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Origins of Fatigue – #WednesdayWisdom

Concise is the name of the game here – so read on! It won’t take long.

The Instagram post HERE / Below – has set the tone.

Central fatigue is the big bad bad beast, in the short term its’ easy to over come; like taking 5 minutes between heavy squats, it dissipates and you can lift maximally again. But over repeated bouts of heavy squats or even just a long, long bike ride the central (CNS) fatigue that reduces the drive from brain to spinal cord to muscles is a big performance killer. So think back to back EWS races. It could be a big issue! Because it affects motivation as much as it affects fine motor skills like delicate cornering or perfectly timed manuals. Harder to measure, but reduced drive for explosive movements and far higher perceived exertion will do the trick.

Peripheral fatigue is what is happening in the muscle – this can be felt, legs getting heavy, sore after strength training etc… this is where architecture, energy pathways and the cardiovascular system collide and of course MTB in any discipline has the ability to create fatigue here! Measured with internal load – like same power output = higher heart-rate!

So with MTB we have both, in spades. Race an EWS or World Cup DH and both will hit you harder than you think. Now the affect physiological load or biomechanical load has on the source of fatigue would start to make our discussion complex as all hell. so let’s move on.

Environmental aspects like heat, altitude and rain cannot be forgotten about and neither can emotional load/fatigue like meeting sponsor demands or kissing babies!

So we have the descending loads – bike and body accelerating due to gravity, hitting holes and turns and rocks and roots. It means deforming, crumbling but you can’t because to execute technique you have to maintain posture. which requires muscle forces are generated both eccentrically and concentrically – these forces are created around all joints, in perfect unison of force, time and speed! Angular velocity is the name of the game and of course all of this is extremely fatiguing – both centrally and peripherally. If this is DH then you have to do it repeatable – up to 5,000m descending over 2 days at near max effort to learn a track well enough to win.

For EWS you have elements of the above but also the endless hours outside dealing with the environmental stress and the load of just pedaling that bike from A to B! Add in emotional, organisational and external stressors to this and it’s a big challenge for either discipline! Hence why we see some empty minds and bodies at the end of race days.

Long story short – racing MTB means fatigue off all types in varying degrees! Know your poison to make your cure!

The true antidote to fatigue is capacity; maybe better termed specific capacity. But even that is not a silver bullet as no matter how well prepared you are you will get fatigued! The “solution”, at least as I’ve chipped away at it is categorized below. Along with other systems like a movement, technique or needs analysis this goes to form the overall “training process/planning or paradigm” we use.

Capacity

The bigger the tank the longer it takes to empty! The stronger you are means you produce more force, the more force you produce the less you need to produce in relation to your top limits to achieve the same task goal – hence better ACCURACY (key) and less fatigue both centrally and peripherally. That’s one example but it is a very simple concept that can be expanded across physical qualities and is essential the underpinning justification for psychical prep or strength and conditioning. For example, better ability to use your aerobic energy pathways, less fatigue incurred for climbing said hill at said pace!

Specificity

Where rubber meets the road! Here’s where things can get messy and internet gurus, CrossFit loonies and “sport-specific” charlatans swimming in a sea of BOSU balls will try to sink your ship! Your sport or others very close to it (pump-track) are the only true sport specific prep you can do! As such doing your sport in training to EXCEED the demands that will be placed upon you in competition is critical to battling fatigue and arriving at race day and race runs ready to win. I won’t dig deeper because at this point in time I think we have some Point1 gems in the works here to make good inroads in prep compared to out competition! Although there is nothing new under the sun.

Load Management

No brainer – both acute and chronic! this is a case of sharpen versus saw, general  versus specific and of course understanding the individual time curves of both adaptation and recovery of individual athletes. Generic planning does not cut it here . If you wish to be on form for race week – to maximise practice and arrive at race day alive and ready to kill then you will need to have developed sufficient capacity of physical qualities and specificity of training BUT not be carrying excessive residual or chronic fatigue from doing so. You cannot display what you don’t have, but if you have something and it’s buried under injured or tiredness you won’t be able to whip it out in time,

Manage Nutrition

A big fish to fry, therefore lets keep it specific to racing. The foundations of good nutrient start long before and far away from race day – so you amplify the good come racing and dampen the bad. Adequate carbohydrate during and after peripherally fatiguing exercise like an EWS practice day could be a game changer for some or bread and butter for others. Dealing with reduced drive from increased central fatigue with a tasty double espresso, eating local, colorful and seasonal all week long to cover macro needs and supplementing when necessary! Do the job right but don’t over-complicate

Manage Planning

Last but maybe most important. The forgotten bastard child of bike racing!? All of a sudden this isin’t shredding with “mates”! Now you’ve got limited time to get a maximum amount of work done? Cram 7 runs into 4 hours? Queue outside under the blistering sun, limit recovery between full runs on a 4 minute DH track? Sounds great, not! sounds like you don’t have clue what you are doing.

