When it comes to building MTB specific cardio, the best method is to actually ride your bike - that is the most sport specific training you can do. However, there are times when you can’t ride as much as you would like or you want to focus on specific qualities that you need on the trail but don’t use enough on the trail to continue to improve.

There are also health benefits that you can get from a smart conditioning program that you can’t get from riding alone. This means that if you want to maximize your performance and your health then cardio training has to be part of your overall plan.

In this episode of the Riding For A Lifetime Podcast I share a new cardio training method that I feel has a lot of potential for the 40+ year old rider.

Let me know if you have any questions or need help getting started with this workout. This is just one way to go about it and I’ll be sharing more workout ideas with you as I get a chance to test them.

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson

MTB Strength Training Systems

Low Back Pain is one of the most common things that riders suffer from both on and off the bike. It can ruin the good time that mountain biking is supposed to provide for us and in extreme cases can even make riders quit riding.

Even more frustrating is that there doesn’t seem to be a consistent, predictable pattern with low back pain and it is often a mystery as to the specific underlying cause. But if you ignore it then it tends to get worse until you have to deal with it.

I have experience with Low Back Pain both as a trainer who has helped riders overcome it but also as someone who has suffered from it. A long time ago I tweaked my back trying to deadlift too much weight and if I don’t stay on top of it my back gets stiff and sore, plus I have to be conscious of it while training.

This journey to find solutions for myself and the riders I’ve worked with has led me to discover some things that I feel can help a lot of riders out there. A lot of these things aren’t your typical “stretch your hip flexors” advice you usually hear and they fill in some gaps that I think a lot of riders are missing in their attempts to fix their Low Back pain.

First, before we get to the specific advice,  make sure that there isn’t something medically wrong with your back. Have a doctor check it out and see if there is something specific going on like a pinched nerve or a bulging disc. 

But if there isn’t something specific wrong with your lower back and it just hurts at any time then there may be a few things you can do to help improve the situation.

Here are 8 things that I’ve found can help improve your Low Back Pain:

1. Be aware of your breathing.
2. Improve your Hip Flexor strength with Isometric Exercises.
3. Improve Hip mobility.
4. Improve Spinal mobility.
5. Have a Warm Up and a Pre-Ride Routine.
6. Stand up for High Tension efforts.
7. Use Flat Pedals.
8. Use a Strength Training Program that creates a well balanced body.

Be Aware Of Your Breathing.

How you breathe affects a lot of things in your body, including your lower back. Several studies have found a link between bad breathing habits and low back pain, IMO most likely due to the inability of the core to properly stabilize under load (poor core stability has also been linked to low back pain).

This means that you could be doing everything else right and still have low back pain. It’s a low hanging fruit that can make a big difference so you may as well make it a part of your overall strategy.

Good breathing will help to stabilize the midsection and reinforce good posture. You want to be aware of and practice good breathing habits on the bike, in the gym and during your everyday life.

You can check out this post to learn more about optimal breathing habits and how to assess and optimize your breathing habits.

Strengthen the Hip Flexors with Isometric Exercises. 

The recommendation to strengthen the hip flexors might come as a surprise to some riders. We’ve been told for years that the problem was tight hip flexors and that we should avoid exercising them directly and focusing instead on stretching them.

I’ve found that this doesn’t consistently fix the problem and that there isn’t a direct correlation to a muscle being “tight” and it also being strong. A weak muscle creates its own set of problems that need to be addressed and in some cases, addressing the strength issue helps with the mobility/ ROM issues.

I’ve also found that using Isometric Exercises to strengthen the Hip Flexors offers a way to safely strengthen them, which can be an issue with movement based exercises. The 4 best Isometric Exercises that I’ve found for this purpose are the Single Leg Hip Flexor and Glute Bridge, Squat and Lunge.

Start with wherever you're at and work up to holding the weakest point of the movement that you can get into with good posture and breathing for 60-90 seconds. Do them 1-3 times a week, focusing on improving your ROM and breathing each week along with the time you are holding for.

Improve Hip Mobility. 

Yes, you most likely do need to improve your hip mobility, you just need to focus on more than just the front of the leg (Quads and Hip Flexors). Your hips have 4 basic directions of movement and you want to do something to work on all of them.

I like to use good old fashioned static stretching positions along with my breathing and a little bit of movement to help me get deeper into the stretch. The 4 stretches I like to do are the Quad/ Hip Flexor Stretch, Hamstring Stretch, Glute Stretch and Butterfly Stretch.

You want to hold the stretches for as long as you can - 15 seconds is better than nothing and holding them for 5+ minutes might do you some good. In general, though, I recommend 30 seconds up to 2 minutes, 3-7 days a week. 

Improve Spinal Mobility. 

Another forgotten part of the low back pain problem is that your spine needs to be able to move freely and sometimes sticking points in that movement create excessive stress on the spine. Having a spine that moves freely that you can protect under load with tension is the ultimate goal and until both are achieved you may still be fighting low back pain.

The 3 movements I like for working on my Spinal Mobility are the Sun Salutation, Twisty Slaps and Stick Windmill. Be sure to avoid pain when doing these movements and to use your breathing to help stabilize the spine and improve your ROM.

BTW, if you don’t feel comfortable with spinal twists then just do the Sun Salutation, you’ll get a lot from it.

Have a Warm Up Routine and a Pre-Ride Routine.

Quality movement is pain free movement so your ultimate goal is to practice quality movement when you train and ride. Having a Warm Up and Pre-Ride Routine that focuses on improving your Hip and Spinal Mobility will help you to bring higher quality movement to your training and riding.

Sitting in a car or sitting and spinning your way to the trailhead will most likely create stiffness in those areas, which will decrease your movement quality. Doing a few mobility movements like the Sun Salutation, Twisty Slap, Windmill and Reverse Lunge to High Knee can set you up for better movement potential on the trail which will improve your performance, endurance and decrease the chance of low back pain.

Stand Up For High Tension Efforts.

The posture you put a lot of tension on matters. Standing Postures are better for High Tension Efforts - better posture, better chest position for breathing, better core engagement, more hip extension, co-contraction at the knee at the bottom of the pedal stroke and less strain on the neck to look up.

Seated Pedaling is good for Low Tension/ Recovery Efforts but the position and posture you are in is not good for creating a lot of tension. I know, you were told that Standing Pedaling is “less efficient” and to sit down on climbs to keep weight on the back tire.

