of your training program and how you should adjust each to best compliment your in-season riding. Like I’ve explained with your cardio and strength training, if you don’t make the right adjustments during the season you can set yourself up for a late season slump and [...]
Strength training has a lot of great side effects for us as mountain bikers, including… – Improvements in pedaling power and efficiency – Increased body control for more confident execution of skills – More core strength for less low back fatigue and other common overuse injuries …and this is a very partial list. Strength-to-weight ratio [...]
In my last blog post I talked about the importance of being able to deal with compromises, especially with your training program. One of the real dangers, however, is denying that something carries any compromises with it which leads to a fall sense of confidence in its effectiveness. Finding the balance between the two is [...]
As most of us find out pretty early on in life, compromise is just something we have to learn to deal with. I was reminded of this by a couple of things that happened over the last week, namely asking my 8 year old daughter what she wanted for desert, getting my basement gym set [...]
I didn’t think much about the Shoulder Press when I first started working out in high school. First, I wanted bigger pecs so the ladies would look at me and everyone knew that bench pressing exercises were what you needed to focus on. Second, I couldn’t lift nearly as much weight as I could for [...]
Grossly miscalculating how hard things are really going to be is part of human nature. In fact, that was the subject of a book I read last year called the 10X Rule by Grant Cardone. While the book was a great read, the big take away from it for me was that we should just [...]
If you have strength trained for very long you are sure to have experienced some pain associated with a particular exercise. Far beyond some muscle soreness the next day, this is usually a sharp pain in a joint that happens while you are doing an exercise. The initial reaction is to blame the pain on [...]
After 6 years in my current house my family finally outgrew it with the addition of our new son, Z. Yeah, that’s right, I named him Z. And yes, there is a story behind it I’ll share some day… The point is that the time came for us to sell our current house and find [...]
After a couple months of prepping for my first BJJ tournament the big day finally arrived. I was ready, mentally prepared and looking forward to testing my new skills against some new opponents. Unfortunately, I never got the chance. Like I mentioned in my newsletter on Friday, I popped some cartilage in my ribs and [...]
One of the core tenets of the MTB Strength Training System is that each exercise you do should be done in a way that maximizes the transfer from the gym to the trail. This means that how you move during your exercises is more important than how much you lift or how many reps you [...]
Bike fits are an interesting topic in mountain biking. Born in the world of road riding, bike fits promise to fix aches and pains while also improving your power and efficiency. Some riders will spend thousands on getting things dialed in to the millimeter and we’ve all run across that guy who gets super pissed [...]
This coming Saturday will be my first Brazilian Jiu Jitsu tournament and I have to admit that I am a bit nervous about it. While I ran track in high school and college and have competed in a handful of mountain bike races it has been a long time since I signed up for something [...]
The push up is a funny exercise because it seems so simple on the surface yet few people can really do it right. There are a lot of subtleties to this great exercise that get missed in the rush to do 50 reps and as a result the most important part of this exercise gets [...]
Most riders I talk to tell me that they face three big obstacles when it comes to starting a training program: Kettle bells are not magical and just touching one won’t make you a better rider but the philosophy behind them is perfect for our purposes – do less stuff, but do it better. 1) [...]
What if I told you that there was an exercise that could increase your technical skills, make you sprint faster, explode out of the gate, bunny hop higher and get more ladies? Well, the deadlift may not be able to get you more ladies (washing your pads every once in a while might, though) it [...]
