One of the best training books I read this year was called Zen Jiu Jitsu: How to Improve Your Game 100% in 30 Days. As you can probably guess it was written for Jiu Jitsu folk but I found the basic premise of the book very intriguing.

You aren’t at the mercy of “bad genes” or needing a new bike, you simply need to know how to improve the fundamental fitness and skills needed on the trail and a program that puts it all together for you.

The idea the author wrote about was focusing all your training efforts on improving a particular position for a month. For example, if you needed to work on escaping the Mount (when someone is sitting on your chest) you’d study that position, pick a couple techniques you wanted to work on and made a conscious effort to use them as much as possible. You didn’t avoid everything else, you simply focused as much time and thought as you could on your particular techniques you were working on.

At the end of a month’s time you couldn’t help but improve. When you put in a month’s worth of focused practice, you’ll develop those techniques much better than if you just trained with no real focus.

And this applies to anything in life, including mountain biking. Focus on improving a particular skill or area of your riding for 30 days and you’ll have no choice but to see noticeable improvements, even if you’ve been stuck at a certain level of riding for years.

In fact, I wrote a blog post not only about the book itself but how to apply it to improving your Cornering and Body Position.

This concept is forehead-slappingly obvious when you read it and it really just takes my message of Metabolic Skills Training to the next level.

Metabolic Skills Training, for those that don’t know, is using your strength and conditioning workouts to improve your not just your fitness but your skills as well. When you move better off the bike you’ll move better on the bike and focusing on the right movements makes all the difference in how effective your workouts really are.

While I weave this idea into all of my workouts I had never created a workout program designed to focus everything on improving a single area of riding for 30 days. I realized that this would be a great way for riders to approach improving their skills and fitness at the same time, so I decided to create my first workout that did just that.

The first area of riding I decided to focus on is one I’ve been getting a lot of questions about – standing pedaling, especially standing climbing.

The new 30 Day Standing Pedaling Power & Endurance Solution will include mobility, strength, cardio and skills drills focused on one thing – improving your ability to stand up and lay down power at will whenever you want without tiring out in the process.

I’ll be releasing this new workout next week on Thursday the 1^st and I’m hoping it will help a lot of riders not only improve this all-important area of riding but also see that they can control how they ride. You aren’t at the mercy of “bad genes” or needing a new bike, you simply need to know how to improve the fundamental fitness and skills needed on the trail and a program that puts it all together for you.

In the meantime I’m going to be holding a comment contest where I’ll be giving away 5 FREE copies of this new program…and I’ll double it to 10 FREE copies if I get more than 100 entries.

To enter all you need to do is leave a comment telling me either how one of my programs has already helped your standing climbing or how a program like this will help you on the trail. I’ll be randomly selecting the winner on Monday so you have through this weekend to enter.

That’s it for now, I’ve got to get back to work on the new 30 Day Standing Pedaling Power & Endurance Solution. Hope you have a great weekend and I’ll be in touch Monday to announce the winners and share some more great insights into standing pedaling that you can immediately put to use on the trail.

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson