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The 1 Flow Warm-Up

Streamlining training success with a 1 Flow Warm-Up® ; that was the only goal with designing a smooth transition dynamic warm-up for Point1 athletes.

Below the current “1 Flow Warm-Wp®™” is demonstrated by CRC/Paypal/Nukeproof rider Joe Smith. The “moves” chosen all have purpose and intention, meaning they will not only improve your movement quality and capacity but will also lead to better application of technique on your bike as they remove unnecessary variations BUT increase usable ROM!

Use it before strength training, before DH runs or Enduro skids! Use it on it’s on for fun or regeneration. Just USE it! Consistency = Success

1 Flow – DMWU*

Start standing; relaxed. Draw in 5 big breaths. In through nose out through mouth! Fill your belly not your chest.

remember the below should flow

  • Spider-man lunge

  • T-spine rotation to free side (look up to hand)

    Hamstring Mobilise

    T-spine  rotation to support side (look up to hand)

    Deep Squat with T Spine Overhead Reach

    Squat to stand

  • Walk out on hands

  • Scapular Retraction Push Up

  • Calf Mobilise

  • A Frame Hip Extension

Cycle through the above, with no stopping for 3 to 5 reps per exercise per side; by side I mean each rep starts on a spider-man lunge on one side, cycles though all moves before you lunge to the other side.

Finish with Bear Crawls, Bounds, Jumping jacks and centre jumps to ramp up your HR and body temp!

Simple fast, fun to learn and highly effective.

 

*DMWU = Dynamic Mobility Warm Up

The video shows Joe “starting” the Flow from the Scapular retraction Push – Up

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HRV Ramblings

Monitoring You, yourself and your responses

I started this post as a draft while traveling back from a training camp in Lanzarote last February, I’m actually quite surprised that by in large my HRV “thoughts” have stayed the same. Why? Well because I think the principles applying HRV data to how we monitor or adapt training have stayed the same. Principles I suppose are just that, pretty solid!

Having toyed with a longwinded, in-depth, referenced blog about the science, theory and application behind using a HRV monitoring system with your training. I’ve decided instead to keep it practical.

HRV or Heart rate variability is the time between the distinct beats of your heart, controlled or regulated by the vagal nerve, via one “side” – parasympathetic-  of the bodies automatic control system or autonomic nervous system.

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Parasympathetic control of your Heart’s automatic processes allows us to monitor Stress-Dose-Response

 

With the phone application based system we use (ithlete) it is the Root mean squared of the successive R-R intervals (gap between peaks) of your heartbeat that is used and this is the “metric” (read: measurement) used to give a window into the current state of activation of your Autonomic Nervous system (ANS).

ECG-Trace

If your body is stressed the sympathetic side of the ANS will be more prominent and will reduce HRV, that stress can be lifestyle related, travel, training, sickness or anything of the sort, if you are relaxed, rested and in good health then the para-sympathetic side of your ANS will be more prominent and this will show in your HRV reading. – In lay-mans terms this is “fight or flight” vs. “rest and digest”.

So by taking a Heart rate based reading each morning you can get a window into your health, fitness, readiness to train and overall well-being. By taking these readings consistently you can first set a baseline and then see trends, patterns and gain insight into what makes or creates success or failure in your own training, riding and lifestyle.

I’ve been using the ithlete HRV system for over 2 years now and many Point1 Athletes are also using it to monitor their daily training status but more importantly to fine tune sleep, lifestyle and other factors that affect adaptation to training and most importantly the ability to apply consistent training load.

What we’ve learned so far?

The how to: the ithlete system uses a 60 sec reading – unlike a hospital medical grade HRV reading of 5min +, but it doesn’t matter, it’s convenient and works exceptionally well (validated by numerous research papers). The key is to respect the process; do the job right! Basically stick to the same routine, take your readings each morning, similar time, standing or seated, consistent breathing pattern, no water or major activity before and a minimum of 2 minutes relaxation if not taking it as soon as you wake. As long as you stick to a repeatable and reliable routine the readings will consistent, relevant and useable in tracking and changing training.

