I think I can safely assume that if you love to mountain bike ; you equally love two

things in life: The outdoors and the unpredictable. It has always interested me; the

psychology that is, of what attracts each athlete to their chosen sport. Out of this interest

and beyond the walls of my “laboratory,” I have begun to cultivate my attraction to the

anti-gym-rat as I too, share the same distaste for the mundane.

 

Let’s be honest, strength training for your sport is a lot like flossing your teeth.

You neglect it and you could get injured, or you do it haphazardly and you may not reach

your power potential and be able to maximize your investment on t he trails. So let’s cut

to the chase and dissect what is absolutely critical to performance in your sport – and

answer the why, the what and the how when it comes down to gym work. To begin, let

me share a short story . . .

 

One of my world-cup downhillers came into the lab this past week for her training

session. I hadn’t seen her in a few months and of course assumed she was busy training

on her own with the program I had prepared for the upcoming summer race season.

When I asked her how things were go ing she began her training update with a tangential

explanation of her “new life” – she just recently moved from the city onto a farm. She

then hesitantly confessed she had not been as diligent as she had in the past with her pre -

season strength training. I listened intently as she described the past few week’s activities

of shoveling dirt, pulling out fence posts, tearing down walls of her new home and

pouring concrete. “I just haven’t had any time to train,” she said, with an expression of

guilt. “I go to bed every night exhausted only to get up again the next day t o countless

hours of more work!” Once she finished her tale I smiled and asked her one only

question: Did you get a chance to operate a jackhammer? She looked at me as if I asked

her to go to Mars on a blind date. So I repeated my question and she replied with a

questioning “No?”

I then, began to explain to her that what she had been doing for the past four weeks

was PERFECT conditioning for her sport (minus the quantification of her training load,

which I will get into another day) . She was able to accomplish all 4 of my essentials for

effective off-bike MTB training!

 

They are summarized as follows:

1. Train in all three planes of human motion : Frontal, transverse and saggital –

Mountain biking is multi-planar. Even though you are directing power in the

saggital plane, you are stabilizing in the other two at all times. Thus, pick

exercises that challenge you to bend, twist, and stabilize side -to-side.

2. Use full-body, multi-joint lifts and exercises. In order to initiate a jump, or

power up a steep incline your entire body is used. When my client pulled 10

fence posts out of the ground she was training in this exact fashion . She used her

legs and hips to drive, her upper back to pu ll and steer and her forearms to grip

and manipulate. Do not isolate one muscle group at a time while you are training.

This is bodybuilding, not sport -training!

3. Train with uneven loads. (Those two buckets of concrete mix she was carrying

were not exactly the same weight)  that when you perform an exercise in the gym, you MUST load both sides of your body

evenly, i.e.: hold a 20 kg dumbbell in each hand? NONE of my MTB athletes

train this way. Instead, I may load a 2 0 kg in one hand and a 30 kg in the other,

have them perform a lunge and ask them to maintain a neutral spine and a strong

posture throughout. Trust me, it’s fun. Or have two athletes go to battle with a

towel tug-o’-war, with one long towel and one shor t one. The possibilities are

endless and the benefits are obvious. Isn’t this more congruent with the demands

placed on your body as you grind through the mud and snake around the tree

stumps?

4. Integrate your core – Face it folks – sit-ups are OUT. Leave those isolation

exercises to the beach babes. Digging a ditch will force you to activate your

entire abdominal wall, and so will using that jackhammer I mentioned earlier. If

you don’t keep your mid-section tight you will have a more difficult time

absorbing the “shock” and vibration of the hammer, just as you would absorbing

the impact of a downhill race on a 20 kg bike at 50km/hr.

 

Some of the strength and conditioning gurus in the world lump the cyclists all

together, into the same physical category . Roadies and mountain bikers are about as

vastly different physically and mentally as synchronized swimmers and freestyle

wrestlers. It is important to note, that although the scientific research on the sport of

mountain biking is few and far between, the exercise prescription for both is often the

same. However, mountain biking requires greater relative and absolute strength levels.

The bikes are heavier and gravity plays a larger role, thus the need to be able to stabilize and

produce a higher percentage of maximum power is greater.

 

Now, if you do not dwell on a farm, or own a jackhammer, you can still reap the benefits

of this methodology of training, simply by following a program that focuses on the 4

training essentials as listed above. It is not necessary to even belong to a fitness center if

you have the following equipment: a stability ball, a heavy exercise tube or cable

machine, 2 sets of dumbbells or kettlebells and some space.

 

As far as an exact prescription is concerned, I am recommending that you go to my

Website: http://www.humanmotion.com. We offer online, individualized digital program design. Please contact us at info@humanmotion.ca.

Enjoy the season!

There are many ways to change the training stimulus of a strength program. One of the most overlooked variables to manipulate is the rest periods within the sets themselves. Quite often, athletes and fitness participants will complete a set, rep to rep in a continuous manner. Depending on the number of reps and the exercise chosen, the set might take 30 seconds to 90 seconds. Now, there is nothing wrong with this methodology for certain exercises and for those with specific goals but I want to draw your attention away from this traditional approach to an approach we use at Human Motion to improve strength in our advanced clients.

The method is called Cluster Training

In this type of training set, a rest interval is prescribed between the reps. The rest interval can be anywhere from 10 seconds to 30 seconds. It can be prescribed after a few reps when levels of fatigue are reached, or between each and every rep, almost like the rest a basketball player would take between free throws. The load can be increased after the rest between each rep then decreased between the reps over a set to capitalize on postactivation potentiation. Or, perhaps, in the case of a relative strength exercise, the lever arm can be changed during the rest period to alter the biomechanics of the exercise and reduce or increase its intensity between each rep. There are a few different approaches one can use to employ this method of strength training. It is up to the skilled practicitioner to decide which approach he/she uses.

The physiology behind cluster training

The goal with cluster training is to improve the QUALITY of the client’s performance. The rest allows the client to produce force at a higher rate and may be beneficial in the development of “power-generating capacity” due to the decrease in repetition-induced fatigue (Haff et al, 2008).

It is known that Adenosinetriphosphate (ATP) and Creatine Phosphate (CP) are substrates, which provide energy for short-term exercise. ATP supports muscle contraction and CP is used under anaerobic conditions to rebuild ATP as it is needed and to replenish the body’s stores (Brooks et al, 1996). Creatine Kinase is a catalysing enzyme, which functions rapidly to re-establish the muscle concentration of ATP. Quantities of ATP and CP in a resting muscle are quite small therefore any utilization must be immediately replaced with an equivalent replenishment. If the ATP and CP utilization rate exceeds the restoration rate, exercise cannot continue very long. As CP stores are depleted, the body’s ability to quickly replace the spent ATP is seriously impaired. Fatigue is the result and the inability to produce a maximal muscular contraction.

In an exercising subject, the drop in ATP and CP appear to be related to the relative work intensity (Brooks, 1996). If the workload is more intense, there is greater the CP depletion, which leads to muscle fatigue (Brooks, 1996). ATP, however, will maintain its level until CP is greatly reduced. Thus, it is clear that CP depletion a significant factor leading to muscle fatigue at maximal effort.

Increases in blood lactate levels are also partially responsible for the fatigue-induced performance alterations (Haff, 2008). During short-term, high intensity exercise, a metabolite called lactate accumulates in the blood as result of lactic acid production exceeding its removal. The lactic acid dissociates, converting to hydrogen ions, causing a decrease in the pH. The hydrogen ions accumulate as a result of lactic acid production and can have several negative effects on the exerciser. Muscle contraction and energy production are adversely affected because of the subsequent decrease in ATP production. Hydrogen ions also displace calcium in the muscle fibre inferring with the coupling action of the actin-myosin cross-bridges making muscle contraction difficult.

Hypothetically, by incorporating a 20-30 second rest interval BETWEEN repetitions will result in some replenishment of CP, thus diminishing the stimulus for lactic acid and lactate production.

If strength and power gains are at the top of our client’s goal list, then cluster training can be a very useful method of training. In the research, it appears that cluster training has the potential to positively alter the strength training stimulus (Haff, 2008). It is most effective with pulling exercises like the deadlift, the clean pull, the power clean, the power snatch and variations of these lifts, where the client is most often working above 80% of their 1RM and where quality individual repetition power output is more important than total power output. Isn’t our goal as strength coaches to foster a training environment whereby our clients can perform work of high quality? Cluster training also work very well with ballistic-type exercises that have an accelerative profile such as box jumps.

The timely implementation of cluster training into a training program is key. If a client lacks muscle tone (hypertrophy), has a low work capacity (is deconditioned), lacks adequate hip mobility and trunk stability, then a more traditional approach to their physical development must be taken. And this might be taken for years! Cluster training should be used for the more advanced strength client as a means to reach new levels of performance. However, having said that, clusters work well when subjects are learning new skills (Bott, 2010). They provide, not only a means of physiological restoration, but a means of mental recovery to allow the newbie to focus on the task and facilitate learning.

For more information on cluster training protocols, email the coaching staff at Human Motion for a program: info@humanmotion.com

Works cited

Brooks, George, Thomas Fahey and Timothy White. Exercise Physiology: Human Bioenergetics and Its Applications. Mayfield Publishing: 1996.

Haff G. Cluster Training: A Novel Method for Introducing Training Program Variation. Strength and Conditioning Journal. Vol 30 N. 1, 2008.