Seated Pedaling feels easier but easier isn’t the same as “more efficient” - efficiency is a measurement of how much work is produced compared to the energy used to create it and in a lot of cases Standing Pedaling is actually “more efficient”.

Remember too that Standing Pedaling is a new skill and you aren’t very efficient at it, which makes it feel much harder. But once you use it for a while you get more efficient and it doesn’t feel as hard.

As far as keeping weight on the rear tire, you can keep weight on the back tire without having your butt on the seat. We’ve all seen examples of people climbing steep stuff while standing up so obviously it can be done and you don’t have to keep your butt on the seat when climbing.

Plus, you don’t want weight on your rear tire, you want well timed pressure. If you needed weight then Clydesdale sized riders would never break traction on climbs but we know that isn’t true so obviously there is more to it. 

You want to use weight to create pressure, specifically pressure into the rear tire that is timed with your pedal stroke, and that is often done better from the Standing Position, especially on technical climbs.

A lot of riding related back pain is from too much reliance on seated pedaling. Break away from it and watch your performance improve and your pain go away.

Use Flat Pedals.

This isn’t which pedal system is the highest performance at the highest levels of competition, it is about which system is healthier for the body. As a 40+ year old rider odds are super high that you don’t pay your bills based on your riding performance and longevity is a priority for you.

Flat Pedals force you to use a more natural pedal stroke, which places the stress on the hips and not on unnatural pulling with the Hip Flexors and Low Back. They also allow for variability in your foot position and the pedal stroke that you can’t get when you are locking into the pedal in the same foot position every time you ride.

This variability has been found to correlate to fewer injuries and lower injury potentials and the current theory is that prefect, repeatable movement isn’t possible or desired for long term health.

Flat Pedals will take stress off of your lower back by allowing for more natural and more variable movement which, when coupled with Standing Pedaling, can make a huge impact on your lower back pain.

And with the risk of this sounding like an infomercial, the Catalyst Pedals I designed take this concept to its full conclusion by creating the most natural support possible for your foot, which further decreases pain and power and performance.

Use A Strength Training Program That Creates A Well Balanced Body.

Odds are pretty high that if you have low back pain then you haven’t been consistently following a strength training program that creates a well balanced body, especially if you have been riding a lot.

Maybe you haven’t been working out at all or maybe you’ve been doing something that creates more stress on the lower back, like programs that have you doing a lot of circuits to build cardio or “work capacity”, but either way you need to evaluate your overall approach to creating and maintaining a healthy, high performance body.

You can check out the podcast I did on Strength Training Basics For The 40+ Year Old Rider to learn more about what to look for in a good strength training program but as you get older this becomes more important.

So in conclusion, Low Back Pain is about much more than just stretching your Hip Flexors and by following this advice you can get your Low Back Pain under control and start to move in a better direction with how you move on and off the bike. 

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson

As you get older, strength training changes from a “good to do” to a “must do” status. Losing your strength, muscle and power are all realities for the 40+ year old rider and strength training is the best way to slow that process down.

This is the #1 tactic for riders who want to do this for a lifetime - get and stay strong and you’ll avoid age-related physical decline for as long as possible.  

Plus, improving your strength, power and muscle mass can help improve performance and reduce your risk of injury, so it helps now and acts as insurance against future losses. And while a lot of things can help, if you want to maximize your results there are some basic principles that the 40+ year old rider should be observing.

First, almost anything can “work” but it eventually stops working and it may not build the strength and fitness you need for riding. The goal is to follow a training program that will help us on the path towards riding for a lifetime: improving our MTB specific fitness and our overall longevity/ health.

With that in mind, here are some basic guidelines to help you with designing or choosing a training program.

Podcast Notes:

2-4 days a week is plenty and the specific number depends on how much you are riding and your ability to recover.

• The more you are riding and the more important your performance the fewer days you will lift.
• The more you are trying to focus on strength training/ building muscle the more often you need to lift.
• So this breaks down to 2 days a week during the riding season and 3-4 days a week in the off season depending on time available and goals.

You want to focus on big, compound movements but doing some isolation exercises won’t make you dysfunctional and can be beneficial in some cases.

• You want to focus on getting stronger or doing more volume with the main movement patterns and the exercises that train them - Squat, Hinge, Push, Pull, Carry and Rotate.
  • I’d also break them up into unilateral and bilateral exercises
• But doing some isolation exercises like curls and tricep extensions can help with total body isometric strength as well as help with muscle building/ preservation.

You want to use a variety of set and rep schemes, with the bulk of them focusing on the 2-4 sets of 3-8 reps. 

• 2-4 sets is enough volume to build strength and power without excessive fatigue.
• 3-8 reps covers the strength and power end as it gets into the hypertrophy end of things, giving you a variety of training stimuli to pick from.
• I’d recommend 80% of your training falling in this range and the other 20% falling into the higher rep ranges, going up to 20-30 reps.
• I don’t recommend spending time in the 1-2 rep range as the risk to benefit ratio isn’t high enough for me to be comfortable with recommending to most riders.

You don’t need to train to failure to see results and IMO it should be avoided as a 40+ year old rider.

• There is a lot of science that tells us that you don’t need to train to failure (or beyond) to see results.
• You can train to near failure and see the same results while also saving your body some wear and tear and also lowering your injury risk.
• Training to within 1-3 reps of failure is plenty to see results. This usually occurs when you start to slow down the concentric portion of the exercise, so as long as you go until you start to slow down then you are fine.
• Leaving 3-1 Reps In Reserve (RIR) also helps avoid injury since the closer you get to failure the more likely you are to see a technical breakdown that can lead to an acute or overuse injury.

Don’t use bodypart training and instead focus on total body or upper body/ lower body splits.

• Using bodypart training split (where you train the body by body parts like Chest, Back, Legs, Biceps, ect.) is a great way to build muscle but not the best way to build functional strength and power.
• Like I mentioned before, you want to focus on training movement patterns and so you want to divide your workouts based on those movement patterns.
• This means you can do a total body training split (where you train the lower and upper body on the same day) or an upper body/ lower body split where you focus on one area of the body each day.
• Total body training is usually better for minimizing soreness and maximizing recovery while the upper/ lower training split is better for creating more stress in one area, which can deliver better results with proper recovery or can help riders who recover really well and need more volume to stimulate progress.
• I suggest starting with a total body training split and then trying the upper/ lower training split if you feel you aren’t getting fatigued from your workouts.

Don’t Overdo Circuit Training

• You don’t want to turn everything into Circuit Training, where you do 3-4+ exercises in a row before repeating the Circuit for the specified reps.
• Circuit Training is great for getting a lot of work done in a short period of time but not great for building strength and power.
• You also don’t need to get that much done each workout - 3-6 exercises is plenty for most people. Better to focus more on less as you get older.
• Do Straight Sets (where you do one exercise at time) or Supersets (where you do two exercises in a row) for your main lifts and save the Circuit Training for your secondary lifts.

Use Isometrics to help round out your strength and safeguard your health.

• Isometrics are exercises where you create tension but don’t create movement.
• It is the basis for the stabilization strength you need to display strength and power from a strong, stable platform.
• It is also a great way to practice good breathing habits during high tension efforts, which translates very well to the trail.
• Isometrics have also been shown to help with high blood pressure and isometric strength has been linked to fewer TBIs and longevity.
• Use isometrics to train movement patterns that you can’t train with weights, either through lack of equipment or previous/ current injuries.
• If you are healthy then do one day of isomerics each week to round out your strength and longevity program.

Build up the intensity of your workouts over several weeks.

• You don’t want to come out and go as hard as you can in Week 1 of a new program. This gives you little room to improve and means that you will be maxing out your recovery abilities too soon.
• You want to start out easy in Week 1, moderate in Week 2 and then hard in Week 3.
• A good way to do this is to use the Reps In Reserve idea we talked about earlier. In Week 1 leave 3 RIR, in Week 2 leave 2 RIR and in Week 3 leave 1 RIR or go to failure if you must.
• Week 4 should be a deloading week so go back to 3 RIR and give your body a chance to recover from the hard week.

Change your workout every 4-8 weeks, with longer periods with the same workout being better.

• I’m convinced that we change workouts far too often and that the 40+ year old rider would do better with changing workout every 6-8 weeks.
• As long as you are able to progress (i.e. add load and/ reps) then there isn’t a huge need to change workouts. 
• Longer periods of time with a workout means more chances to build on the skill behind the exercises you are doing, which means you build mastery and lower your chance of injury.
• The more you do a workout the less sore you get from it, leaving you feeling better when you’re riding or just during your everyday life.

Last Piece Of Advice Is Not To Lift For Social Media Or Look To It For New Ideas

• Lifting to look cool on SM is a young person's game.
• You don’t need to max out your Deadlift or try to jump up on a bunch of boxes.
• You also need to remember that a lot of the stuff you see on SM is there to get likes and look cool and probably isn’t the most productive use of your time.
• Stick with the basics and weigh the risk to benefit ratio when trying new things.

What does this look like in real life?

• I’ll link to a copy of my current training program here for you to check out. This is also the format I use in my online training program, especially the Ultimate MTB Workout Program.
• What you’ll see is 1 Power Exercise, 2 Main Exercises that use an upper body and a lower body lift around 3 secondary exercises that hit other movements or muscle groups I want to target.
• You’ll also see that I’m using Straight Sets for the first 3 exercises (Power and Main Exercises) and Circuit Training for the last 3 (Secondary Exercises).
• After 6-8 weeks of this routine I’ll switch it up by changing the exercises, sets and reps but sticking with the same basic outline.
• Switching between Sets and Reps like 3 X 3, 2 X 5 and 4 X 8 is a good way to use the suggested parameters from phase to phase.

These are the basic parameters I focus on with my own training and the clients I work with who are in the 40+ crowd.  Focusing on doing fewer things but at a higher level of focus and mastery is one of the themes I like to push with these workouts.

You can and should train hard, you just have to be smarter about when and how you push yourself to the limit.

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson

In this episode of the Riding For A Lifetime Podcast I share with you my morning routine that helps me set my day on a good trajectory. 

Maximizing your health and longevity becomes a big priority as you get older. You can get away with abusing your body in your 20’s and still being able to get after it but if you want to be able to perform well on a consistent basis into your 40’s and beyond you have to start making good daily habits a part of your routine.

Over the last several years I’ve developed a morning routine that I feel has helped me slow down the performance decline and maximize my results from training. Remember that training actually breaks your body down and how well you support the recovery process plays a big role in how hard you can train and what results you see from your training.

You can stream this episode or download the MP3 file by clicking the link below. You‌ ‌can‌ also find the podcast ‌on‌ ‌‌Itunes‌,‌‌ ‌Podbean‌,‌‌ ‌‌Spotify‌‌ ‌‌and‌ ‌all‌ ‌other‌ ‌major‌ ‌podcasting‌ ‌platforms.‌ ‌

Click Here To Stream This Episode or Download The MP3 File

The three things that I do every morning are…

1. Hydrate with water and electrolytes, particularly sodium.
2. Breathwork drills like Box Breathing or Super Ventilation + Breath Holds (a.k.a. Wim Hof style breathing).
3. Cold water exposure.

First, hydration with sodium. After waking up I drink 16 ounces of water with a supplement called LMNT (I pronounce it Lemon T but it is supposed to be pronounced Element), which contains 1 gram of sodium along with 200 mg of potassium and 60 mg of magnesium. 

Yes, I know that the FDA says that we should be limiting sodium intake but there are a lot of holes in their recommendations. Robb Wolf is a founder of LMNT and he has done a lot of great work on illuminating the difference between what we’re told by the FDA and what the research on sodium intake actually says.

While a fat, pre-diabetic person who doesn’t exercise and eats a lot of fast food probably doesn’t need extra sodium, if you are reasonably fit, workout on a regular basis and try to eat whole foods then odds are pretty high that you could stand to use more sodium in your diet.

Several studies have shown that there is a sweet spot for sodium intake between 4-6 grams a day that result in optimal health outcomes. Restricting sodium intake to less than this has been linked to higher incidents of high blood pressure and cardiovascular death (ironically the things we’re told that low sodium diets are supposed to protect us against).

By starting your day off with a gram of sodium you are hydrating your body in a healthy way since water without sodium can throw off fluid balance. Sodium helps to regulate fluid outside your cells and potassium helps to regulate fluid inside your cells so your body needs these minerals to maintain optimal fluid balance. 

If you don’t get enough of these minerals from your diet then your body will leach them from your bones - along with calcium, which can weaken the bones and is something you want to avoid as an older athlete. 

I usually take another 1-2 LMNTs throughout the day, especially if I’m doing something that causes me to sweat a lot, like going for a bike ride. If you have low energy, brain fog, muscle cramps or even recurring headaches it may be a result of low sodium intake, in which case increasing your sodium intake can have a massive impact on your health and performance.

The second thing I do is spend 10-15 minutes doing some kind of breathwork. I’ve talked a lot about how better breathing can impact your health, performance and even your mood and so starting the day with some focused breathing drills can make a big difference in how your day unfolds.

My two favorite breathing drills are Box Breathing or Wim Hof style breathing. 

Box Breathing has you assign a time to the four parts of your breath - the inhale, hold at the top of the inhale, the exhale and the hold at the bottom of the exhale. By manipulating these four things you can create a change in the body’s internal chemistry, which will result in changes in the body over time.

For Box Breathing you start with 3 seconds for each part of the breath, so a 3 second inhale, a 3 second hold at the top, a 3 second exhale and a 3 second hold at the bottom. As this becomes easy you can add 1 second to each part of the breath cycle but make sure that you keep each part of the cycle the same length, hence the term “Box Breathing”. While your goal is to work up to 5 seconds or longer, you are getting results from whatever length works for you.

The Wim Hof style of breathing goes in the opposite direction, having you breathe as deeply and as quickly as possible for 30-40 breaths. On the last breath, do a comfortable exhale and then hold your breath. 

When you feel the urge to breathe then take a deep breath in and hold once more, this time for 10-15 seconds. Then you breath out and start the process again, repeating 2-3 more times for a total of 3-4 rounds. 

While they are very different and deliver slightly different overall results, both of these methods alter the blood chemistry, which results in adaptations in the body, and they both act as a form of meditation, which has also been shown to have positive health benefits.

If I had time I would do both of them every day at different times during the day. As it stands I can commit to doing one of them in the morning and so I like to alternate between the two breathing methods. I will say that the Wim Hof method is more stressful and so you want to make sure that you are in good health and then ease into it.

The last thing I do is take a shower and finish with 1.5-3 minutes of a cold water rinse. You can be a gangster and just take a cold shower but I like to shower like normal with hot water and then finish with the cold.

Cold exposure like this is part of a traditional way to harden the body and has been shown to have a lot of health benefits. Improved insulin sensitivity, improved mood and improved stress response are all documented benefits of cold water exposure and there are several other anecdotal benefits that people have reported as well.

Most of the studies have been done using cold water swimming or plunging but a lot of experts in this area say that you just need to get uncomfortably cold to see benefits. This is why a cold shower can work and is better than nothing. Doing a cold plunge is probably better - inducing a shiver response delivers unique benefits to cold exposure, which is easier with a cold plunge - just exposing yourself to cold water for a few minutes in the morning can have long term health benefits.

After that I’m ready to start my day. The biggest time investment is the breathing, drinking the LMNT doesn’t take long and I’m taking a shower anyway so I may as well finish with some cold water exposure. All told I’m about 30 minutes into my morning and I’ve already invested in some pretty good health habits. 

Having daily habits like this helps you do something every day towards your goal of riding for a lifetime. You can’t workout every day but it is good to do something every day to keep momentum and help you feel like you are moving forward on a regular basis. Plus, it amplifies the results from your other training and riding.

Of course, this is just my routine and it won’t work for everyone. But even if you can’t follow this routine or find it doesn’t do anything for you then the takeaway message is to have something that you do everyday that moves you closer to your goals. 

And if you have any questions or would like some advice on creating your own routine then let me know, I’m always happy to help. 

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson

MTB Strength Training Systems

p.s. Just like you need daily habits to help keep you fit and healthy, you need a strength training routine to offset the effects of aging and give you the strength needed to ride for a lifetime. In the 40+ MTB Rider Training Program I show you how to use the best strength training strategies to help you improve your riding fitness while maximizing your time and avoiding overuse injuries. 

I also include a section on Breathwork and show you how to assess your breathing and several different training methods to help you improve your cardio in a unique way. If you need a workout plan that takes into account the realities of being a 40+ year old rider and gives you the tools and workouts to improve your health and fitness then click the link below to learn more and get your copy.

Click Here To Get Your Copy Of The 40+ MTB Rider Training Program

The term “MTB Specific Training” gets thrown around a lot but what does it really mean?

At its core, it means using a training program that helps you ride faster, longer and with more skill. While the most “MTB specific” thing you can do is to actually ride your bike, there are certainly things you can do off of the bike that can help.

In the gym this takes the form of strength training that improves your strength and movement quality in ways that help your riding. Strength is one of the more general physical attributes, meaning that what works for an athlete in one sport will generally work for another.

About 80-90% of what you do with an athlete will be the same from sport to sport but there are some MTB specific things you can do to enhance your results. And no, this doesn’t mean using light loads and high reps because you need to build more endurance.

In general, getting stronger in the 2-4 sets X 5-10 reps range will get you what you need. You can benefit from time spent outside of this range but this should make up the bulk of your strength training. You should also focus on the basic movement patterns of Push, Pull, Squat and Hinge.

But once you have the basics covered there are some exercises that will help your MTB specific results.

You can stream this episode or download the MP3 file by clicking the link below. You‌ ‌can‌ also find the podcast ‌on‌ ‌‌Itunes‌,‌‌ ‌Podbean‌,‌‌ ‌‌Spotify‌‌ ‌‌and‌ ‌all‌ ‌other‌ ‌major‌ ‌podcasting‌ ‌platforms.‌ ‌

Show Notes:

1. Windmill

• If there was one exercise that I wish every mountain biker would add to their program it is this one.
• This movement is the core movement pattern behind cornering on your bike and the #1 reason that most riders struggle with this skill is because they lack it.
• It is also an essential skill for riding switchbacks and, coupled with track stands, would make it much easier for riders to execute this skill as well.
• You can do it with no weight using a stick on your back.
• You can also weight it by holding a weight over your head or by using a Steel Mace on your back.
• I recommend checking out the videos I have posted at https://www.bikejames.com/strength/carving-faster-corners-with-the-stick-and-kb-windmill/ to learn more about how to execute this movement in the most MTB specific way possible because there is a lot of bad instruction around this movement.
• In general, you are getting into a pedal stance position with your feet and shifting your weight to the back leg while rotating your shoulders as you hinge back.
• If you do this movement and struggle to keep your weight on the back leg then you are “tipping” over instead of “corkscrewing” your way down, which is how you end up leaning too far inside of a corner and crashing.
• BTW, the lack of this movement pattern is what has led to the “lean your bike and not your body” advice, which is wrong. You have to lean your body but you have to do it in a balanced way.
• This is also a great way to work out the differences between right and left cornering that most riders have.
• I recommend doing 2 sets of 5 reps for this exercise although you can also do the Stick Windmill on a daily basis as part of your mobility plan.

2. Elevated Lunge

• This is something I started using a few months ago and I really like it for improving a rider's Standing Pedaling ability.
• It has you using a box that is 6-12 inches high and stepping back into a lunge.
• It is a cross between a step up and a lunge and it really works on the range of motion in the hip flexors.
• Lunging is the movement pattern behind Standing Pedaling and elevating your front leg helps build the movement skill of being able to stand up and pedal without rounding the low back to make up for a lack of ROM in the hip flexors.
• Plus, it targets the glutes a bit more since you are getting more of a stretch at the bottom, which helps with pedaling power and looking good from behind.
• I recommend doing 2-4 sets of 5-10 reps with this exercise, starting with a 6 inch box and working up to a 12+ inch box as another way to progress the movement.

3. Bent Press

• This is a forgotten exercise from the history of strength training.
• It used to be a contested lift in strongman competitions in the late 1800’s/ early 1900’s but fell out of favor with the popularity of bodybuilding.
• It is a hybrid exercise that combines the Windmill Movement with a Shoulder Press.
• You basically have a weight in one arm at the bottom of the Shoulder Press position and then perform a Windmill as you straighten your arm before returning to the upright position with the arm still locked out overhead.
• Again, check out the video demo I have at https://www.bikejames.com/strength/the-bent-press-for-mtb-how-this-forgotten-exercise-can-improve-your-riding/ 
• This exercise is great for improving your cornering and your shoulder stability.
• I recommend doing 2-4 sets of 3-5 reps with this exercise.

4. DB Cheat Curl

• This is the best exercise you can do to improve your MTB specific explosive hip hinge, which is important for manualing, bunny hopping and jumping.
• You set up with a dumbbell in each hand and your feet shoulder width apart before driving the hips back and exploding back into the starting position, using the momentum to swing - or “cheat curl” - the weights up to shoulder level.
• You can also do this movement kneeling, half kneeling or standing in a pedal stance.
• The position of your legs makes this much more MTB specific than the vaunted KB Swing.
• Check out the video demo I posted at https://www.bikejames.com/strength/db-cheat-curls-for-better-mountain-bike-hip-power/ to see how to do this exercise.
• I recommend doing 2-4 sets of 3-5 reps to work on explosive power/ Higher reps and sets work on conditioning which has a place but most riders simply need to get more explosive.

By adding these exercises into your routine you can make sure that you are getting the most out of your gym time. If you need a program that incorporates these things be sure to check out the Ultimate MTB Workout Program and the 40+ MTB Rider Workout Program.

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson

In this podcast I wanted to share my experience with meditation for mountain biking. I’ve been meditating in some way since I was first introduced to it through a Tai Chi class I took in college and I’ve found it to be a powerful tool in helping me perform better.

You can also read a summary article from the notes for the podcast below…

• Meditation is one of those words that elicits a pretty mixed reaction from people when you bring it up.
• Some people are totally into it, some people think it is a bunch of nonsense and some people think it might have some benefits but don’t know what to do or where to start.
• For those of us who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, it has undergone a bit of a cultural shift over the years.
• Seen for a long time as one of those things that hippies did that had no real world value, it has been studied and found to have a lot of benefits for health, mindset and performance.
• Meditation is something that I have been using in various ways since I was 19.
• I got introduced to it through a random Tai Chi class that I took during my first year of college along with some of the philosophy behind it.
• As I became a strength coach and started to study more about how the human body works and how to improve its performance I came across a lot of ways to train and harness the power of the mind.
• While sports psychology and meditation aren’t the exact same thing, there are a lot of similarities and both have been used over time to train people to perform in high stress situations.
• Meditation has also been shown to help lower blood pressure, improve mood and lower stress.
• And while breathwork and meditation aren’t the same thing, there are also a lot of crossover practices and, at its core, meditation is about using your breathing to help control the mind.
• For the 40+ year old mountain biker I think that having a meditation practice is as important as strength, cardio and skills training, meaning that if you need to cut back on something else to find time for it then it is worth it.
• As little as 12 minutes a day has been clinically shown to make a difference.
• My goal in this podcast is to give you a broad overview of meditation practices and some practical tips on how you can start using it as part of your training program.
• I use meditation in 2 ways - to train my attention and to visualize high stress situations I want to perform well in.
• The first thing I recommend you start with is using mediation to train your attention.
• With this method you want to find something to focus your attention on like your breathing, an object or a sound.
• I recommend using your breathing since it is also a great way to train your breathing and work in some breathwork.
• To do this you would get set up in a comfortable position - you can be sitting or lying down, just make sure that you are in a position you won’t need to move to stay comfortable in.
• You don’t have to but I recommend also closing your eyes to help you focus on your breathing.
• Set a tempo where your exhale is even with or slightly longer than your inhale. 
• I find that 4-6 and 5-5 breathing work well.
• Simply follow your breathing and count off the tempo in your head or using a timer.
• Feel your breath going into the belly and filling the lungs from the bottom to the top and then feel the breath reversing and being pushed out.
• If your mind wanders then just bring it back - this will happen and is part of the process.
• You could also focus on an object like a flame or you can focus on a sound/ mantra like “om”.
• What you will find is that it is tough at first to sit there and not have your mind wandering around and you will constantly be having to bring it back to your breathing (or other focal point).
• With practice this will happen less and your ability to recognize it and bring your attention back will be more automatic.
• You can create even more of a breathwork challenge by adding in pauses to the top and bottom of the breath, creating Triangle and Box Breathing patterns.
• This will also help to improve overbreathing and CO2 tolerance by purposefully breathing less than normal, which also creates a slight rise in CO2.
• On the trail this will help you to focus your mind when it matters the most and give you a way to use your breathing to help control anxiety in the moment.
• This can also help you with entering and staying in the flow state since outside thoughts and distractions are a hindrance to it.
• Another way to use meditation is to combine it with visualization.
• To do this you would want to start out with 5-10 minutes of regular meditation/ breathwork to help you enter into a calm and relaxed state of mind.
• Once you have done this you can start to visualize anxiety producing situations while focusing on staying calm and using your breathing to help you.
• If you start to lose control and feel yourself getting tense and anxious then stop the visualization and go back to focusing on your breathing and relaxing.
• For example, if you are nervous about competition you can visualize yourself getting ready for and going through the steps leading up to the start of the race (most athletes report the lead up to competition is actually more stressful that competing so I find that this is what you want to focus on).
• Another example would be if you have a trail or section of trail that is extremely challenging or if you have a new feature/ obstacle that you want to do.
• You can also extend this practice to things off of the bike like public speaking or having a difficult talk with your boss or wife/ husband.
• As you can see, meditation is an extremely valuable tool for us both on and off the bike.
• It isn’t complicated and it doesn’t have to take a lot of time for you to see results.
• Some good books to check out on this subject are Peak Mind by Amishi P. Jha and Psyche by Jud Biasiotti. 
• Another great book on the training mindset is The Book of Five Rings by Myamoto Musashi.
• In it he talks a lot about the need to combine meditation with physical training in order to reach your goals.