 

Planning practice, recovery, strategy and tactics. Knowing how practice equates to building a race run or stage win = minimal energy expended for maximum effect and as such less fatigue incurred! Leaving all that capacity and specific prep you did in very perfect working order to go and EXECUTE come race day.

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2019 – Things I Learned

2019 thought some big lessons. Here are ten things I learned.

Experience is only valuable as a lesson learned if its thoroughly reflected upon. Things I learned is an attempt at concise and brutal reflection on the bigger lessons learned in 2019; hoping to apply these experience in 2020. Aiming for better processes, better actions, better outcomes and above all else even more love for what I do.

In no particular order. Except number one, that’s first on the list because it is telling so much when observing the behaviors of others.

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1. The Little Things – there is nothing only the little things, how you do one thing is how you do everything and how you do the small things is ALWAYS HOW you do the big things. Call it attention to detail, call it neurosis, call it whatever you want; but if you care enough to fold your kit just so, match your goggles to your gloves, clean your spoon and your cup. Care enough to clear up after others just so the space you share is organised, care enough to bring your compression tights or pack extra goggles for race runs (tear-offs and roll-offs). The details matter, micro dictates macro and how you do the little things is how you do the big things. always.

2. Act Fast – act fast on experience, specifically.  Too often in 2019 I waited to act. Waited to see the outcome of the next step, next choice or an athletes next move. When in reality I had a very good grasp on what the outcomes would be because I had seen those exact patterns before. Patterns often belie the inner workings of any system, especially a human system and while perfect prediction is next to impossible, an effective guess with just enough room to move is often a possibility. In 2020 I will act a lot faster on experience.

3. The Mind is the Key to Performance – Say no more. The mind matters and matters the most.

4. The Mechanistic Paradigm is Useless – as a methodological filter it has seeped into every facet of physical training and preparation and as a result performance. Riders, athletes and the public believe in the predictive powers of “science” so much that they think models of training based off of lactate threshold or V02 max trump all else. As a result the body is viewed as a machine. Where an input gives a known output. Always. This of course couldn’t be any further from the truth. As a human, the complexity of what goes on inside out bodies, how that interacts with the complexity of others in our environment and the environment itself is still so far beyond our powers of investigation never mind “models” of training that the only paradigm you need is the human paradigm. Predict at your peril, instead by ready to amplify or dampen the response to any decision or input. This comes from experience and not much else.

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5. The Ecological Validity of Testing – knowing the limits of your investigatory powers is key. Test results from a stationary bike and a real bicycle may yield different results over the same time/distance/output. Always ask two questions is it specific and is it relevant? Then is it repeatable? From there figure out what your question to be answered is before getting your data. IF you do it the other way then you’ll probably just make the data suit your biases. There is much to be done in 2020 on the testing subject. Someone once said “if it gets measured it gets managed” but there ain’t no point in managing something that just does not matter.

6. Talk – it’s the best way to build relationships and achieve goals. Face to face if possible. The energy, honesty and intimacy of two humans sharing facial expressions, emotions and body language will always trump a text or an e-mail.

7. Authenticity – no matter what just always be you. The athletes who are always true to them selves are most often the most successful. Those who try to be what they think others need/want them to be often fail.

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8. Hic et Nunc – Here and Now – be present, drop the phone, drop the attitude, drop the image. If you want to make the most of a situation or circumstance be focused, be present and be in the hear and now. 2019 thought me this in spades.

9. Process – every year, every month, every day, every minute. It rears it’s beautiful face! 2019 was no different. You’ll only truly enjoy the destination if you enjoyed every minute of the journey. More HERE

10. Athlete First – this is a guiding principle above all else. It forms a core of the Point1 philosophy. From physical prep to building a career to answering questions with the big picture and long-term success in mind being authentic for me really does mean ATHLETE FIRST! Just because two athletes compete in the same sport doesn’t mean they need the same training. Just because it looks good for me, the coach, doesn’t mean it’s the decision I am gonna make.

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The Hawthorne Effect & the Power of Routine

The Hawthorne Effect – when an individual changes how they normally do something because the know they are being observed. It may be a phenomenon of sorts and surely affects individuals to different degrees and in different ways. As a concept it may or may not be even real but for your MTB performance it’s a useful anecdote to abuse.

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When racing a MTB in the gravity disciplines your only true opponent, the enemy so to speak, is the clock. It also happens then, by default, that the clock is an “observer”. Furthermore, due to it’s unwavering objectivity, it’s also the harshest of observers. It doesn’t lie, sugar-coat it’s feedback nor strive for long-term improvements by giving you a short-term boost through white lies. The clock counts seconds and that’s that! Observers come in many shapes and forms in MTB, from fans track side to your friends behind you on a ride and they all could potentially feed into the “reactive” change in behavior that hallmarks the “Hawthorne Effect”. Just how many times have you messed a corner or jump up when your friends get the camera out?

