Categories
News Top Tip Uncategorized

Top Tip Thursday: Winter Weather Wet Riding

Time to stop giving Facebook so much free content love so here’s this week’s Top tip Thursday on the site for you! January has been kind to some and alot less kind to others – but it is a perfect time to work on improving your wet weather shredding with some of these mud riding tips below!

20150905_102304

These tips where actually something that came up in a discussion with an Enduro racer I coach looking to “solidify” key approaches to winning when muddy!

wet weather top tips

While there is plenty more to riding in the wet and mud – especially in different soils of different gradients – the above is a nice place to start!
Questions welcome.

Categories
News

Your environment & perfecting “skill”!

Below is a picture taken from an article over on Pinkbike featuring Neko Mulally and Erin Huck; showing very clearer the difference “environment” makes to skill acquisition!

p5pb13039808

The XC bike given it’s seat height and overall geometry has dictated that Erin can’t drop her heels or more accurately cannot lower her Centre of Mass (COM) via ankle dorsi-flexion and instead achieves an overall lowering of mass over her base of support by flexing the hips and getting into a very low posture that is arguably extremely inefficient!

Neko on the other hand due to his bike and how he acquired the skill of posture over the years demonstrates that “archetype” Gravity posture, ankles dorsi-flexed, knees in slight flexion, hip angle “open” at about 30 degrees of flexion. Elbow and shoulder jut behind bars etc…

Now, yes, Neko is on flat ground and Erin traveling on a slight downward slope that is possibly steepening and yes we avoid extrapolating to much from one pic. But extreme hip flexion while traveling downhill to help lower COM is not ideal.

It means hips and knee joints are at sup-optimal angles to allow the muscles acting on those joints to operate at their preferred length and thus act most efficient and make use of not just he contractile portion of muscle tissue but also the whole MTU (muscle tendon unit) and the inherent efficiency of elastic strength!

The final two pieces of the puzzle are the joints furthest from each other but both performing important functions and both having interesting effects proximally (towards centre of body)…the cervical spine (neck) and cleat position and it’s relation ship in distance to the Talus bone in the ankle.

Extreme hip flexion for whatever reason (usually COM lowering) results in the necessity of extreme neck extension to see where you are going! This arguably and supported in some research has a knock on effect on the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and leads to a further reduction in para-sympathetic tone and thus possibly more unnecessary stress, when the act of descending should be pretty chilled! Some riders like Nino Schurter display pretty extreme hip flexion when descending as that’s what the constraints of the bike dictate but still manage to keep a pretty relaxed neck position and overall excellent control.

Cleat distance to talus bone is not really understood and it’s only something I’ve recently thought about, but the Talus is considered the centre of your Base of support as a bi-pedal human, and arguably the further the cleat is away from that point the less stable the the ankle joint will be perceived by the brain, CNS and possibly less effective natural or learned spinal reflexes will be thus again leading to more “tight” the posture and the less stable the fluctuators of technique needed to make fast corrections in posture, directions and weight shift will be!

No exact science here – and there never will be when it comes to technique, skill and their acquisition!

Skill is about an end result. The intention of movement and reaching the end place or goal having expended the minimum of energy. Understanding that riding an MTB is a complex taste within a complex system and that the constraints of the task, organism and environment are very, very central to how you learn or perfect something new is what this is all about!

Bike set-up, terrain, dirt moisture, ambient temperature, tyres, muscular or central fatigue among 100000 other things affect your ability to reach that end goal.

So practice really does make perfect; but perfect practice does nothing to help you learn and adapt, So while Erin’s technique is extreme and sub-optimal in a global sense it is the technique she has adopted given the constraints of the environment (bike and terrain) she learned it in. If that technique is consistently applied in a huge variety of situations and terrains then it’s key parts will become stable enough for it to be successful as-long as those stable “parts” consistently allow her to achieve her end goal or intention!

