Since it seems that every traditional training concept I challenge, sometimes I feel that people must think I say stuff just to be different. While a lot of riders are starting to see the light when it comes to things such as avoiding machines like the leg press and incorporating more interval work into their cardio programs, there is one thing that I feel I have not done a very good job explaining my opposition to.

Of course, I am referring to using a road bike for off-season training. While the biggest problem is that road bike riding tends to be used in an attempt to build the mythical aerobic base we have been told we need to succeed, there is much more to the story than just that. Even if you buy into my concepts of “intensity over volume” and avoid excessive base mileage, you would still do well to avoid road bikes during your training.

I do need to make a quick point here - there is a difference between riding for fun and “training”. If you enjoy riding a road bike and want to do it then fine, under most circumstances I would not discourage you to have fun. However, you do need to recognize the difference between fun and training and use sound strategies when deciding how to spend your precious training time.

Now, onto part 1 of The Top 3 Reasons to leave the skinny tire riding to the roadies:

1) It creates a competing neural blueprint – This is an interesting concept that is rarely discussed, especially in mountain bike training. In order to simplify it let me give you this analogy.

You’re brain is like the processer in your computer. It basically tells everything what to do and how to do it. Your muscles are like the hardware in your computer. They do the actual work but need the brain to tell them what to do and how to do it. Your nervous system is like the software your computer uses to bridge the gap between your processer and hardware. How well your processer can make use of your hardware depends in large part on the quality of the software you have installed.

This analogy explains how your body works. Every time you create a movement your brain is using the nervous system to tell your muscles how hard to contract, what order to contract in and how long to contract for. Your nervous system starts to create a “software” program for that movement so that it becomes more instinctual. The more you repeat a movement the better your brain and nervous system learns that movement and the more refined and ingrained the “software program” for that movement pattern becomes.

Because a road bike puts you in a different position and it tends to be far lighter than your mountain bike your nervous system will actually creates a different “software” program for your brain to use in creating that movement. While they look similar, from your brain and nervous systems perspective riding a mountain bike and riding a road bike are two different tasks.

Any time spent training on a road bike is not spent ingraining and refining the movement patterns needed for riding a mountain bike. In fact, since they are similar you may be creating a competing software program – one that is close to but not exactly like the one you need on your mountain bike.

Some top strength coaches in other sports think that this may lead to inefficient movement over the long run as your body tries to figure out which of the two similar movement patterns to use at any given time. This is why you don’t find a lot of baseball pitchers throwing heavy baseballs or golfer swinging lighter clubs in the off season than what they compete with. These other coaches recognize the impact of the nervous system on training and either have their athletes doing the exact same thing they do in their sport or engaging in cross training.

Since mountain biking and road riding are not so far apart you can not consider road riding to be cross training, which also leads me to my second point…

2) It increases the likelihood of overuse injuries – to be continued….

-James Wilson-

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I did a blog post on this a few weeks back but thought I’d share some more thoughts on the subject with this video.

-James Wilson-

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I got a new bike last Tuesday (a Brodie Damien) and had to take it out to our secret freeride spot to break it in. I’ll post some pics of the bike at some point as well but thought you guys might like some fresh riding video…

-James Wilson

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It never fails…every time a new person starts with us at my facility they inevitably hit a frustration point. Even “fit” people are shocked at how little they really know about their body and how it is supposed to move and work. Even though I warn people that there is a 2 week learning curve where you learn to show body awareness and control that they simply are not used to displaying it is still frustrating as they realize how many things they have to work on.

Last week I was working with a client who has been with us for a bit and he started to voice some frustration about an exercise and how something new we had made him aware of “made it harder”. This got me thinking about how most people approach their fitness program.

Most people want to feel good about and protect their ego. Getting out of their comfort zone scares the crap out of them and so they avoid exercises and programs that challenge them. This is another one of the reasons that things like machines and aerobics equipment are so popular – they do some of the work for you and make for an easier training experience.

What I realized was that mindset will always lead to lackluster results. Here are a couple of things I tell clients to help them keep things in perspective -

An ancient Chinese proverb says that “to be different from what you are, you must first know what you are”. The first step in changing something is finding out what it is and how you want it to change. This process can never start if you always avoid things that expose your weaknesses and give you a proper perspective on what and where you really are.