Narrowing focus onto the power of the clock and we, or at least I, see how it steamrolls and amplifies it’s impact. The clock in all it’s beautiful objectivity becomes much more to the racer than minutes and milliseconds. The clocks unwavering ability to tell the truth amplifies the impact of all the other observers the racer knows are there. The opinions of others, based off what the clock says, all of a sudden become much more tangible. Fellow racers, family, the “fans”, the keyboard warriors, the rivals, your own sense of self and that inner ego monster!? The opinions of those individuals suddenly carry weight, they come backed by evidence. So as an exercise in humility and true emotional control, racing is the pinnacle. Excuses can be made but if that narrative doesn’t add up at least in part to the clocks story then time wins. You suck!

Now you may not experience any semblance of the Hawthorne Effect when you are put on the clock, or you may actually benefit like many racers do. I coach more than one rider who are that cliché “clutch performer” – they race better than they ride! In their case the clock and the added observer power that comes with it increases their potential to execute! They rise under pressure.

Many riders, of all levels, however experience variations of performance reduction due to being observed. Whether by the clock, friends or otherwise. The motivation that others garner from that objective observer counting in seconds & minutes slips and becomes a massive hindrance. As a result, some riders choke, perform worse, can no longer control emotions nor feelings. Everything and nothing can overwhelm them and the desire to protect your own image of themselves, their ego, takes over. The reaction to observation leads to negative outcomes.

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A solution you ask? Routine! If you’ve worked with me as coach then “routines” would become a commonplace talking point. Often rearing it’s head as the “process”. Control the controllable and focus on the actions that lead to good outcomes not the outcome itself. But that whole performance paradigm – based on a process focus – can miss the simple power of specific routine. Specific routines for specific situations. The easiest to describe is a race day routine. As that’s often when the clock mediated Hawthorne Effect rears it’s ugly head. Race day will always be on a schedule. Your start-time being the cornerstone. Everything else works toward that moment. You know you are going to be “observed” in one way or another so deal with it! While the scrutiny on offer may change depending on the race or venue or many other variables your routine can stay the same and with that you can perform as close to optimal as possible.

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Without a routine the only defense you have against the negative impacts of expectation and scrutiny are your own thoughts and mental skills, while you may be lucky to have a strong character or have developed even effective coping skills to deal with race day “nerves”, on their own as your sole strategy to craft a race day performance, they are energy consuming and potentially wasteful. The “routine” approach gives you a seamless and effective strategy that consumes minimal energy because it becomes process.

Routine – a DH race day example

Morning Practice – two runs; key sections to work on, line focused not “feeling” focused – or vice-versa!
Post Practice – hydrate, relax, de-brief with friends, coach, mechanic, adjust race run plan based on practice knowledge
Downtime – occupy yourself with something else, shit-talk, coffee, relaxation, massage etc…
Meal time – set a specific time and type of meal – keep it enjoyable but effective
Warm-Up – specific start time for Warm-Up – content set, specific to needs and track demands.
Music – playlist for warm-up
Your Mantra – repeat to yourself your pre-race mantra as needed starting with four minutes to start – e.g. “enjoy executing”!

The above may seem rigid, but it’s simply an idea, the key is to have a routine in place, it can be anything you want, have any focus, as long as it’s pre-planned and timed to allow you to control the key variables that you know matter to your performance come race run.

Without a plan, the pressure created by the observation of others can crack you. Worse again without a plan you may find yourself at the mercy of your emotions, lead by feelings that can severely impact performance…. doubt, fear, vulnerability, irritability etc… these feelings can take over. They then occupy the “working memory” in our brain and make what should be simple pre-race tasks feel monumental. Secondary to that, this hyper-emotional state means we feel our movements internally, so instead of riding like you can, you force it and try to make yourself ride like you want to. The end result is poor performance, constrained by knowing that no matter what; your performance is on the clock and all eyes are on that same clock.

Whether the Hawthorne Effect actually exists is largely irrelevant, it’s just helps us give a name to race day and riding situations we have all faced. Most importantly if something has a name then it becomes more tangible. If you can define it you can defeat it.

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Things to think about // EWS 2019 – Rounds 1 and 2

5 Things to think about

 

  1. Wheelsizes – Business, party or full on orgy? Does anyone care? I think the answer is YES. But you must care for the right reasons. Isolating the diameter of wheels as a sole variable that will make or break your performance will most certainly just melt your head and break your brain. 97.5 is here to stay, at least medium term. Yes, a Class A ball ache for a privateer carrying different diameter tyres etc… but it’s gonna work as proven in both DH and EWS races. My hunch is that the mass of a rider and kit on a bicycle so greatly outweighs that of the bike and wheels that the 27.5/29 mis—match is negatable. On average a rider will be five times heavier than their bike. All that mass shifting to apply technique…. well you see my point. Last year 27.5” bikes dominated races, as did 29” bikes in both men’s and women’s racing. Now 2019 is here, fresh faced and fighting fit and the first two races where won by a variety of wheel diameters in all categories; the common denominator was a rider/bike/suspension/technique quadrant that was dialed in. Synergistic bliss allowing for optimal technique application under time and fatigue duress on stage. There’s a lot more to all that and a lot more time invested in preparations than the diameters of tyres.