Neko? We’ll I think Neko will be just fine…. 😉

Original article here – http://www.pinkbike.com/news/brevard-ride-camp-with-neko-mulally-and-erin-huck.html

Categories
Freebies News Recipes

Smart Nutritional Choices during DH and Enduro Training

I often sit down with the best intentions to right clear, useful and succinct blog posts about a variety of topics! But often, they sit in the “draft” folder, why? Well mainly because I have more than a few lines of thought on more than a few topics, which often leads me down a rabbit hole of additional research and thinking…and before long I’ve chosen to work with or update programs, gather feedback or catch up with the full time Point1 athletes instead of finishing a blog post!

I suppose there are both positive and negatives in that! But I’ve decided to aim for shorter, more concise blogging for this summer. Useful, less wordy but hopefully just as useful!

Less of this and more blogging........right?
Less of this and more blogging……..right? – Photo: Sean Rowe

So here it goes…the first in what will hopefully be a long line of “snappy” blogs!

Nutrition is without doubt the one area I get the most questions in, from athletes to riders on the trials of Morzine, to guys and girls in coffee shops, or on Facebook, people want nutritional info…but they also want the “secret” to eating success. Well there isn’t any secrets. But there is a stack of bull 4m deep, dogma, over-zealous lunatics, fads, supplement companies more interested in marketing than manufacturing and many other pit-falls.

So while the very first port of call of any rider or athlete is a very consistent, well planned and tasty daily meals and snacks…there are a few key areas of focus for the rider engaging in training.

1. Eating enough quality calories

2. Getting the right Macronutrient balance based off of energy expenditure demands and training goals

3. Having tasty, colourful food with good texture variety

4. Having a good idea what you’ll be eating each meal/snack at least 10hrs in advance! (this is KEY)

5. Hydrating regularly and enough 

6. Eating lots of vegetables, a little fruit, various protein sources and a good amount of fat!

Now while the above is just a short list of some areas to focus on when planning out your approach to “healthful” eating. The average rider often asks about supplements long before they address anything like the above! You’d think that the coach in me would say “sort of the basics” change your behaviours and attitudes to food and then we’ll talk before even entertaining the idea of adding in supplements to a diet and you’d be right…but having said that “supplementing” a good diet is becoming a whole lot more difficult because, luckily for people like me, it seems that smart, simple, relaxed approach to nutrition and diet are becoming very much the “norm”!

Have your nutritional sh*t in a pile before you worry about the supps! - This is a Neil Stewart feed!
Have your nutritional sh*t in a pile before you worry about the supps! – This is a Neil Stewart feed!

With that in mind – there are two key areas where I look to supplement with Gravity athletes who get themselves set up on a Point1 Coaching Partnership.

During and After Training – Why, because the high intensity, intermittent nature of DH and Enduro practice, riding or racing means significant exercise induced muscle damage (EIMD), glycogen depletion, mild dehydration and possible reductions in adaptation too or performance in a given session. So while we look to have some of the above to provide an adaptive stimulus for our bodies after training, we also need consistent application of the minimal worth while load over a long period of time to actually, ya know, get dem GAINZZZ!

So that’s why we look to supplement (not always) with some sort of specially prepared beverage during DH runs, Enduro laps or anything of that nature!

With a pretty solid body of evidence in the research to support the idea, a Carbohydrate – Protein blend beverage consumed at a rate of about 35 -45 g of carbs and 5 to 10g of protein in 500ml to 750ml of water per 2 to 3 runs or over 45min to 1hour seems to work spot on!

So what does it actually work on? 

  • Reductions in acute fatigue that manifest itself as both central (ability of your brain and CNS to control/create /drive movement) and peripheral (ability of metabolic and mechanical systems to power and fuel those movements)
  • Reductions in muscle damage and soreness during and after sessions meaning you can train sooner or to a higher quality in the next session – so that means more quality and/or quantity of good tech or physical ridning.
  • Better quality training during the session, less likely to make mistakes caused by the above fatigue discussed. More likely to execute lines and be able to overload the mechanical and metabolic systems in the exact movement patterns demanded by the sport! Therefore more likely to directly improve your “sport characteristic performance”.
  • Peripheral fatigue will cause reduced impulse, central motor drive and alterations in ideal motor unit (read muscle movement) recruitment patterns that will mean you’ll soon be using less than optimal technique and bleeding even more energy…this is the feeling of “not being able to ride” we all have gotten when riding and not snacking!