Meditation is something that people have been using for thousands of years and with modern science we have some answers as to how it works. But it is still something that you have to make time for and do.

I promise you, though, that the effort is well worth it.

If you are interested in learning more about how to use breathwork and how to get the most out of your meditation practice then check out my Guide To Better Breathing for MTB.

In it you’ll learn how to assess your breathing and ways you can improve it, along with practical tips on how to use better breathing on the trail to improve your cardio along with how to use it to help you prepare for competition.

I hope this podcast has inspired you to start your own breathing/ meditation practice, let me know if you have any questions I can help with.

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson

Something that I try to impress on my kids is the importance of being able to admit when you are wrong and make a change. Too often we spend our time trying to justify why we do what we do rather than trying to challenge it and see if it holds up.

But that isn’t how we grow. There is a saying about how there is a difference between 10 years of experience and the same year of experience repeated 10 times. For too many people they end up repeating the same things over and over and never really grow or gain experience.

One of the areas in my life where this is most apparent is training. I’ve been working out for over 35 years, I’ve been a professional trainer for over 20 years and I’ve been working with mountain bikers since 2005. And in that time you better believe that I’ve made some mistakes and learned some valuable lessons.

In this podcast I wanted to share some of those lessons with you. Hopefully you can learn from some of these mistakes and avoid the same problems I ran into. 

You can stream this episode or download the MP3 file by clicking the link below. You‌ ‌can‌ also find the podcast ‌on‌ ‌‌Itunes‌,‌‌ ‌Podbean‌,‌‌ ‌‌Spotify‌‌ ‌‌and‌ ‌all‌ ‌other‌ ‌major‌ ‌podcasting‌ ‌platforms.‌ ‌

You can also read a summary article from the notes for the podcast below…

Not doing any “isolation” or “bodybuilding”/ Focusing too much on “functional training”

I’ve talked about this a lot lately but something I’ve been doing more of in the last few years is more isolation and bodybuilding type training.  

I came up at an interesting time in the strength and conditioning field where we were making the switch from bodybuilding to Functional Training. The problem is that you need “isolation” exercises - which build isometric strength and joint strength - and you need bodybuilding type training to build and hold onto muscle mass.

You can train like a bodybuilder and still be functional if you are doing other stuff outside of the gym. Plus, as you get older muscle mass becomes a valuable commodity and needs to be trained for.

Using too much unstable surface training

This is one I haven’t been using for a while but back in the day I was really into unstable surface training.

I was around when the Swiss Balls first got introduced to the fitness field through a guy named Paul Chek. The rationale behind UST seemed good and I ended up with every size Swiss Ball you could get and used them for just about everything.

The problem was that I couldn’t get strong or add size, I just got better at balancing on things while lifting weights. Several studies have shown that UST lowers motor unit recruitment, results in lower strength and muscle gains and have very limited carryover to other activities.

In other words, it may look cool on Instagram but the results are lacking.

Giving too much weight to strength training

This is a common mistake with new strength coaches.

I had seen how getting stronger had helped me and so it made sense that getting stronger would make you a better athlete. I had literally tried to talk some of my athletes into skipping sport training so they wouldn’t miss strength training.

The problem is that strength training is only the most important thing you can do if you are really weak, and even then your sport training should still take precedence. The only thing that will make you a better mountain biker is time on the bike and strength training is supposed to support that, not take away from it.

Thinking that Long Slow Distance training was a waste of time

This is a bit of a tricky one because context matters a lot here.

One of the first things I got known for in the MTB world was advocating for the use of High Intensity Intervals instead of Aerobic Base Training for MTB. Back in 2005 this was unheard of since roadie training programs dominated the scene. 

A lot of riders who followed these programs felt that they weren’t actually in shape for training riding when the season started and they had to ride themselves into specific MTB shape for a few weeks. Something else that we observed was that riders from areas where they could ride trails year round (SoCal and Australia for example) were some of the best in the world. 

Riding counts as cardio training and doing so much distance riding on a road bike that you don’t get time on your mountain bike isn’t the best idea. But if you aren’t trail riding much then you do need to have some distance training in your program.

Long Slow Distance training is also good for recovery and your basic metabolic health. 

So if you are getting several hours of riding in each week then you can use LSD for recovery and if you aren’t then you need to have it as part of your overall cardio training program.

Changing exercises too often

Something that carried over from Bodybuilding to Functional Training was the idea of “muscle confusion” or the need to change your exercises on a frequent basis so the body couldn’t fully adapt to what you were doing, which was supposed to keep you from hitting a plateau and seeing constant improvements from your training.

In fact, one style of training emerged that became very popular - Crossfit - which was based on this idea to the extreme and you never repeated the same workout twice in a row. Even for those of us who subscribed to the idea that you needed more consistency than changing things every day I still would change exercises every 4 weeks.

While the theory behind it seemed solid, science and real world evidence suggest that there is a middle ground that is much longer than most of us realize. 