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  1. Ladies Racing – Big healing vibes to Mrs. Ravanel. Bon retablissement! Taking big leaps in thought from small data sets is dangerous, that said the gap between first and second for the ladies in 2017 in Rotorua was the same as the gap between first and seventeenth in 2019. Over three minutes. We know from more than a few seasons now that when Cecile is on it, she really is ON-IT! My experience tells me that a large chunk of this is to do with her very healthy focus on executing fast riding on demanding trails in training and far less hours devoted to “number crunching” chasing fickle physiological goals than her competition! Dare I say somewhat like her compatriot Morgan Charre;. a RAD rider! Cecile’s absence doesn’t detract from the other ladies racing though. All anyone can do on an individual sport is improve themselves. One trail, one rider, one clock. So, watching the battles unfold will be really exciting and with riders like Noga Korem, Bex Baroana, Katy Winton and ALN racking up experience the gaps will be closing across the board regardless of names missing from start-list!

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  1. Tasmania Race Duration – curious geek stat – Tasmania 2017 and 2019 were nearly identical duration in-terms of minutes raced. For both men and women, I’ll let you go search out the details yourself, but 2019 had 6 stages, 2017 had 7 but the BIG BUT was that 2017 was a slog of a race, wet and wild. Anyways, Isabeau won both editions, there are some little details in that day of racing for the ladies that stand out but really, it’s the men’s racing that has some changes. 2017 saw Adrien Dailly take the win; three seconds ahead of third place and twenty-four ahead of tenth. 2019 saw Mr. Maes on a racing roll and with it putting twenty-three seconds into third place and over forty into tenth. So quite the change from 2017………. But this is where critical analysis of performance and not just results needs to be slammed down on the table with a fat SLAP. As I repeat ad nauseum when chatting reflection with athletes – the clock does not lie; but it never tells the full story! Not taking one ounce away from Martin’s stunning performance, a dry race allows for a far higher chance of a “perfect” race. Perfect? What I mean is a race where a rider executes each stage to their liking, executed with precision based off a plan and a strategy that then gets adapted to the race, bike and rider conditions to optimise speed from A to B. Along the same lines of thought a perfect race or excellent performance can leave you with a big winning margin. Judging by the time gaps down to tenth and twentieth, Martin had a stunning day. Likewise, simply comparing two data sets, i.e. 2017 and 2019 races isn’t enough to draw conclusions. Context matters in analysis, for example Greg Callaghan was on track for victory in the 2017 race in Tasmania, even after a crash on an early stage broke a bone in his hand. He threw the victory away with a slide out on the final stage, without both of those crashes he would have had a twenty second winning margin. Ifs and buts!

 

  1. Single Stage day – following on from above, Tasmania gave us a single practice, single timed stage Saturday; partially to fulfill EWS 80 scheduling but also to reduce the physical load on the racers and make the racing about bike riding and not training volume, this is something we will see more of at EWS racing. It is also something that Martin Maes got very right. Most likely because of a business as usual attitude. The damage done on this stage whether by Martin and Isabeau over others or by individuals poor performances inflicted on themselves was noticeable. A stunning Sunday performance could turn things a-round a little, but a ropey Saturday was suicide! What was learned – this is probably a practice and mindset “thing” that will need to be trained and thought about – reflecting on hard racing lessons learned!

 

  1. The Future nowto talk briefly about training philosophy the “global” demands of a sport or event are broad, the universal or unifying themes of events; some sports like swimming or athletics have very straightforward distances or durations. Even soccer for all its stochastic wildness has two halves of forty-five minutes each. EWS has big days out on your bike, carrying some kit, shredding hard and aiming to recover fast (between stages & days), but things get muddled fast. One day or two-day races, prologues, one-or two-day practices, four to nine stages, sea-level, high altitude, mud bog or big alpine loam. I mean the aforementioned list could wrap around the world.  After two races characterised by fairly flat stages that required a lot of rider input to make, maintain and craft speed – round three in Madeira is going to dish out nine stages of what could very easily be steep, wild, loose and loamy racing. What is guaranteed is that none of the nine stages will be like anything raced in Rotorua or Tasmania and maybe even none of the nine will resemble each other at all! I can’t wait.

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What is? – Conditioning…?

One word that means everything and nothing to so many, whether in the “fitness” industry or not. From rider to racer and everyone else involved “conditioning” is a word that most often in most peoples unsaid, unwritten definition overlaps with the word “fitness”.