So, basically do more, do it better and arguable safer if you supplement a DH, Enduro or similar “intermittent” session with a Carbohydrate – Protein based beverage. Why beverage…well some studies have used gels…but the simplicity of a drink, coupled with the fact that you can easily get your required H2O, electrolytes and other minerals in the one package a drink based CHO -PRO supplement is a no-brainer!

The best and often recommend one to Point1ers is the High 5 4:1 product – it’s tasty, has Whey protein and not soy or some other sub-average protein source, tastes good, comes with the needed electrolytes in there already and not only is the mix in a research backed 4:1 mix of Carbs to Protein, it also is made with a variety of carb sources dubbed “multi-transportable” by Scientist meaning your gonna get a better delivery of energy and less stomach issues than if they used sugar, maltodextrin etc… alone!

High5 4:1
High5 4:1 – natural stuff for the most part

Now you may think I’m pedaling supps here with my marketing cap on! But I have made a variety of “home-brew” versions of a 4:1 intra riding drinks and invariable I come back to using the High5 4:1 as it’s on the money out of the box. Although that’s not to say I’ve not recommended some changes! 😉

However feel free to recommend in the comments the other brands or mixes you have tried if you have tried any!

Likewise questions below are welcomed!

A few Gravity Enduro lap essentials!
A few Gravity Enduro lap essentials!

 

A full day of timed DH runs needs more than a drink mix, but the 4:1 is still an integral part! As is pen and paper.
A full day of timed DH runs needs more than a drink mix, but the 4:1 is still an integral part! As is pen and paper.

Finally here’s a link to some of the research mentioned in this article – 4:1 mix used in Alpine Skiing a sport with many similarities to ours! – cho 4;1 gel skiing study

And finally part two – more research supporting the above claims for those interested!

Seifert, J.G., Kipp, R.W., Amann, M. and Gazal, O. (2005) Muscle
Damage, Fluid Ingestion, and energy supplementation during
Recreational Alpine Skiing. International Journal of Sport Nutrition
and Exercise Metabolism 15, 528-536.
Saunders, M.J., Luden, N.D. and Herrick, J.E. (2007) Consumption of
an oral carbohydrate-protein gel improves cycling endurance
and prevents postexercise muscle damage. Journal of Strength
and Conditioning Research 21, 678-684.
Ivy, J.L., Res, P.T., Sprague, R.C. and Widzer, M.O. (2003) Effect of a
carbohydrate-protein supplement on endurance performance
during exercise of varying intensity. International Journal of
Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism 13, 382-395.
Categories
News Uncategorized

Quick Fire 5 – Scotty Laughland

Our second round of quick fire 5 questions is with another Scot, Scotty Laughland. One of the newest athletes on the Point1 roster of weapons; he’s just come off his best ever EWS result (33rd) at Tweedlove.
Mature in word,  fresh in the face, downhiller turned Enduro shredder Scotty Laughland has, at 25 years young, bags of experience on a push bike, an undergraduate degree in Engineering and some serious coconut sugar based baking skills!
_DSC1293
© – Claus Wachsmann
1) Favourite meal after a tough day of training gainzzz
Quick and easy soy sauce stir-fry with chicken or beef, rice and veg
2) The training sessions you are most and least happy to see on the weekly plan?
Most: 4 hour epic enduro session
Least: none – It’all about the gainzzz and process
3) Favourite race track/s? 
Finale. Nevados de Chilean and Peebles
IMG-20150605-WA0003
© – Claus Wachsmann
4) Number 1 interest away from the world of bike riding and racing?
Travel and exploration
5) Happiest when…….?
Sat at the top of a rad, loamy 1000m + descent, froth fest!!!
IMG-20150605-WA0002
© – Scotty himself!
Categories
News Recipes Uncategorized

High5 RP Chocolate Mousse

Tough day in the saddle or better yet standing on the pedals slappin’ turns and berms? – Feeling like a treat straight after riding or something sweet after your main meal but don’t want to stop the Gainzzz (yes 3 Z’s) train?