One thing that changed my thoughts on this was when I did Jim Wendler’s 5-3-1 Program and saw that NOT changing exercises very often had benefits as well. The 5-3-1 Program is a powerlifting program that has you doing the same basic exercises for months at a time.

Change comes from how you cycle the weights and reps in a very specific way in order to increase your strength in the lifts.  The fact that you don’t change exercises means that you get a lot of practice with the lifts, which also helps with building strength.

Eventually you run into a wall with your progressions and have to switch things up but that takes months, during which you are doing the same basic exercises but still seeing results, which shouldn’t happen if you needed to change exercises to keep progress coming.

It turns out that you should run on at least a 6-8 week cycle to get the most out of an exercise. 

Now I’ll pick a core exercise for each of the 4 basic movement patterns (push, pull, hinge and squat) and do an 8 week cycle with them.  I’ll have other exercises that I do that I will change up after 4 weeks if I’m maxing out on them or if I just want to do something new.

I’ll start out well under my max effort and build momentum into those max efforts in the final weeks of the cycle. I’ll end with a deloading week where I cut back on the sets and reps but try to get at least 90% of my max lift for the movement in week 8.

Changing exercises is entertaining and it makes you feel sore but it doesn’t allow time for you to really get the most out of the exercises. IMO, it’s also safer and easier on the joints since your body gets a chance to get used to the exercises and find a groove for them, which feels safer and easier than grinding through new lifts all the time.

Discounting the value of stretching

Stretching became a bit of a dirty word in the Functional Training world due to some studies that showed a decrease in strength and power immediately following static stretching. The cool thing to do was “mobility training”, which tended to focus on movements through a joint's range of motion.

While helpful, I’ve found that mobility training can’t fully replace static stretching. 

Stretching isn’t about trying to lengthen muscles or loosen joints, it is about being able to relax into positions and working on getting deeper into your range of motion until you are in the range you need for function and safety. For me it is also a form of breathwork since you use my breathing to help me relax and get deeper into my range of motion.

Mobility training helps with being able to move through and control your range of motion and stretching seems to help you improve and maintain it better.I recommend picking a basic stretch for the major muscle groups and hold them for either 15-20 seconds or for 5 breaths.

Focus on using your breathing to help you relax - if you don’t get any deeper but your breathing is more relaxed then you have accomplished something important.

Overhyping kettlebells

This is going to sound sacrilegious so let me explain what I mean by this.

Kettlebells are a great training tool and I still use them a lot in my training. I just went so far down the kettlebell rabbit hole that I started to discount the value of other training tools, especially the dumbbell.

The truth is that you can do everything you can do with a kettlebell using a dumbbell, plus you can do some things you can’t do as easily like Cheat Curls. Some exercises like the Single Arm DB Snatch are also easier to do than the KB version of the exercise.

I also find that pressing exercises with the KB hurt my elbows - I know, it doesn’t make sense until you’ve abused your elbows like I have - and so using DBs makes it possible to lift more weight and do it more comfortably for my joints.

Finally, you can get a good pair of adjustable dumbbells for a few hundred dollars - I recommend and use the PowerBlock style - while getting pairs of KBs costs more and takes up more space, making DBs a great option for smaller spaces.

I still use KBs for swings, lower body lifts and rowing exercises as I find them to be great tools for these purposes. I just find that some people think that using dumbbells is somehow inferior to kettlebells and that is simply not the case.

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson

p.s. BTW, I have a DB program that uses the best MTB specific dumbbell exercises and combines it with the concepts I talked about in the 5-3-1 program. You stick with the same exercises but cycle the weights over the 12 weeks to build strength and efficiency in the movements that really help on the bike.

This is one of my best programs for riders who are new to strength training or just want a super simple, highly effective workout program using a pair of dumbbells. And as a bonus, if you purchase the MTB DB Conditioning Program this week I’ll send you a free copy of my Guide To Better Breathing For MTB. Just send me an email with your receipt and I’ll get it to you.

Click on the link below to learn more and get your copy of the DB Conditioning Program today. This was the first program I sent to Aaron Gwin when we started working together and if it can help him ride faster then I’m sure it can help you too!

MTB DB Conditioning 12 Week Program

Something that I think is hard to have a conversation about Riding For A Lifetime without touching on is the subject of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). HRT has gotten a lot more popular over the last few years and is something that I think the 40+ year old rider should consider.

To be honest, HRT is something I resisted for a long time. I felt like it was cheating and if I couldn’t do it “naturally” then I didn’t deserve it.

However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve had a few things change my mind. I’ve now been on HRT for a little over a year now and in this podcast I wanted to share my experience with it and some things you should know before looking into it.

You can stream this episode or download the MP3 file by clicking the link below. You‌ ‌can‌ also find the podcast ‌on‌ ‌‌Itunes‌,‌‌ ‌Podbean‌,‌‌ ‌‌Spotify‌‌ ‌‌and‌ ‌all‌ ‌other‌ ‌major‌ ‌podcasting‌ ‌platforms.‌ ‌

You can also read a summary article from the notes for the podcast below…

The first thing that got me to rethink HRT was having several friends of mine go on it and seeing their results. Their feedback was that they were recovering faster, getting less sore from training, had more energy and they were sleeping better. Of course, they were also seeing some benefits from the aesthetics side as well.

I have certainly seen myself losing ground in all of those areas despite my best efforts.

I also realized that I was using modern medicine to steal extra years of life - I have had antibiotics save my life at least twice. I figured that if I was going to use modern medicine to extend my life then why not use it to maximize those stolen years?

So I swallowed my pride and contacted a Hormone Replacement Therapy doctor and started to process.

The first thing I learned was that I was going to have to pay for it out of my own pocket. Insurance doesn’t cover comprehensive blood work that includes hormone levels and it also doesn’t cover HRT.

The medical establishment isn’t here to optimize your health, instead it makes money off of you being sick. Despite the fact that HRT has been shown to have a positive impact on mood, energy levels, lean body mass, production of red blood cells, bone mineral density, cognition and some cardiovascular risk factors, because it is a preventative measure instead of an intervention it isn’t seen as important.

So the first thing you need to know is that your regular doctor may not be on board with the idea simply because they don’t have much experience with it based on their lack of exposure to it through the medical insurance industry. This means that you will most likely need to find a HRT doctor and just explain to your regular doctor that you are going to keep them informed about what is going on but that you are going to use someone else for HRT.

