Transition
This time of year is for transitioning.
Jumping right into heavy weights is asking for injury and uber-soreness. I take about 3 weeks of slowly ramping up weight and sets. I'm lifting 3x a week and commuting and riding a little bit.
The road riding is for toughening up my skin as much as aerobic. The wind really wears on your face in road riding much more than mtn biking. I'm going to need some serious toughening up to be able to get in my riding when it gets really cold this year. The few pounds I lost makes me cold all the time.
But I still just want to mountain bike. It's a good time to focus on specific things such as vision or weight balance on the mtn bike.
I'm doing some different stuff this year for upper body. Usually I do some dumbbell presses and lat pull downs. This year I'm doing a variety of stuff to focus on more core/functional strength. Over the next week or so I'll take some pictures to show what I'm doing. I'm no strength coach or anything, it's just a compliation of stuff I've seen online or magazines that focuses on core /flexibility for cycling. Plus I'm just tired of doing boring stuff like dumbbell press or lat pulls.
This guy has a free newsletter that includes some body weight core stuff. I'm also trying some stability ball stuff. It's quite comical to be shaking like a leaf while trying to do a few reps.
I'm doing these single leg rows with a light 10lb weight. Again it's comical to be doing these and fall over in the middle of them.
It just highlights the lack of core strength and core stability with me. The other component I'm trying to highlight is some hamstring and lower back flexibility.
This pdf has some great stretches specifically for cycling
posted by Ashwin Amanna @ 3:09 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Ashwin,
I read the stuff over at the "MTB Strength" website. The free material seems OK, if maybe a little too easy. (I do think his "10 Mistakes..." list is dead-on though).
If you're interested in more general core/functional strength material, check out Ross Enamait's website at: www.rosstraining.com and the Crossfit website at: www.crossfit.com
Ross has two main books right now, "Never Gymless", which is all bodyweight stuff, and "Infinite Intensity", which uses a variety of training modalities. I've used Ross's materials for a number of years, and I can say that it is all top notch. If you're interested, I can send you a spreadsheet showing how I developed my cycling-focused workouts from Ross's material.
I've spent quite a bit of time looking at the Crossfit site. It is in some ways similar, but I think it's probably not so easy to integrate that material into a cycling training program.
Keith
Ashwin,
Are you commuiting at night? If so, what kind of light setup do you have?
Rick
I don't like to commute at night. If I get caught out I've got a blinky red cateye and another cateye headlight that is just to be seen not to see.
the new LED based blinkies and headlamps are pretty bright technologies. The $20-$40 dollar lights will help be seen but they won't cut it for niteriding offroad.
I've got some old niterider/turbocat stuff that I could use too, but the batteries and mounting are a pain.
You need something in the front/rear and something reflective to be seen from the side.
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