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Fitness for the lay man, conditioning for the “professional”? Who cares, as it likely does not matter once solitary gram. What we mean is the ability for your body (brain included, they cannot be separated) to deliver & use adequate amounts of energy so you can successfully complete what your sport demands at any given instance. The energetics of movement maybe? Attempts to break that down into measures of ones ability to transport and use oxygen, burn substrates, use enzymes, contract, relax and control muscle, make decisions or pin point percentage substrate usage are all worthwhile uses of scientific investigation…helping further the body of knowledge coaches use and abuse in helping athlete’s prepare.

The “problem” as it stands now though is two fold and caused in no small part by many peoples perception of the above scientific investigations being the zenith of human investigation into sports performance…simply, the view held by many that scientific investigation has all the answers. As a result, depending on your sports culture, the training process can be largely dominated by percentage based systems, classifications of physiological metrics. On the surface this seems to make sense for our “conditioning” but it has in no small part contributed to blinkered views of what conditioning is and how to achieve it. To the detrement of thousands of athletes once they face the heat of true competition.

Instead of subscribing to a system created by others for the masses, the best approach, to date, in my attempts to help others achieve “fitness” and to condition athletes is to be a scavenger. While not as glamorous as a hunter metaphor, there are few scavenger species close to extinction. Basing near all decisions on a singular training model like % of FTP, % of 1 repetition max, velocity, % of V02max etc… is utter madness! What’s even worse is your foolhardy gym warrior approach of doing what’s “hot” right now – that being as I type, still, somehow, Tabata timing – 20″ of work 10″ of rest for 8 reps!

Kaos Seagrave at Redbull Hardline, UK September 2017.
PC – Red Bull Content Pool

 

If we back pedal to the start – What is conditioning? The ability to deliver, use and exceed the energy requirements of meeting your sports demands for every last second of competition, from pre-practice to race run. For the Enduro racer this is everything from track-walks, practice, race stages, post stage recovery, pre-stage prep and doing it the week after or day after if demanded by the calendar. By definition it is “fitness” – suitability for a task.

So a narrow definition of “condition” will very like get you beaten, or killed! Why? Because performance cannot be categorized by physiology alone. A solution to this problem is to become a blood-thirsty scavenger.

Take what you need from any models avaialbe, use, modify, abuse & discard. Remember that all models are wrong but many are useful. The next time your on the bike, in the gym or planning your or some other persons training you may think of this post…..with that in mind below are some conditioning buckets we try to use when planning training so as no matter how big the fire you encounter at a race you will have enough in reserve to dampen the flames, a buffer if you will, not a physiological one, but a performance buffer.

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Some of the ways we try to design training sessions to improve conditioning….am attempt to control the interaction between the many layers that make up “condition” without solely reducing them to their supposed component parts.

 

The above are just some examples – methods and means can be best guided by the application of a varied but effective and evolving ecosystems of training. The ecosystem you create by how you organise and categorize your training sessions and their desired & undesired outcomes is what allows you to build a plan that has some semblance of order that allows you to help deliver a prepared and conditioned athlete for competition. In an ideal world the above table would actually be some sort of beautiful chart where the possible relationship and connection between each approach to conditioning is explored……but I just don’t have the time or skills for that.

The above holistic approach to designing the conditioning focused elements of a plan allow for a more complete understanding of training load also. Providing a handy port of departure away from classic, linear, input//output metrics like Training Stress Score, TRIMP, distance, time etc… training load and stress can only be understood when the emotional and subsequent autonomic state that it occurred during is understood and as an extension of that the “outcome state” each session creates too. As a recent study found, perceived success or failure of a session, the emotional impact a session has and the location & result all effected rating of exertion – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29502448

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PC – Red Bull Content Pool

 

The simplest measure of preparedness, conditioning and fitness will NEVER be found in a lab or quantified with numbers, being conditioned for your event/sport means meeting or exceeding demands at all moments and that requires the confidence to know you can do it for it to actually happen. So even if you have the physiological systems conditioned to deliver, use and express the use of energy as movement you are not conditioned unless that can be expressed under the global demands of competition, whether that’s a large crowd, a fresh opponent, a different air temperature or a changing surface. Conditioning = Fitness and Fitness = ability to complete a task. No caveats, no excuses.

P.S. – I’ve probably done a poor job at articulating my views on what conditioning is and how to achieve it…..but a blog is pretty much nothing more than a place one attempts to organise thoughts…..and that is all I did

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The best of 2017?

Becoming an annual reflection I think, but what was the very best ride of 2017?

Some years, like 2016, there is a sure-fire stand-out. Fresh single-rack, the best of friends or the wildest moments? Some years maybe it’s no so clear-cut? Maybe it’s that all the rides were mediocre or the inverse, maybe every time those tyres touched dirt it was sensational wild times.

Reflection is what makes this sort of otherwise useless blog post important (to me at least)! The lens we see the past through is constructed from those very experiences we are reflecting on….but that lens , I suppose, is easily changed in tint, hue or shape by the outcomes of those very reflections!?

