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 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!
Protein Block , cut and ready for the fridge/freezer
How To:
Mix all dry ingredients in a bowl
Measure out or weigh your milk of choice
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
have patience, adding and mixing slowly
you should get a pretty workable and dry mixture after a couple of minutes
roll the mixture into a log, sprinkle with almond meal so it is easy work
roll it out and cut into discs; shape those discs into blocks as pictured
refrigerate for up to 1 hr
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
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!
Out of the fridge and ready for dipping in chocolate or eating!
Hhmmmm Protein, Fat and all dem nutritious nutrients
Very few mountain-bikers will reach “excellence”; defining excellence alone is neigh on impossible. More importantly very few riders desire world class performance, they desire feelings of self actualisation, belonging and achievement. Competency is the word. Competency of technique application… i.e skills!
Following on from the Skill Acquisition 2.0 blog; this one is short and sweet. The Car-park…the place one may go to “drill” skills, doing skills drills. As that is what many a coach, internet guru or other expert claims to be the key part of the learning process. You see similar attempts in team sports; cones, bags, lights and lightning foot-work.
Mountain SkillsDusty Car-park “skills”
The issue lies in that as we’ve chatted about before, car-parks are not where we ride, no-one has the same kind of fun and experiences of awesomeness in a car-park as you get in the forest, mountains and trails! So while I could waffle on, again, about how the car-park drill serves little purpose as it is not the task environment and as soon as we remove the characteristic constraints of the environment we are then engaging in part practice and basically pissing into the wind, I’m gonna curve ball it as our USA friends would say.
Complex vs. Complicated
A core idea behind the rationale of less car-park more bike-park! Mountain-biking of any kind is complex, not complicated. Complicated is getting an internal combustion engine to work flawlessly for years on end. It takes, planning, design, mathematics, exact step-wise construction etc… Shredding your bike down a mountain side takes skill developed over practice in the environment. Those skills never develop in the same way for two people on the same time course, with the same challenges emerging and being dealt with. Contrast that with the Volkswagen production line…every single diesel engine follows the same exact timeline of construction.
Mountain biking is complex not complicated #PAcoupling
So full circle, how does the distinction between complex and complicated relate to your car-park!? Getting better at applying technique in MTB is best done in the task environment…why? Because not only can you get better at the core skill in question but the complexity of the environment will always lead to expaptations…meaning that while outcome 1 was get better at off cambers, you will invariable through natural process of self organisation get better at or discover other solutions to numerous other movement problems on the hill!
To clarify with an example. Imagine a Long left side off-camber with a right hand corner on exit, numerous tree roots, variable soil type and a long bumpy entry before the off-camber versus a car-park drill with a long plank of wood or MDF propped up against a curb or wall. looking to “mimic” a left side off-camber.
Both may lead the learner to discover the necessary lateral weight shift, posture, speed control and braking to successful enter, roll on and exit the off camber. But only one environment will lead the learner to discover or organise better posture in rough terrain, adequate perceptive skills for organising posture during one skill to prep for the next required technique…only one scenario will allow the learner to discover the effect tire pressure or direction of travel has on bike and body when encountering roots and rocks etc…
The car-park scenario assumes complicated movement solutions to a problem. The mountain allows complex solutions to movement problems to emerge, solidify and exapt other positive learning experiences.
The King of the Pits is impressive but seldom King of the Hill!
Constraints Led Approach to Skill Aquisition
I’ll expand on this more soon as we’ve not even covered the possible and plausible idea of “negative transfer” that may occur in exaggerated part practice. Nor have we covered the issue of the “car-park” removing so many affordances that should dictate technique that you may be just simply wasting time.
Comments welcome.
And for those who wish to read more about the above ideas in a general context – click here.
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/Nukeproofrider 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
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!
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
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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
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.
No introduction needed you could say. Storming off the back of double second place finishes at the two most recent UCI DH World Cups. Miss Tahnée Seagrave is set to climb the final spot sooner rather than later!
Charity Awesome
Working with Point1 since 2013 her growth and maturation as an all round athlete, ambassador and DH weapon is coming to fruition as I type!
She loves Jo’s cooking (her mother, we all love her cooking) and is a girly girl at heart! Exactly what the DH World Cup scene needs!
Copyright – @maddogboris
Here’s her Quick Fire 5
1) Favourite meal after a tough day of training gainzzz
Mum’s chicken and rice mmmmmh
2) The training sessions you are most and least happy to see on the weekly plan?
Happy DH and pump track, least happy… Intervals….
3) Favourite race track/s?
hmmmmm Champery! Bring it back!
Copyright – triridemtb.com
4) Number 1 interest away from the world of bike riding and racing?
CLOTHES
5) Happiest when…….?
I eat carrot cake and that the moisture is just perfect.
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? – 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!
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 – 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 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.
The first in a new series of short articles giving you guys the fans & readers of all things Point1 some insight to what makes some of our well known athletes tick! First up is the angriest man in Scottish downhill, 24th place at the first stop of this years DH World Cup in Lourdes, 2nd at the recent SDA in Glencoe, Fraser McGlone, from Oban in Scotland is aiming to plant his large Trek Session firmly in the top 15 at next week’s Fort William World Cup!
Angry wee man!
1) Favourite meal after a tough day of training gainzzz
Favourite meal recently has probably been tuna steak, sweet potatoes and veg (lots of veg to keep coach happy)
2) The training sessions you are most and least happy to see on the weekly plan?
Most happy – When there’s lots of DH and moto involved!
Least happy- When there’s gym on the programme I really get fed up of the gym!
3) Favourite race track/s?
Thats a hard question, you get a lot of tracks that are fun in practice but a mission to race on. Lourdes was good fun to ride but bloody scary to race on! But one track I’m really looking forward to this year is Val di Sole, always have a really good time riding my bike there!
4) Number 1 interest away from the world of bike riding and racing?
Can moto be classed as away from bike riding? If so that. But if not I do like blasting about in my old VW mk2 Scirocco, always puts a smile on my face whenever I get in it and give it full noise.
5) Happiest when…….?
The suns out with a good bunch of guys riding any kind of bikes!
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
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!
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?
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
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? – 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!
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!