Well here’s the simplest tastiest treat going and “functional” to boot.

Chocolate Mousse that helps you Recover! – Voodoo magic surely!?

Natural-PWG-NFACNASOP-Stg3

 

20150220_065825

Ingredients

200g of Fromage Frais – (why Fromage Frais – because it’s “alive” with cultures and a nutritional
powerhouse)

40g of High 5 Recovery Protein Powder (I used chocolate flavour)

1 Egg White – whisked

Optional Vanilla Essence to taste

20150219_215423

How To

1. Whisk the Egg White so she’s “peaky”!

2. In a separate bowl mix together your two scoops (more if you’ve had a wild day) of High5  RP

3. Slowly combine your egg whites with your Fromage Frais/RP mix and boooom you’re done

Optional extras: Add some vanilla essence, dark chocolate flakes/shavings, coconut pieces or top with frozen or fresh berries! All depends on your nutritional needs and energy expenditure for the day not to mention your current goals!

20150219_215852

20150219_220014

20150219_220018

20150219_220352

The Finished Priduct
The Finished Product

Here’s the exact nutritional breakdown of a 100g Serving! – Multiple by 2 if you eat the whole lot in one – easy do!

http://point1athletic.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/High5-RP-Chocolate-Mousse-2.pdf

Final Top Tip: If you are looking for or are in need of a lower calorie option then use the same recipe but just add a Whey Protein Isolate powder in whatever flavor you want! Similar taste, less calories per serving! But if you have genuinely had a tough day behind the bars or barbell then the “RP” Verison is your best bet!

Categories
News Uncategorized

Exercise Arsenal: Overhead Press to Stand

Busy times at Point1 HQ, off-season training has kicked of again for most athletes, so fine-tuning, getting back into the training mindset, managing the process and implementing past lessons and experiences learned!

Here’s a pretty simple but deadly effective exercise to add to your strength training arsenal! Borrowed from a well know strength coach called Dean Somerset. I couldn’t help but think of the myriad of benefits for the mountain biker.

It’s an All in One bang for your buck type move. Torso Anti-Flexion, Hip stability and mobility, scapular and general shoulder stability, anti lateral flexion and a unilateral hip extension emphasis so crucial for MTBers. Not to mention the overall neuro-muscular, intra and inter-muscular co-ordination.

Load it up with dumbbells or kettle-bells (bottoms up KB would be challenge). Use at the end of session as part of a core circuit or with lighter loads early in a session as an “activation”m exercise, to get all systems trucking.

Enjoy and let me know how it goes for you guys and girls!

Categories
News Uncategorized

Season Review – How to

It’s early/mid October. Your race/riding season if you live in the Northern Hemisphere is pretty much over and doesn’t kick off again for a good few months…

So how did things go? Goals achieved? New benchmarks set, personal bests on Strava, race wins, got through a week in the alps without arm-pump or alcohol poisoning?

Taking some time to reflect on the riding season just gone, review your approaches and execution of training, riding, planning and nutrition and asking yourself or your coach some tough questions is a must if you want to plan better, improve and grow for 2015!

Do the worthwhile things better, avoid repeating the same mistakes as last year and generally just improve the whole process. So how do you go about doing it? Well I’m gonna give you a few “top-tips” below and hopefully some ideas to start the mental juices flowing so you too can review your season just gone!

1) Question Time

Sit down or stand up…pen and paper, voice recorder or chalk board! It doesn’t really matter. Just answer, honestly, some key questions about your race season and preparation period (off-season) just gone. Some examples to get the ball rolling!

– Did I achieve my goals?

– What was my best result?

– What gave me the most satisfaction this year?

– Biggest disappointment and why?

– What training did I enjoy the most/least?

– How was my mental approach to riding and racing? Nervous, relaxed, focused etc…?

– Did my coach listen to my needs, questions, demands etc…?

– What physical qualities did I lack during riding racing the most?

– Did I complete all training as prescribed most of the time?

– Did I diligently fill in training diaries?