Lifestyle matters: and matters a lot. Time and again lifestyle factors, like the food you eat, the rest you take between training and the quality of this rest, caffeine and alcohol intake, dance floor intervals until 4 a.m., bedtime routine. They all confound to make clear differences in not only your recovery from but your adaptation to training. Like I tell all of my athletes – Process is king! – If you don’t have the lifestyle factors on point you’ll never get on top of the gainz train and that is something we’ve seen time and again with athletes HRV readings. Travel to a race, long haul, trans-Atlantic, 9 time zone changes coupled with average food, mediocre hydration etc.. will always lead to a large drop in HRV. Likewise an athlete not really grasping the eat quality whole foods, rest well, make your easy rides EASY etc… does not see the same steady increase in HRV scores over a 6 week Aerobic focused training cycle as the lifestyle savvy, process focused athlete. In a nutshell monitoring HRV is scientific collection of data that gives a window into complex biological processes that are hugely affected by every decision we make….this means unavoidable accountability for the athlete. Actions = Outcomes. Cause & Effect!

Sleep has no equal: I always knew that sleep was a key “training process variable” but long term HRV monitoring of athletes and my own self drove this point home so hard that it is burnt into my mind as the first variable I consider when an athlete falls sick, complains of soreness, or doesn’t hit training targets.  Poor quality sleep or less than 7+ hours, whether it’s because of caffeine, stress, poor environment or anything else will invariable lead to a lower HRV score. Some athletes will get away with 1 nights poor sleep, maybe two if all their other ducks are lined up but no-one and I mean no-one gets away with 3 in a row or more. Counting your winks is the biggest un-drummed variable in your health and performance! Simple training with, quality nutrition, adequate water and many hours of blissful sleep will get you so toward your goals it is scary! But I suppose it makes perfect sense as quality sleep restores the immune and endocrine systems and helps “repay” the metabolic cost of living and training!

Not all athletes are created equal: Some people are just more damn robust than others and robustness is something with many intangibles. But although some robustness factors are genetic, much of it comes, I feel, from 3 areas and I think my assumptions are in part clearly backed up by the HRV readings of my athletes. 1) aerobic endurance/capacity/capabilities – a complete, powerful aerobic metabolic foundation both peripherally and centrally will lead to a foundation of resilience not possible to garner through other means, 2) Strength, from joint health, connective tissue strength, elasticity and quality right through to force production potential and fibre type; large strength reserves time and again mean athletes recovery faster, adapted better and get less sore than their less strong peers, 3) experience; doing the right thing, in the right quantities at the right time! Not having to listen to coach to make a clever call on training durations, meals, or recovery modalities needed, the guy and girls with lateral thought capacity and a few years/decades experience under the belt time and again have less poor readings but more importantly can dial in a simple strategy to make the positive changes needed to head back to the GREEN!

Training mode: Certain training modes and means seem to affect HRV response more than others. Basic Strength training focused on muscle mass increase (hypertrophy), relative strength or strength maintenance as-well as some “special-strength” means have little effect in single bouts on HRV. Likewise moderate intensity cycling training leads to little changes in HRV in trained athletes when lifestyle factors are dialled.

HRV pro
Coach’s own ithlete Pro HRV Monitoring Dashboard

 

What does effect HRV scores, first “negatively” – not necessarily a bad thing, is high intensity work, Extensive anaerobic type intervals, long days of Enduro type riding, “high intensity metabolic conditioning” in the gym etc.… will all, if carried out to correct intensity and in appropriate volume, lead to some major reductions in HRV. That is though the desired outcome, adequate stress to stimulate adaptation.

