Tag Archives: Strength
Strength Training for Mountain Biking
Mountain biking is an exhilarating sport that requires strength, endurance, mobility, bike handling skills, technical knowledge in relation to off-road and trail riding techniques, and much more. Whether you’re riding professionally or for fun, you should consider supplementing your riding with strength and mobility training – it’ll enable you to ride faster for longer and will make your body more resilient to injury. Over the next couple of paragraphs I’ll outline a number of exercises you should definitely include within your strength training programme.
How to: Front Plank
The front plank is an awesome exercise for improving your core stability and teaching you how to use the right muscles to effectively stabilise the lumbar spine, thus ensuring your lower back remains strong and healthy in the long-term. I use the front plank with all of my clients, building them up to a 2 minute hold before progressing to more challenging core stability exercises and loaded full-body exercises such as squats. Due to the nature of my job I obviously spend a lot of time in gyms, and unfortunately the front plank is one of the most butchered exercises I see, with the user’s spine often resembling a white-knuckle roller-coaster! Don’t let that person be you, here’s how to perform the front plank properly.
The Split Squat
Anybody who trains with me will become very familiar with the split squat; on first appearance it seems like such simple beast, however, after a few reps my clients quickly start to hate me! The problem is, it’s such a useful exercise I find it hard not to include it in the majority of my client’s programmes.
Make 2012 a great year!
Now’s the time of year when you start to set yourself lots of goals; I’ve got loads – I want to get stronger, fitter and compete in lots of competitions – it’s going to be a big year! But it always frustrates me when I see people going about achieving their goals in a manner that isn’t optimal. General health and wellbeing is one goal we should all aspire to reach – adhere to the guidelines as set out below and you’ll be sure to get there!
The Perfect Workout
The perfect workout leaves you feeling positive, energised and gagging to get back in the gym for the next session. The perfect workout must have a purpose 90% of the time; it must address your limitations (short, tight muscles, for example) and consist of intelligent programming to move you towards your short, medium and long term goals. The perfect workout is safe, effective and enjoyable. For the other 10% of the time, do whatever you like – if you’re feeling a tad tired or run down, and don’t feel you can maintain your usual exercise intensity, take it easy! If you’ve been training in a specific way for while and it’s getting a bit stale, do something different! The perfect workout isn’t set in stone; if you listen to what your body’s telling you, you’ll feel much better after a workout, you’ll reach your goals in less time, you’ll avoid burning out and you’ll stay injury free! So, for 90% of the time, what does the perfect workout consist of?
How do we get Stronger?
Hey, Strength training is the best way to get strong, lean, fast, improve your sports performance and stay injury free – so, how do we get stronger?