– Did you enjoy training/riding/racing/the process?**

– Was I too sore from training to race well?

– How was my technique, freshness and FGF during the critical race periods?

The list of meaningful questions is endless,  you could ask yourself or work together with your coach to ask all the key questions to cover all areas of performance planning. If you have a coach and a “post-season” review is not something they do then maybe there’s something up! Because it really is an invaluable process.

**that’s a very important question right there

2) Data Review and reflection

Keeping track of performance parameters is something both athlete and coach should do! It’s a team/joint effort. Interpreting the data and implementing change is up to the well educated athlete that coaches themselves or a coach if they employ a coach. But if there is no data to interpret then there are no changes to be made!

Same goes with a post-season review. Reviewing all the data you canto see how things really panned out is a very constructive way to make changes for the next year. So where would we get this data from? Well hopefully from a variety of sources, but valid reliable and measurable ones…because remember if you can’t measure it it’s awfully hard to change it.

First up is a training log or Training Tracker as we like to call it here at Point1 – It’s simple way to keep track of progress, see patterns in adaptation to training and recovery loads but also a great way to keep athlete and coach honest with a mix of objective and subjective scores and data! What does it provide post season, well it provides a deeper insight into each training week, block or period. You can then use it lined up against other data, results or memories to join some dots and see what did and didn’t work right from week 1 of the Off-Season to the final day of the “In-Season”.

A sample Point1 Training Tracker
A sample Point1 Training Tracker

 

Like mentioned above reviewing data from the year gone past can come from many sources, the more the merrier aslong as you know what to look for and where to make conclusions from! Other great sources of data would be;

HR data from training sessions – session totals, Trimp scores, HRrecovery (HRr), resting HR’s pre/post session etc…

Power Metre Data – average powers, peaks, normalised powers over rides or weeks of training, power profiles of your event, best events, worst events, fatigue, freshness, cardiac drift (need HR data for that) and 1,000 other things!

Race results and split times – www.rootsandrain.com is every MTB races best friend; % time behind winner, faster at split 1/2 or 3, lap times, stage times – faster early on, late on, need to work on fatigue, energy management, efficiency or mental arousal etc…

Strava or other such nightmares – comparing times, climbs and duration from many years, rides, weeks or months. Overall “on the bike volume”.

Gym based results – weights lifted, exercises selected, injury prevention or pre-hab volumes, specific testing, transfer of training.

Video analysis – races, training, go-pro etc…

It’s a pretty comprehensive list really, so many ways to look back and reflect on your work done and results acheived. Did they match your goals, what was good, what needs to be changed?

Comparing HR data from two similar sessions!
Comparing HR data from two similar sessions!

3) In-Season Planning

I always find it funny when people say, “ohh you don’t need a coach during the season”; “it’s off-season that counts”, “just ride your bike”  etc… Well put very simply, 6 weeks of just riding your bike with no real plan can very easily un-do much of your hard work during the off-season.

So with that in mind an excellent area to “review” post-season is how your training loads and planning where during the racing or riding heaviest part of the year!

Did you train, maintain or just ride your brains out? What worked and what didn’t (training tracker is very handy here). How was your balance of fitness, freshness and fatigue?

Honestly to think that you’ll get away with just 6 months+ of racing with no plan and come out “on-top” is crazy! Some athletes come in to their race or riding season hot and fat and burn out, others come in cold and build some sort of specific fitness on the bike slowly, others get it all just right and last the whole season of racing or riding in pretty much tip-top shape!

What you should be looking to review from your “in-season” planning is individual and sport/discipline specific but here are some good places to start.

1) Training load, type, timing and volumes: The idea of Residual Effects comes mainly from “Block Periodisation” made popular by coaches like Issurin, Verkhoshansky and Bondarchuk. Using the “half-life” of the key physical qualities of your discipline to decide when and what to train and in what volumes is a great place to start for your in-season planning and like-wise a perfect place to start reviewing your in-season plan.

Did you leave weeks and weeks without training your Max Strength or Speed? How important are these qualities to the outcome of your event? How often does your tech training or riding target certain qualities, if it does is the load sufficient to maintain or improve that physical quality? I’ll let the Table below explain the rest.

