Watching social media during the winter we are inundated with images, video and shaky selfies of pro riders proudly showing us their latest interval session or personal best on the squat rack. Aside from the creepy homo-eroticism of the whole thing, it's understandable. To win at the highest levels of our sport takes hard work. Long gone are the days when Palmer could show up half-cut and then smoke the field before disappearing back into the bar. Today, if you want a shot at the top step of the podium you have to give everything away, winning has to be everything. Everything includes a hell of a lot of time in the gym. And, while I personally may not want to see another man's tensed calves, I get it. Because the other half of the sport is confidence, and if by posting over-exposed iPhone pics of their guns helps a racer feel more confident of their form, then why not?
More and more it seems to not be limited to the upper echelons of the sport though - more and more riders seem to be hitting the gym. Or at least posting on social media that they are... So our question this week is: Do you even lift, bro? Are you hitting the weights? And, more importantly, why are are you training? Are you trying to shave seconds from your run, or is it simply that you can't get to the trails in the week, so the gym is the next best thing?
muscle and training make you more fit . simply put . does fitness HELP you on the bike ... yes
but it doesn't make you faster
I notice there was no I train to say healthy. I hit the weights as I need some size on me so its a bit of both, looking better and riding better goal.
Training does make you faster, it gives your body a large capacity to push it, you can ride harder for longer which means you can put out more force and go harder for longer, fatigue is massive. Lots of riders in the past have spoken in video about how they realized you need to be fit and strong before the season starts and this includes gym work, skills are good but if you are too weak and unfit to use those skills for 4min you ain't going to win.
Training improves the threshold in how hard and fast and long you can push therefore making you faster.
Now im off to the gym, not to get faster, to try and avoid another bloody injury.
matty is jacked
www.pinkbike.com/photo/10809122
If you go away and do some research into training you would see you can obtain massive amounts of strength and power at low body weights.
A starting place for you;
CNS - motor unit recruitment and rate coding in strength training.
There are also other factors that come into play but that should start you off.
But I bet you Lamar grant isn't fast on a bike .
You're still a twink . And possible a power bottom
I have no idea where that statement came from.
You are suggesting that "I didn't train hard enough" is not an excuse for riders. Which essentially you are saying why train youa re either fast or your not like training doesn't matter.
You have to be joking right. have you ever watched videos with the up and comers when they say how they have learned how important training is and how much effort they need to put in in the off season to be on their game before the season starts. Riders like fairclough have said in the past he gets on the dh bike a month or so before the first worldcup the rest of the time is spent in the gym and training for fitness.
Actually your argument agrees with my initial comment of how "looks are not accurate of fitness". In that a rider can be very fast without spending time in the gym, a gym guy who looks fitter can be much slower.
The thing is you can go out on the train and be as fast as you can, but its only once you hit the gym and increase your peak levels of strength, sprinting, power etc that you can than go faster on the trail.
many riders will learn lots at first just riding and they will get quite fit but there is a point where your lack of gym training begins to inhibit your speed and where the trail is not a viable training place. You cannot isolate certain specific needs for downhill on the trail, nor can you create enough volume to stimulate improvement after a while, any trainer on the circuit will tell you that, why else do riders spend months in the gym, if been on the trail was the best place they would be there all the time. You need to have both in the gym and on the trail to maximize your speed.
I understand what you're saying is "if you lack the bravery and lack the mental game and skill to hit things fast, that you are no where near the peak of trail only training yet and increasing your ability in the gym wont matter much if you are not already limited"
My generation are slowly disappearing from the trails so I have to ride with guys ten to twenty years younger than me. I guess the reason many of my generation no longer ride is because they are not doing the maintenance they should.
Just one month of doing squats & deadlifts etc and wow, the extra power to push the pedals was really noticeable - like I hadn't been doing any cardio and there I was powering up hills with my 'fit mates' whereas normally I'd be grinding along at the back on the climbs!
In all seriousness, I'm a devoted gym rat, especially after a nasty chest crush two summers ago where the docs told me that had I not had the bone density or the pectoral and abdominal muscle mass from working out, I would have quite possibly killed myself upon impact. I hit so hard that both lungs popped, from the inside out, and I crushed my sternum... My heart was minimally bruised, but totally fine, and I owe it to my passion for lifting heavy.
Being fit also allows me to make riskier moves, ride faster and longer, and never doubt I can handle something a bit different -- that's a confidence no beer can replace.
Our bodies evolved to protect our most important organs, and done right, that's exactly what they do -- we were built for survival. A lot of us forget that sometimes.
And drama? Meh. You're the one who made the random statement about me being 'hot'. I replied sarcastically and left it at that... But then you had to resurrect it? And I'm the one looking for drama? Bugger off.
Was riding 4 days a week, don't have time these days so I'm down to 1-2 days per week.
Riding is what I do on "active recovery" days (CrossFit lingo).
Combo of MTB and CrossFit is absolute fun!!