Curbing all that philosophical yip-yapping, 2017 had bike shredding in every month! From January to December, maybe the first time for me in years, but what it also had as mind-bending savagely good trails, people and times in each of those months. So a very “best ride of 2017” is just not possible to nail down. Via the scary power of social media though below is a collection of some of the highlight moments. From shredding with Point1 athletes on endless alpine gems or wild berms to getting barreled in the berms of Champéry’s “coupe du Monde” track. 2017 delivered. Some of the most enjoyable rides were probably the solo, 6 a.m. missions to the top of whatever hill or mountain was above the World Cup h venues, praying to find a trail that was not only good but would bring me back to the apartment in time to whip up a decent breakfast at 6:45 a.m. for FMD-Racing!

Anyways, all going to “plan” 2018 will dish up a double portion of the same……cheers bikes, you’re class.

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The best of 2016?

 

The best ride in 2016? Not an easy one to choose; cliché but there were many savage days out! But a filthy wet July day high above Morzine riding at full tilt up and down hills with a host of Point1 trained animals and some friends!

Starting on some of the steepest tarmac inclines in the valley; it was threshold pace from the word go. With XCE World Cup winner and everyone’s favourite Asian Caucasian Kenta Gallagher leading it out, waving willy and twisting throttle!

Eventually working our way to a high enough altitude we broke through the thick cloud to be greeted by the heaviest rain storm in months! Soaked to the bone; we proceeded. More willy waving was needed and we picked the trickiest, tech single track climb with slick rock to have a 1 up competition. Little did we know though that the Spartan Race that was happening in Morzine at the time was using the same trails. So with bodies falling all around us and traction dripping away with every mucky revolution, the ride was turning into something beyond epic for how little time we’d actually been out!

After some Spartan spectating and more face-plants (them not us) we traversed some dodgy cliff edge trails, 200m straight down to death on your left! Arriving at our little plateau (where the Instagram was taken), regrouped and high-5’ed…dried off the grips, strapped on a pair of goggles and dropped in to 19 of the best switchbacks in the alps, bermed to perfection by nature and time; the dirt was perfect!

A quick traverse after all the whooping and shouting, another Zone 4 attack to get back up toward Pleney and we rode some bike park senders back home! Less than 2 hrs riding but with a crew of weapons as wild as they were. World Cup winner and racers, EWS winner it didn’t really matter as it was just skids and wheelies and massive craic.

Cheers to push-bikes!

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Prospective Control of Action

This is a re-post from the Point1 Facebook page; because frankly Facebook is a horrible medium for longer, dribbling narrative! Enjoy.

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So, to carry on from Friday’s yip-yap on Posture and Technique…

One of the relationships (some were trade-offs) listed was

Pre-Reaction~Reaction

The first term above being a misnomer – deliberate at the time. The correct term in fact would be, I think,

Prospective. Prospective control.

And as is becoming very clear in my own development as a coach, the relationship of qualities, traits and sub-systems within the athlete (rider) is of utmost importance, this must be respected & understood.

Relational thinking TRUMPS categorical thinking….always. When we speak about performance improvement at least.

“Prospective control refers to the means by which actors (read: rider in our case) adapt behaviour in advance to the constraints and behavioral opportunities afforded in/by the environment” ~ Fajen, Riley, Turvey; 2009

Prospective control is thus ESSENTIAL for the emergence of skilled actions. Without it all you would do is react to what the trail/race-track is giving you. But as we all know, reaction is after the fact, it is, no matter how “fast” too late. Too late for you the rider to successfully navigate each distinct section of trail in such a way as too link up distinct sections into fast, flowing, effective riding.

So when you see your favourite, rider, athlete or celebrity carry out some reactive “eye-hand” co-ordination drill in the gym, remember that reaction is too slow; and regardless most of the “reactions” we make, when riding an MTB well, are somatic reflexes, not reactions…and once that gym “drill” is learned then it would be the prospective control of posture, position that would allow for faster “reaction” to emerge. So again, full circle, relational thinking; reaction to a stimulus is much faster with better prospective control!

Greg Williamson performs at the UCI DH World Tour in Leogang on June 12, 2016

So in the immediate term what does this mean for you if the whole notion of prospective control is new too you?

– Posture = Prizes; the whole reason the “attack-position” bares so many hallmarks and similarities (attractors if you know Dynamical Systems) among good riders is. That that position/posture allows for joint angles, muscle length~tension relationships, peripheral nervous system function, afferent control & force production to operate within an optimal bandwidth to deliver the required technique on trail in the fastest way possible. Prospective control of posture given the trail affordances means “skill” emerges to perfectly match speed. This in essence is “trail efficiency”!

So what can we do to improve our potential to always display usable posture regardless of the trail demands? A shortlist only below….

1. Cultivate & Maintain adequate control, mobility, proprioception, strength and stability through all joints and movement patterns.

2. Develop adequate and ever evolving strength of your “hip hinge”; both eccentric and concentric muscle action, with a stable spine achieved through excellent function of all torso musculature from hip to shoulder (and likely more)!

