Column by: James Wilson
www.MTBStrengthCoach.com
Strength and conditioning programs have a lot to offer the mountain bike athlete, yet a lot of confusion and misinformation exists out there about what exactly constitutes a proper approach for our sport. Most of this confusion stems from the fact that a lot of the programs out there are written by well meaning coaches whose specialties lie not in strength training philosophy but in skills training and/ or “in-saddle” conditioning. Because of this, bodybuilding and road riding have had a very heavy influence on these programs and as such offer little real carryover to the trail. This has led a lot of mountain bikers to write off strength and conditioning, figuring that simply riding their bike more will eventually lead to the strength, power and conditioning that they need.
This is extremely unfortunate and in fact has slowed the development of many mountain bike riders. A rider who employs a proper strength training program will have three distinct advantages over one that does not:
1. Injury Prevention: Ponder this simple statement for a second to really appreciate the role of injury prevention - if you are hurt it does not matter how fit or talented you are. Injury prevention should be a top priority of yours if you are serious about being the best rider that you can be. Strength training will help you restore balance to your body in the face of the severe imbalances that mountain biking causes, heading off knee, shoulder and lower back problems. A good program should also have a high emphasis on mobility, which will add to your ability to avoid injury during crashes. All in all, this will add up to more consistent riding time and prolonged careers for many.
2. Increased Strength: This helps in a couple of ways. The most obvious is helping you control your bike through rough, technical terrain and throw it around the trail and in the air. Increasing your leg strength will also help add to your snap, acceleration and top end speed. Another thing that a lot of riders do not think about is that they tend to drive more with one leg than the other. Strength training will allow a rider to focus on each leg individually and re-train the weaker leg to produce as much drive as the strong leg, effectively creating a more efficient and powerful pedaling sequence.
3. Increased Endurance: Huh? Strength training can increase your endurance? Yes, and it can do so in a dramatic fashion. Most riders are not lacking in aerobic fitness, they are lacking in anaerobic fitness. This means that hard, all out efforts tax them so much that they can not recover efficiently enough to repeat that effort without an extended rest period. For a downhill and 4X rider this means that they have to “hold back” on their practice and qualifying runs to save it for their final race runs. For the XC rider it means that they have to really pace and ration their sprint climbs and passing efforts. For the regular trail rider or freerider this means that they can not charge as hard as they want without paying the price further down the trail. None of these scenarios is desirable or even necessary. Increasing your anaerobic conditioning through a proper strength training program will mean that you can lay it down harder, more often and be ready for another go quicker.
As an avid mountain biker, I grew frustrated with the lack of real information and good programs available to my fellow riders and decided to do something about it. I’ve been riding for over 7 years and recognized this glaring hole in the mountain bike industry almost immediately. As a track athlete in high school and college I knew that in order to maximize your performance you had to include strength training, and as a skilled strength coach I knew that the approach athletes needed to take was very different than the approach used by bodybuilders and espoused in the general fitness media.
Soon after getting my first mountain bike I began to look for good information on strength training for mountain biking and was very disappointed in what I found. Bodybuilding (machines, body part splits and 3 sets of 10 reps) and road riding (aerobic conditioning emphasis coupled with a total lack of upper body strength and power tactics) had obviously influenced everything that I found and so I decided to use what I knew to work with athletes in other sports in my quest to become the best rider I could. Through continued education in the areas of performance enhancement, coupled with some good old fashioned trial and error, I was able to develop a training system that made a very noticeable impact on my riding and on that of the clients that I trained.
In early 2006 I decided to sit down and document my training system, and the MTB Strength Training System was born. From what I can tell it is really the first strength and conditioning program of its kind in the world, created by an avid mountain biking strength coach exclusively for mountain bikers. It may sound brash but I truly feel that it will revolutionize the way mountain bikers view strength training as well as what it can and should do for them. My passion is in helping my fellow riders enjoy riding more while helping to raise the bar for the type of athlete associated with mountain biking.
In the short time that I have been promoting my training system I have attracted the endorsement of some of the top names in the mountain bike industry, including Rich Houseman (current NORBA 4X champ), Gene Hamilton (World Masters DH Silver and Bronze Medalist and noted skills coach) and Lee McCormack (author and skills coach). All three of these men have had decades of experience in the mountain bike industry and have been exposed to just about every strength training program for mountain biking yet they all were truly impressed with just how different yet effective the MTB Strength Training System is.
I am hoping that my contributions to Transcend Magazine will help to spread the word about just how much of an impact strength and conditioning will have on the mountain biking world and to help educate the readers about what they should be doing and expecting in this area. If you would like to learn more about MTB Strength Training Systems please visit www.mtbstrengthcoach.com. I offer a free e-mail newsletter and mini-course on The Top 10 MTB Strength Training Mistakes which is a must read for anyone who is curious about what makes this training approach so different yet effective. In addition, if you have any suggestions on topics that you would like to see covered please shoot me an e-mail at james@mtbstrengthcoach.com as I would welcome feedback to help me make this feature as interesting and informative for Transcend readers as possible. Until next time…
Ride Strong,
James Wilson
www.MTBStrengthCoach.com
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