And for those of us who have had knee surgeries its just what the Dr. ordered. Cheers
Some of the movements are pretty bad for you too and they are not really functional (kipping for one worst movements I have ever seen). We have had a big discussion about it on another forum. You could create a much safer and more effective workout on your own. Happy to provide a link to said forum if someone wants to restart the debate.
If its helping people get fit I think its a good thing but its not the ideal way to do it.
You don't need a gym membership, you can get all the exercise you need at home using natural resistance exercises, maybe pick up a yoga ball and a chin up bar, nothing more.
And having a set of ripped pipes to scare the bejesus out of my daughters' future boyfriends is a nice side benefit.
When on a bike ride do you swing anything around in front of you? push something over your head? raise something up by your side? Kettlebell training has no relevance to cycling.
When can you make use of strong legs? Every single time you pedal. When can you make use of good stabilising strength? Every time you turn a corner, every time you negotiate a jump or obstacle... Pretty much the entire time you're riding.
Traditional BB squats and DL's are great but they're easy to do incorrectly and IMO KB's absolutely shred your core.... much faster than anything else.
Secondly, it's screamingly obvious that you are not a well informed serious lifter... you are just a middle aged man who works out at home. That's great, do what you want, but don't comment up a load of shit about fitness when you have no clue.
I'm sure Arron Gwin and the Athertons do incorporate some kettlebell training into their workouts, particularly when they're on the road, but I can assure you that kettlebells far from make up the bulk of their workouts. The bulk of the training they do will be squats and deadlifts - I assure you. If you look at this article Red Bull put up about Gee Atherton's fitness training (which only has 2 pictures) the first picture is of Gee doing a squat and the second is of him doing a deadlift. That's because those are the two most important exercises you can do for bicycle training. You know who told you that? Me - before I even found this Red Bull article. That's because I actually know what I'm talking about.
www.redbull.com/uk/en/bike/stories/1331623080129/gee-atherton-training-mtb-downhill
He's squatting big weight too - not some hippie ass kettlebell goblet squat that my mum does at her Pilates class.
"The sport demands him to ride at very high heart rates for over 5 minutes, deliver huge amount of power repeatedly, and tolerate ever-building fatigue during the course of a race run. To train for this, we build a mix of numerous elements – but ultimately aim to make him strong, powerful and then fatigue resistant so he can repeat this power over and over again. Strength work is based around lifting progressively heavy weights, using exercises such as the squat, deadlift, presses, pulls and trunk work"
"I need fictional, lean, conditioned muscle". I assume you mean functional, although kettlebells are renowned for adding fictional muscle... How lean you are is determined by your bodyfat percentage relative to your muscle mass. The more muscle mass you have the leaner you have potential to be. What will make you lean and conditioned is PROPER TRAINING and nutrition. Not playing about with kettlebells outside your house.
I've rambled on enough, but I wasn't going to let you act condescendingly towards me when I was correct. Do whatever you want to do for your own training, whatever works, whatever you enjoy. The real athletes though will be squatting and deadlifting whilst you're fannying about though
Anyone who says they "dont have time to lift" is just lazy.
If you really want to get a good workout you can in under 20 minutes. For example... all you need is one kettlebell and you can do a superset of twohand swing x50, snatch x50, high pul lx50, clean and press x50, reverse lunge x50, and squat press x50... under 20 minutes and you get an incredible workout assuming proper form is utilized and you dont cheat.
And I don't wanna look like the Champion in the Triplets of Bellville: the caricature of a cyclist with locomotive quads and toothpick arms.
If I can't ride for one of my normal days, I'll run a few miles to keep my stamina up.
PS: People who crossfit need to shut the fck up about it. I don't need to see a picture of you working out, or hear about how sore you are. I don't care.
Look up the "300 kettlebell" app in the google play store...
who has good back exercises ??
still a big reason why my back hurts is work, im a automotive mechanic . the car lifts dont go high enough to clear me, comes up to shoulder/neck height so my head is always in the way, i have to do splits or get lower by bending some part of me to get under...then changing tires, tire seazon means a tire change every 20-30 minutes and each of the four tires i gotta pick up on the mounting machine, balancing machine then back on the car and a couple times while derimming it, allot of back involved and new cars with 20" rims ... retardedly heavy
wish i could ride for a living
I don't know exactly how it works, but there are basically regional crossfit competitions in different countries which decide which the best athletes are from each country. The best athletes from each are then entered into the Crossfit games. The Crossfit games gets all the best crossfit athletes from across the world to compete against each other in a tonne of different events - but nobody gets told what the events are until like 10 minutes before the start - so the athletes have to be prepared for anything. Rich Froning, the guy who dominates at the moment is an insane all around athlete and manages to place highly regardless of the nature of the event.
They compete to complete workouts in the fastest times in the athleticism or speed orientated events. In the strength based events they progress to the heaviest weights. They're ranked by the position they finish in each event and given points accordingly. The athlete with the most points after 3 days of events is the champion.
It's something like that anyway.
It aires on espn from time to time. The 2014 Regionals all over the world are coming up in a few weeks. Just go to games.crossfit.com. You'll be able to understand how we compete.