3. Identify “rate-limiters” to postural maintenance and re-setting. These could be anything from foundational physiological qualities like aerobic metabolism to very specific characteristic qualities like your interaction with a particular size bike, with a certain tyre pressure on certain gradient of terrain!

4. Given the minute detail of the last point above it becomes clear that developing, year on year, season on season, a large physical/physiological buffer of foundational qualities that support good posture on trail will reduce the likely hood of poor mechanics or characteristic rate limiters cropping up under duress/fatigue or emotionally demanding situations.

5. True sport form and improvement in Prime Postures can only be viewed, refined, quantified and understood if enough training takes place in the environments you race in...so that means shredding your bike like fuck in the mountains, up the mountains, down the mountains etc… sounds like fun!

To wrap up a quite abstract post; prospective posture allows for prospective position on trail and that allows for fast, smooth, efficient technique application on trail; which will look to the observer like skill. This is basically all we want as a rider – as skillful navigation of long sections of trail reward us with a sensory and neuro-endocrine response that trumps many experiences in life.

Do this often enough and you get that “flow” feeling…and that leads to intrinsic motivation to shred, removing the space for strange extrinsic motivators like health, weight-loss or victory and in there you find endless drive to improve and a near total lack of anxiety.

So as I said above – relationships of qualities; not categories of qualities please!

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Freebies News Recipes Uncategorized

Point1 Snack Block

1 Recipe – 2 types of protein packed snack block; multiple uses!

Snack, Travel, extra calories

or

Recover and Re-Build

The Base Recipe 

  • 65g whey isolate protein powder (flavour of choice)
  • 100g ground almond meal
  • 35g desiccated coconut
  • 95-125ml  milk of choice (unsweetened almond or hazelnut or cow’s milk)
The base ingredients, mixed, rolled and blocked!
The base ingredients, mixed, rolled and blocked!

The add-ons, add-ins and changes for your needs

Recovery Bar: So if you want a recovery bar substitute the Whey Powder for a Whey based recovery powder! The chocolate bars pictured used High5 Recovery Protein Powder. If you need or want even more carbohydrate in the mix then add some honey, maple syrup or break all the rules and sprinkle in some cane-sugar!

Orange/Chocolate Bar: I’ve added cocoa powder (the real deal) and orange zest, then substituted some of the milk with fresh squeezed orange juice to make an unreal tangy block! Chocolate-Orange with all of the gainzzz!

Vegan bar: For those who ain’t keen on tasty animal products then you can easily substitute the Whey for a Rice or Hemp Protein! Job done!

Travel Bar: If you want these guys to pack an even bigger nutritional punch or need them to be even more satiating for travel then add in some chopped goji berries, chia seeds and nuts of choice like brazil and walnuts! You’l have to adjust liquid to dry ingredient ratios though!

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Protein Block , cut and ready for the fridge/freezer

How To:

  1. Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl
  2. Measure out or weigh your milk of choice
  3. add a little liquid and start to mix, things will seem very dry at first but the dry ingredients will absorb the liquid slowly and start to bind
  4. have patience, adding and mixing slowly
  5. you should get a pretty workable and dry mixture after a couple of minutes
  6. roll the mixture into a log, sprinkle with almond meal so it is easy work
  7. roll it out and cut into discs; shape those discs into blocks as pictured
  8. refrigerate for up to 1 hr
  9. they are ready to roll at any time, but once out of the fridge you can coat with dark chocolate or a chocolate and yogurt mix and it will set fast
  10. The base recipe is key – you can go wild with modifications to suit your needs

This recipe makes about 6 to 7 blocs – double or triple as needed!

Freeze, refrigerate for up to 1 week! These go great as a quality snack after training with a coffee, in the back pack for the long missions or rides (perfect after the 3hr mark) or as a travel stop-gap when jammed with seeds and nuts!

Imagination is only limitor!

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Out of the fridge and ready for dipping in chocolate or eating!

 

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Hhmmmm Protein, Fat and all dem nutritious nutrients
Categories
News Top Tip Uncategorized

Discipline = Freedom

Currently learning a little but making a conscious effort to apply and above all “concrete” fresh ideas, concepts and thinking I’ve learned in the last 3 months (there has been alot of self-led learning lately). Application of knowledge is the best part of coaching, the most, maybe only essential part of coaching and at times the most taxing…at least for me.

For applying new ideas to real world situation and real people (athletes) sets them and ultimately me up for failures. As absolutes don’t exist in sports performance I’ve only got principles to guide me so as long as the application of new “things” is underpinned at all times by principle then, well, then we should all be OK!

Excepting success graciously and failure willingly and learning from either is after all key to growth!

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Prepared to learn no matter the outcome; mind at ease because discipline happened!?