Next “positively” – moderate intensity aerobically focused, low impact type activities across a pretty wide bandwidth, promote, via processes not fully understood, improvements in HRV when used as regeneration during periods of  more high intensity focused work or even during periods of increased non-training related stress. Again this is across a range and specific to individuals. But needless to say monitoring HRV has allowed us to fine tune regeneration modalities, volumes and planning for athletes.  With abrupt cessations of training or post-race being swiftly replaced with moderate days of activity based on what HRV has told us.

The above situations are where HRV is used for day to day decision making into what training type is best or in our case at Point1 to help guide or totally change the planned training in a micro-cycle.

That is acute changes in light of the chronic rolling change in HRV, a key to using HRV in your training monitoring and decision making is Context. What is the minimum meaningful change in HRV in context of weekly, monthly and overall chronic change? What did we want, what did we get, why and how? Many aspects of these questions can be answered with better insight via smart use of HRV monitoring. Most certainly questions relating to aerobic characteristic fitness variables.

Mini-Case Study

Now while the exact mechanisms behind why improvements in aerobic fitness are reflected in HRV readings are not fully understood, there is some research out there that does a good job elucidating to the how behind it.  With clarity in mind though, I thought it better to give you a more anecdotal account of how improvements in HRV score reflected real improvements in the lab and on the bike.

The below graph is from a Point1 athletes ithelte HRV dashboard. It shows over a 10 point increase in HRV scoring average over a one month period. It also shows “response” to training stimuli with the saw tooth profile of green and red daily scores. The blue trend line is climbing and that’s what I expected as coach given the training focus. Near the end of February the athlete in question returns to a laboratory for a Vo2 Max test amongst other tests.

IMG-20150212-WA0014 (1)
The #Gainzzz were had and the Blue Line agrees!

 

The Results? – A 10% increase in Vo2 Max since testing in late 2014. An increase of 25w in 15sec MPO and a small increase in power at Lactate Threshold or OBLA and maybe most marked was the increase in power output at FatMax which gave the athlete a 40w growth in metabolic flexibility!

All of the above lab results showing marked improvements in central and peripheral adaptations to training.

All of the above reflected in a considerably higher baseline HRV.

What’s next?

Well I will certainly continue to use HRV monitoring with ithlete for daily training changes and longer term insight into training, racing and lifestyle factors that matter most to Point1 athletes.

Beyond that, some recent research highlighting the possibility of quantifying training load and the individual cost of training sessions using relative pre and post HRV scores may open up some new avenues for more HRV use. I’ll trial run those theories before they’ll ever get to Point1 athletes. But if we can quantify the metabolic cost of a particular session consistently and then compare identical sessions and an athlete’s response to those session given their current freshness or training readiness than we can really start to get a more quantifiable view into what truly affects preparedness for competition.

If Session 1 = 55 on a  Stress-Score scale to 100 when you start a training cycle but the exact same session only gives you a “stress-score” of 25 after 5 weeks of training, than it may be wise to think that the athlete has adapted to that stimulus and will need more of it to garner any further benefit! At least that’s the sort of minute detail I think we can start to gain insight to via the use of HRV if the above principles and caveats are kept in mind.

That’s the key to HRV use, mindfulness, mindfulness in collection, interpretation and application of the data. It’s the easy application of the data being the most fulfilling aspect of using the ithelte system.

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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.
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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!
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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!

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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!

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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

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“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

 

 

 

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Point1 PowerJacks

Like a flapjack but designed to maintain or maybe, who knows, even improve performance during your training rides or sessions! Between DH runs, on the lift when partaking in Broduro laps or trail side on a trail ride, these PowerJacks are simple to make, quick to cook, tasty, moist and portable! Get on the program my friends.

Ingredients:

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Dry

150g rolled oats – (soaked overnight in a small amount of yogurt/water/milk if you wish – adjust wet ingredients accordingly)

2 scoops (abut 120g) of your favourite “Recovery Mix” – I used Kinetica’s Complete (Chocolate Flavour) this time but have used similar products from High 5 and Optimum Nutrition.