Training Residuals - Use it or Lose it?
Training Residuals – Use it or Lose it?

2) Race week! The one time when many things go “tits-up” for racers. What can you improve on for next year? The good, bad and VERY UGLY? The questions you need to ask?

– What training did I do mid-week?

– Did I recover fully from last weekends riding/racing?

– What active recovery modalities did I use? Did they work?

– Di I reduce or maintain training volumes in week of race? Why?

– Did I come into race day fresh both mentally and physically?

– Was there enough or too much physical, technical or tactical training during the week?

– What was my mental state like during the week, race, weekend etc…?

Two very different "In-Season" Race weeks
Two very different “In-Season” Race weeks

Train hard in the off-season and then get the fine-tuning in-season right and you’re on to a winner!

3)Recovery – What strategies did you use for recovery? Why? When? What worked, what didn’t? Too much of a good thing is always a bad thing. So planning your recovery in-season is key and as such reflecting on what worked pos-season will help you make far better decisions for next year.

The key is to promote recovery both mentally and physically but not to reduce or blunt our windows of opportunity to train and adapt.

Fitness – Fatigue + Freshness = Form

Remember that the mental state is just as important as the physical one, so plan recovery accordingly!

How do you scale your recovery?
How do you scale your recovery? – McGuigan

 

So there you have it three key areas to review after your riding or racing season. There are certainly other areas and avenues to pursue, but the above is a good start.

Feel free to add your own thoughts and ideas in the comments below!

Categories
News Uncategorized

Exercise Arsenal – King TUT with the RFESS

Ahh King TUT! Sounds awful right? TUT = Time Under Tension. King, because this is the King way to add some time under tension to your strength training sessions!

RFESS

The RFESS is a Rear Foot Elevated Split Squat what some people call the Bulgarian Split Squat. One of the ultimate lower body exercises and a move that most certainly should be in your arsenal. Simply one leg behind you on a bench, chair or whatever is handy! The video will explain the rest.

The bang for buck aspect of the RFESS is nearly unmatched. Single leg extension, good glute drive is required, supreme control of the stability of the hips (glute medius, adductors, abductors) and torso/core (antiflexion, anti later-flexion), balance, proprioception (especially when loaded asymmetrically), eccentric load on the hamstrings, ankle stability and mobility are challenged and you even get a little hip flexor stretch for good measure.

It also lets you see pretty quickly if you have any strength deficits between legs.

Further more seen as you can literally go wild with different loading parameters and combos, the additional and/or specific challenges you can induce for the torso, hips, and hip extensors in terms of strength, power, stability and mobility are near endless!

It’s a pretty straight forward move to learn and is perfect for people with knee pain as it usually doesn’t cause much issues. I would recommend though that you follow a simple progression before even thinking about even body-weight RFESS’.

Normally  for Point1 athletes it goes – Split Squat – Body-weight squats – reverse lunge – RFESS. Getting yourself comfortably and stability into the lowest position of the RFESS is about a good balance of mobility and stability, so those need to be well taken care of before you start!

King TUT

Ahh Time under tension. Creating and managing mechanical forces in muscle is, well in it’s essence, “strength”. Changing the speed with which you lift weight through the full or partial ranges of concentric, isometric and eccentric contractions manipulates how long the muscles have to be “working” i.e. receiving neurological info, using ATP as energy, sliding actin over myosin etc…

Increasing TUT is primarily a technique used by bodybuilders to induce hypertrophy, that means gain in size of muscle or as the kids like to say these days GAINNNNZZZZZZZ!

It’s been shown in laboratory setting though that increasing TUT to be an effective way to increase protein synthesis in the muscles (Link)! But clearly has it’s limitations for the mountain-biker as we want fast, powerful contractions the majority of the time in training!

The method in the vid below is a combo of decreasing the speed of the eccentric/lowering phase of the RFESS, pausing for 1 then bringing your self back up into a half rep (halfway to the top of the movement) then back to the bottom and finally EXPLODE to the start position.