Growth for the athletes I coach, myself as a coach or rider and growth in general is all about MINDSET – some even call it Growth Mindset and you’ll see plenty of sweet wee info-graphics out there with all sorts of “people with a growth mindset don’t watch TV” type think on the go out there! Lovely stuff!

So yes, I am all about the growth mindset, but I don’t think it something best actively cultivated more something that is made obligatory for you by your approach to your environment.

So Step 1 would be make sure your environment is pretty good. If it’s not change it or if that’s not possible….deal with it! Don’t have access to a sweet gym with Olympic bars and coloured plates? Only got too dumbbells and 5 X 5m sq. to train in – fine shut up and get to it…..but of your goals or needs involve increasing max strength or re-habing from injury then maybe seeking out the fancy gym or making your will have to happen. That’s environment management in a nutshell – deal with it or change it!

Tight-Rope of Mindset  Thanks to trainugly.com
Tight-Rope of Mindset – Thanks to trainugly.com

Anyway I’ll get to the point; Discipline = Freedom or Discipline creates Freedom. A guy called Jocko Willink said that. He was a military man where discipline keeps you alive in the country you’re invading for no good reason.

But the discipline he’s on about isn’t in relation to conduct in the presence of superiors. It’s self-discipline and that’s where it relates or transfer to all things coaching and performance. The key common trait in people that perform consistently is discipline and as I’ve said 100000 times consistency is King when it comes to progress. So where does the freedom come in you ask? Well everywhere. FREEDDDOOOMMMM! 😉

When you are disciplined daily then freedom happens. It may seem paradoxical…but it’s not. It’s freedom in light of your goals, wants, needs and desires. For example, self-discipline removes doubt, removes internal ego struggle and get’s ride of ineffective and incessant daily micro-management. All of the above suck time out of day and reduce your freedom. Not it may feel like sticking to your 6;00 a.m turbo session removes freedom, but all it does is create it.

When it’s done it’s done. Add into that the fact that you know after a hard turbo session you needs 60g of Carbs, 30g Protein and some fats, along with the fact you know you’ll be hunger again at 10 a.m. due to EPOC and BMR effects. So your A.M snack is sorted. Homemade muffin, a banana, 1 yogurt and some coffee anyone?

Discipline in daily choices creates simplicity in subsequent choices and that frees up all the space in your head to think and do much more, frees up all the hours outside of training or work or chores, job done!

No micromanagement means you not worrying about every wee detail….you’re not guilty about missing your morning training, you’re not wondering if you deserve that snack, your not wondering if you’ve eaten the correct thing before training this evening, your not wondering if 45 min between the end of work and picking the kids up is enough to warm-up, Mobile, foam roll, train, cool-down, yoga and then eat your Paleo brownies while praying to the high fat gods. All that micro management bullshit is finished with. Results happen because your discipline leads to consistency and that consistency frees up your life for anything and everything else!

Sounds to simple maybe? But the whole idea has it’s own built in safety net and back door. If you’re consistently disciplined and achieving your goals but not happy or not achieving your goals then those goals aren’t for you. Move on, next chapter, new focus!

For the coaches out there reading this you may be wondering how that relates to the you? Well discipline in your approach to everything you do with athletes you train gives them a solid framework, a system almost that they grow to understand and love, they will, if you do your job right preempt you in many of your choices and decisions, meaning that they to now have more freedom and that empowers to “buy-in” to your training philosophy. The athlete will know the goal of a session, understand the intention and desired out come and as such have the freedom to almost build their own training around the key outcome goals. They won’t be doing anything for coach it will all be for them!

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Discipline = chicken dinners; just ask Callaghan

The final anecdote is a classic – the coach, athlete or exerciser, perceived by friends, acquaintances and family as the fitness fanatic. In reality they are just the disciplined and it’s easy, why? Because it works!

There’s a party or social gathering and you the “fanatic” refuse alcohol or the pre-dinner nibbles or whatever other processed filth is circulating the room. Some frown upon your “arrogance” or “impoliteness” others marvel at your self-discipline commenting about how it must be so hard!? But the discipline =freedom; freedom to know you ain’t missing out on anything by avoiding the pringles, freedom to eat plenty of extra meat and veg at dinner, freedom to know that there is no “catch-up” HIIT to “endure” because of your il-discipline one night, Freedom to eat the dessert; why? Because you know discipline works, discipline is easy, discipline creates freedom and freedom = fun!

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It’s the sporadic jump on a training plan, juice diet, boot camp loving, yo-yo dieting self loather that goes on a fitness binge or dry January that then must reward their “discipline” with something “forbidden” that never gets results, never tastes true freedom and never, ever has any real fun!

The disciplined has all the freedom; freedom to know that shredding 5 days in the Alps won’t kill them, freedom to eat that extra dessert, freedom to choose a road ride over MTB or freedom to just sit and enjoy a coffee with friends knowing the work got done, gets done and will again and again, get done!

The discipline to do the simple important stuff always has a knock on effect everywhere else in your life! Simples…freedom!