Sunflower seeds and hazelnuts (or similar) to taste

1tsp of cinnamon

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Wet

1 ripe banana

150ml of Milk of choice (Cow’s, almond, hazelnut, rice etc… – not Soya, soya milk is filth!)

1 tsp of Vanilla extract

35-50 g of honey or maple syrup (Optional)

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How To

Pre-Heat a fan-oven to 180c. Mix all wet ingredients together until well combined; add to dry until a nice consistent mixture is obtained. Spoon mixture out into a rectangle about 1.5cm thick on a parchment paper lined oven tray. Top with Sunflower seeds for added texture and awesomeness!

Cook for 12-15mins in the oven, just enough so its slightly browned, to long and you’ll have some dry Jacks!

Remove from oven and immediately, but gently, cut into “bars” – this mixture will make 12-15 small bars. Let cool and BOOM you’ve got yourself some PowerJacks!

 

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Make sure to eat with water/fluids and reap the benefits! Finished product below. Store them in some Tupperware for up to 3 days!

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Point1 Pro-Bar™

Energy bar, “power-bar” (that’s a Nestlé brand..be careful now), “cereal bar” (certainly not, cereal is  mainly for horses), pro-bar, a serious slab of home-made awesome! Call it what you will these bars are made with a basic “corner-stone” recipe that can be modified as needed to up any particular macro nutrient content you want, cover on or off the bike micro-nutrient worries or just simply to taste awesome and cover your energy needs out on a big old ride!

Other than in a prolonged flat out race like XCO, a time-trial or similar I’m a big fan of covering your energy needs via small, frequent intake of solid food and an electrolyte or “light” energy based drink.

These bars cover all of the needed bases, taste, texture, energy, micro-nutrients, simplicity, portability!

Pretty easy to make, simple to adjust, hold together well, have plenty of carbohydrate from multi-transportable sources and don’t stick to tin foil making an uneatable mess in your pocket.

So here goes! Choc-Nut-Protein-Fruit-Energy-#Point1-Pro-Bar – Surely there is a catchier name than that?

 

Ingredients:

1 cup of Medjool Dates or other re-hydrated or moist fruit

1 scoop of Chocolate or Vanilla Protein Powder

1 teaspoon of Cocoa powder (if desired, depends how “dark chocolate” you want them to taste)

Half cup of Rolled Oats

Half to 3/4 cup of Apple Sauce

1 cup of frozen Raspberries

Half cup  of dried, unsweetened Coconut

5-6 tablespoons of honey

Handful of nuts of choice – I used hazelnuts only in this recipe

Texture of batter should be thick, smooth and slow running – you can add a small amount of liquid or dry ingredients to the above to achieve this texture – It all depends on your fruit “dryness” I think – But choose extra ingredients carefully – Think of Macro content!

How to:

Mix/Blitz the medjool dates with a teaspoon or two of water in a large bowl with a handheld blender – This may take a while (the dates will need to be pitted and chopped before you start)

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Add all of the wet ingredients to the Dates and mix until you get a nice runny consistency – The honey may have to be heated slightly to stop it sticking. Add in your frozen Raspberries or other frozen fruit and mix well.

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In another bowl thoroughly mix all of your dry ingredients – Slowly add the wet mixture to the dry until a nice smooth batter is achieved!

Poor this into a baking paper lined dish and place in a pre-heated oven at 170c – (I used a fab oven so adjust temperature accordingly)

 

Cook until a little crispy but not black on top – a small knife should come out clean – To get a nice texture for storage and use on the bike it’s important to use a try big enough so that the batter pours out to an even 1cm – 1.5cm  while wet in the dish. After cooking this should rise to almost 2cm and be perfect to cut into consistent but moist bars.

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The above recipe makes from 10-14 bars depending on how you cut them.

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Please feel-free to comment on how you’ve modified the recipe or even if you like the taste or have any thoughts, tips or tricks!