As frustrating as it may be at first, every weakness that you expose is an opportunity for change that you did not have the day before. From that point of view finding weaknesses should be embraced because that is the first real step in exacting change in your body.

You also want to remember that if you have the proper mindset you will want to seek out your weaknesses, not hide from them. Because the discovery of weaknesses is the first step in exacting change you never want to reach the point where you think that you have no weaknesses or else you have no more opportunities for change and growth.

What makes the masters in any craft better than anyone else is their constant desire to find their weaknesses and improve on them. Even the simplest of exercises hold lessons for everyone out there to learn, we just need to seek them instead of avoiding them. This mindset will not only help you achieve better results in the gym but also in your life, which is what training is really all about.

-James Wilson-

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Is Cross Fit “better” than a more quality based approach? Hear my experience and draw your own conclusions…

-James Wilson-

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Shedding weight is one of the top priorities for most mountain bikers. Riders will pay top dollar to shave a few grams off their bikes in the belief that the lightest ride possible will help them on the trail. While I will not dispute that, all things being equal, a lighter bike will tend to go faster than a heavier counterpart I will argue that there is a time when adding weight may be beneficial.

Of course I am talking about adding weight to the engine that drives your bike – you! Every so often I hear from a rider who is concerned that strength training will add weight or that they have gained weight on my program. In a sport that tells you “lighter is better” seeing the number on any scale go up can be a bit unnerving. However, much of this concern is completely unnecessary.

The most important thing for you to worry about is your strength-to-bodyweight ratio. For example, if two riders can both deadlift 300 pounds but one weighs 200 pounds and the other weighs 175, the lighter rider has a higher strength-to-bodyweight ratio. The higher your strength-to-weight is the more functional strength and power you will have on the trail.

To better illustrate what I am talking about, let’s say that you currently weigh 160 pounds and your max deadlift (one of the best indicators of MTB specific strength in my book) is 200 pounds. Not bad but certainly not where it can or should be.

Now let’s say that you finish the Ultimate MTB Workout Program and your deadlift has gone up to 250 (which would be a pretty small increase) and your bodyweight has gone up to 170 pounds (which would be a pretty big increase). Your deadlift strength has gone up 25% while your bodyweight has only increased by 6%. This effectively bumps your strength-to-weight ratio up which is what you want from your program.

I guarantee that on the trail you won’t notice the extra bodyweight since it has been more than offset by the strength gains. Every time you need to lay down some extra strength and power to the pedals you’ll be able to do it far better than when you were smaller and weaker. As you can see, there is far more to the performance equation than how much you weigh.

One of the reasons that a lot of riders find themselves putting on weight with my programs is that the workouts target areas that usually do not get emphasized in regular workouts. Exercises like the deadlift and its variations target the hips which are comprised of the big gluteus (butt) and hamstring muscles. These muscles do not get worked as effectively with squats and leg presses, two more common “mountain bike specific” exercises.

When you stress muscles that are not used to getting worked they will initially respond by growing. However, I will point out that not all muscle gain is the same. If you are using compound lifts like the deadlift and you are keeping your total volume low then whatever muscle you put on will be functional in nature. This type of muscle gain will actually add to your body’s ability to create strong, powerful movement on your bike.

But if you are following a bodybuilder type program (using machines, doing 3 sets of 8-12 reps and/ or training separate body parts on separate days) then the muscle you put on will not be as functional. This type of training tends to “pump up” a muscle more than make it stronger, meaning that it is not necessarily able to better help you on the trail.

Obviously there is a point of diminishing returns as you don’t want to add too much weight and any weight gain you get needs to be from muscle and not fat (fat is always “non-functional”). However, adding 5-15 pounds of muscle from a good strength training program is not unusual or anything to be alarmed about as long as your strength gains outpaces your weight gains.

One last thing to keep in mind is that muscle is the best “armor” you can have on the trail. If your arms and legs look like they would snap in two from the slightest fall you are far more likely to get hurt when you crash. Mountain biking is far more physical than road cycling (the single biggest outside influence on mountain bike training) and therefore requires a more physical rider. Adding some functional muscle will make you faster, more powerful and decrease your injury potential. When you look at it that way, seeing the number on the scale go up isn’t so bad after all.

-James Wilson-

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