That EXPLODE is very important as being explosive through extension of the knee and hip joint is very important for the MTBer. The other portions of the lift challenge single leg eccentric strength and also go a long way to increasing your muscular endurance through partial and loaded contractions -something that happens very often on the bike as you hop, pop, pump and push your way over a variety of terrain, especially when things get steep or have large g-outs etc…

The final piece of the puzzle is the loading! In this vid i used what is called the “goblet squat” loading, holding a heavy Dumbbell in the goblet position, is a great “self-limiting” way to load as it really challenges the anterior (front) core while safely loading the legs!

Start smart – be confident but don’t be afraid to be humbled by the RFESS and the King TUT method!

P.S. the “half rep” idea was 100% stolen from Ben Bruno!

Categories
Uncategorized

Technique – “On-Edge” Cornering

Even though there is more than one way to corner a push-bikes, when we talk “cornering” it’s frequently the classic outside foot down image that hits peoples mind…and rightly so!

The “classic” application of foot down technique requires the ability to move the hips laterally, drive the inside bar down, eyes forward and pelvis and shoulders square! And it’s this technique that many lesser riders struggle with regardless of terrain, bike and tyre choices.

This “hips out – bike over” technique allows you to get the bikes tyres “on-edge” which is real important when we are hitting longer turns with a mixed or not so grippy surface, when we want to carry big speeds or if the turn is beyond 80 degrees or so!

Point1 Athletic Development trained Neil Stewart does a mighty job of demonstrating here!

You’ll see that inside shoulder (head of the humerus), outside knee and ankle almost always line up in any rider with good technique!

How you arrive at a point to be able to apply this technique usual needs a multi-faceted approach and may very well form a indepth blog post in the future!

 

NS cornering

Photo: Laurence Crossman-Emms – Dirt Magazine – https://www.facebook.com/Laurence.CE.Photography?fref=ts

Categories
News

“Fitness” – Pet Peeve and Culture

Time and time again on various MTB media articles across all mediums I read lines like “so and so has the “fitness” and “strength” or “fitness and power”  to win etc… Each time I read such a line I cry a little inside! The line that inspired this short post was the following;

“Rider1 had all of the power and fitness for the stage one win and the overall”.

Well what’s wrong with that I hear you ask…? It’s pretty straight forward really, the misappropriation of the word fitness. It’s become a strange old catch-all for qualities of endurance specific to each discipline and frankly as a physical preparation/coaching professional it gets my goat!

Fitness, simply, is suitability for a task, in the case of Enduro, for example, that encompasses many things, i.e. many components of fitness! Power being one of them, along with strength, aerobic capacity, anaerobic power and capacity, mobility, flexibility, stability…..it’s a long and frankly comprehensive list.

“Fitness” has many components but is not a specific single quality and as such should never be spoken about as one single un-tangible thing! Now you probably think I’m being unnecessarily pedantic but I’m anything but, my job is to increase riders “fitness” and do so I need to know what exact physical qualities/components are required to excel in their sport and discipline and in what ratios!

You see if for example Rider1 in the quote above had very poor power then he would no longer have the “fitness” to win Stage One! Simple. Power is a crucial component of fitness for a mountain biker…in all disciplines. What the author has done here is confused the word “Fitness” with “Endurance” .

Endurance has many definitions but really it’s most simply defined as “the ability to resist fatigue”. Not quite the same as fitness now is it!? How do we achieve “endurance” for out sport I hear you ask? We work on the components of fitness most relevant to our discipline, building them in such a way that we can not only meet or exceed the physical demands of that discipline but also resist the fatigue that meeting those demands creates!

Maybe the above went over your head or seemed totally pointless but for me it’s a question of culture and the environment that that culture creates!

Do the small things perfectly and the big things will look after themselves. Educating riders I work with is a key part of the coaching process and even small things like using the correct terminology consistently, leads to a productive environment where we all on the same page and focused on the same goal!

Rant over.

Oh and for those interested the varied and debatable” Components of Fitness are;

Aerobic Endurance
Short-term muscular endurance
Power
Strength
Speed
Flexibility and Mobility

Balance, Agility & Co-Ordination