Trainer to mountain biking stars, Alan Milway, brings you some exercises to help you assess how much work you could be putting in… We like how the introduction assumes you really prepare and train…
5 exercises to self-assess your own strengths and weaknesses!
As we leave the hot summer months behind, we have the opportunity to review our driving and performance this year. There may have been key events you were training for, or just rides where the driving volume was very high and preparation for these rides to maximize enjoyment was key.
Looking back, you can see areas in fitness and preparation that worked really well, but also areas that gave you trouble; pain, discomfort, or lack of strength and power when needed. Often a simple review can help motivate and guide your plans to help you prepare for the upcoming season and make any necessary improvements.
As a coach working with professional mountain bike athletes, I often use this period to review the season and start implementing exercises to address any outstanding issues. For runners, this is usually injury rehabilitation. For example, Gee Atherton’s return to riding this year after his horrific fall from the edge of a cliff, or Greg Minnaar’s upcoming rehab and return from a broken neck in Val di Sole.
Hopefully he doesn’t have injuries as serious as these! But you may be suffering from constant discomfort, a previous injury that wasn’t properly rehabilitated, or an imbalance that you can’t pinpoint but is affecting your driving.
Here are 5 exercises that are easy to implement and require minimal equipment. Here I am just using the Milway Performance Weight Bench and some dumbbells. The exercises allow you to highlight any asymmetry or imbalance. Once they are highlighted, you can begin to tackle them effectively.
How: Raise your back foot onto a bench for support and, keeping your weight on your front leg, lower it until you feel a stretch in your hip or touch the ground with your back knee. Return to the starting position and repeat.
Why: This single-leg exercise can highlight differences in stability, ankle mobility, and leg strength as well. We are looking at strength endurance, not peak strength. You can test maximal strength this way, but it’s an advanced exercise with a lot more risk!
Progress: Add weight by holding dumbbells. See how many reps you can do with a fixed weight on each leg. We’re not looking for a maximum weight lifted, but to see if one side fatigues more quickly by exercising in the 8-12 rep range.
Return: You may not be able to stabilize well enough on your front foot, and this could be due to a lack of ankle range. A regression is to lower your back foot to the ground and do a split squat or lunge.
two. single leg glute bridge
How: Lie down on the floor near a bench and lift your heels off the bench. Lift one leg off the bench, so your weight is through one heel, and drive that heel toward the bench to lift your hips off the floor. Try not to arch your back as you do this, but squeeze your butt to push it up. Pause and go down.
Why: This exercise targets the posterior chain of the hamstrings and glutes, and can quickly highlight a difference from left to right. Since he has to stabilize the body, he also uses the trunk here. Mountain bike riders are often weak here and ‘stomp’ on the pedals, so this is effective for improving strength in this area.
Progress: Hold a sandbag or weight plate on your hip as you perform these exercises, or move further away from the box to focus more on your hamstrings.
Return: If you wobble too much or have cramps, place both heels on the bench and practice driving both feet up or back to the floor.
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3. single arm bench press
How: Lie down on a bench, put your feet under you for effective support. Hold a dumbbell and lower until the dumbbell touches the side of your ribs. Go up to straighten your arm, pause, and go down.
Why: Our dominant hand will do much more work day to day and will often be stronger than our non-dominant side. With many pressing movements (barbell bench, push-ups, etc.) this imbalance is often hidden. However, on the bike, you need balanced control to stabilize it – falling down a drop and collapsing on one side will cause you to go off line! There is also a lot of trunk stability here as only one side is pressing so you have to hold on tight.
Progress: Increasing the dumbbell weight: As with split squats, work in the 8-12 rep range to start, but this should be exhausting, not just stopping at 12 for the sake of it!
Return: Reduce the weight: If an athlete has a shoulder injury, I often use a kettlebell upside down, as this helps us challenge the stabilizing muscles of the shoulder, not just strength.
Four. dumbbell row
How: Take a wide stance: one knee on the bench and the other leg outside hip-width. This allows you to lean forward with a flat back and hold it. Hold the dumbbell at arms length and imagine you’re cutting through a piece of wood: the movement is up and back into your armpit. Control the descent phase and repeat.
Why: As for the dumbbell bench press, this helps you address upper body pulling asymmetry. This is often overlooked, but can explain shoulder blade/back pain, or even neck problems, as a weak back tends to overwork the neck.
Progress: Increase the load on the dumbbell, but keep the form! You don’t want to lower and then quickly raise your chest to give the dumbbell more momentum!
Return: Stand up and use a resistance band anchored to a frame to pull yourself up. This is an early stage rehabilitation move and will allow evaluation at a lower level.
5. Side plank supports
How: Lie down on the bench, hips on top edge. Hook your feet under the bench to keep it steady, or have someone hold it to stabilize it. Twist sideways so your shoulders and hips point toward the ceiling. Lower yourself to horizontal so that you are preparing to hold this position. How long can you hold this for!
Why: This is a challenging move and will quickly highlight a difference in core strength, which may be due to a hip problem. We often move a lot in the sagittal plane (forward/reverse plane), so challenging the force in a different plane is often revealing. These differences can lead to other problems and pains, so highlighting them is very helpful!
Progress: If you can hold this for 60s or more on each side, try holding a 5kg weight when you do this, and then try pressing it away from you!
Return: A side plank from the floor is a much easier way to get into a similar position, though holding onto your elbow can tire your shoulder quickly.
Alan Milway is a trainer who has worked with professional mountain bikers for nearly 20 years. He just launched a new company that makes strength training equipment: www.milwayperformance.com
The STW staff is sheepishly testing the exercises…be sure to let us know the results of your testing!
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