After getting my first blood work done I found out that I was in the healthy range for everything but that some things like my A1C and triglycerides were creeping up. My dad was a Type 1 diabetic and my mom has a history of high cholesterol and so that made sense from a genetic history perspective.

Based on my results, my HRT doctor prescribed a regime that addressed what I was low in. This led to the second thing I learned, which is that HRT is about more than just testosterone. 

Something else that is often out of whack is thyroid levels, which are important for energy levels through carb and fat metabolism. Beyond that I also had B12, DHEA and Vitamin D levels that were below optimal levels.

This means that it is important that you find a doctor that addresses all of your hormones and not just testosterone. I started a HRT regime that included testosterone, thyroid, Vitamin B12, DHEA and Vitamin D.

It took a couple of weeks but I started to feel the difference in my energy levels and how sore I was getting from training. Through the process I was also getting regular blood work done through my HRT doctor to make sure that everything was moving in the right direction.

After being on it for a year I saw my hormone levels optimized and my triglycerides cut in half. Sleep, energy and soreness levels from training are all improved. I’ve also added about 8 pounds of muscle and seen my bodyfat levels drop (I’ve never been fat but I was certainly getting soft and having a hard time staying as lean as I used to).

Something that I changed was switching from the testosterone cream to shots. This was just a personal preference because I liked just having to do a shot twice a week as opposed to rubbing the cream on my groin every day.

BTW, HRT isn’t just for men - my wife started it as well and has seen benefits from it as well.  Yes, she’s on a low dose of testosterone but it certainly hasn’t made her “manly”.

I’d also like to point out that there are some risks with HRT and that not everyone will benefit from it the same way. However, the risks are pretty small compared to the potential benefits IMO but that is something you will have to decide for yourself.

I hope this podcast has given you something to think about in regards to HRT and if it would be right for you. If you want to optimize your healthspan and be able to ride for a lifetime then it might be an important part of your long term strategy.

Yes, it will cost you more than not doing it but you are most likely heading off other problems that can cost you more down the road. So do some research on the benefits and risks and then, if you think it is right for you, find a HRT doctor that you can talk with.

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson

MTB Strength Training Systems

Core Strength and Core Training are two buzzwords that dominate discussions around improving your MTB specific fitness in the gym. It is pretty widely recognized that having a strong core can help improve your performance and prevent injuries but what is Core Strength and what is the best Core Training?

In this episode of the Riding For A Lifetime Podcast I cover core training for  the 40+ year old rider. While a lot of the things I discuss are just good core training strategies, I look at them through the lens of the older rider and what we need to consider that the younger rider may not.

BTW, in the podcast I talk a lot about the importance of the Windmill exercise for core training. If you haven’t seen it before you can find a video demo of how I recommend you perform this exercise by clicking here.

You can stream this episode or download the MP3 file by clicking the link below. You‌ ‌can‌ also find the podcast ‌on‌ ‌‌Itunes‌,‌‌ ‌Podbean‌,‌‌ ‌‌Spotify‌‌ ‌‌and‌ ‌all‌ ‌other‌ ‌major‌ ‌podcasting‌ ‌platforms.‌ ‌

You can also read a summary article from the notes for the podcast below…

First, what are the “core muscles”?

While a lot of people think of the abs and low back, the core actually involves everything in the torso - if you chopped off your arms, legs and head you’d be left with “the core”. This includes everything from the hips and the shoulder girdle.

Second, what is the function of the core muscles?

While you do need to be able to move through the core muscles, the main function for us is providing stability to protect the spine and to provide a platform to move from.

This is a good time to point out that “stiffness” is not the same as “stability”. Stiffness is something that you can’t turn on and off - it is always there - and stability is something you can turn on and off.

This is why it is important to maintain or even improve your mobility in the core while you are building better core strength and stability. Something like the Sun Salutation from yoga goes a long way towards helping with this.

Last, does mountain biking build adequate core strength and do we even need to worry about training our core muscles off the bike?

I believe that the reason mountain biking has gotten a bad rap for not developing good core strength and needing a lot of supplemental core training is that most riders rely too much on seated pedaling. When you are seated your core is in a rounded position and isn't engaging the same way as when you are standing up. This develops core strength in a bad position and you don't get the same level of core strength due to the lack of engagement.

This means you need to do core training in the gym to make up for this. But if you stand up more, especially during hard efforts, you build core strength in a more functional way that doesn't require as much work to correct.

Even then you still can benefit from some core training like the ab wheel, leg raises and windmills as a way to build a strength reserve - one of the goals of strength training is to help you gain more strength than what you get from the sport alone so you have the reserve needed to handle unexpectedly high loads. But if more riders stood more to pedal then I don't think you'd need to worry as much about it and you wouldn't see as much low back pain, which usually gets blamed on poor core strength as well.

So, in summary, the core is the platform that provides stability when we move and while you can get better core engagement from standing up more on the bike, it does help to train your core muscles off of the bike to build the strength reserve needed to increase performance and help prevent injuries.

Remember too that if you are doing freeweight exercises then your core muscles get engaged from simply lifting weights - squats, deadlifts and even things like standing bicep curls and lateral raises all build core strength so you don’t need to go crazy with core specific training in the gym.

With that said, there are two skills that often get overlooked when talking about core training that are vital to your performance and injury prevention.

The first is the ability to “twist” through the core in a safe way.

You want to be able to move from the hips and t-spine (upper back) and not from your lumbar/ lower back area. This is the movement skill behind cornering and something that will make a huge impact on your riding.

The best way I’ve found to train this skill is through Windmill exercises - Stick, Kettlebell and Steel Mace.

The second is how breathing impacts your core strength and ability to use it on the bike.

Your body will prioritize breathing over bracing, which means that if you aren’t breathing with the right muscles then your body has to use core muscles that should be used to brace instead.

You can have adequate core strength but still struggle to use it on the trail and/ or avoid low back pain because of bad breathing habits. You can avoid this through breathwork training and through focusing on proper breathing during strength and cardio training.

Proper core function and adequate core strength are necessary for performance on the bike and for helping to prevent overuse injuries, especially in the low back.

There are 4 things you can do to accomplish this…

1. Stand up more on the bike.
2. Focus on freeweight exercises in the gym.
3. Use exercises like the Ab Wheel, Leg Raises and Windmills to focus on core strength.
4. Improve your breathing habits so you can use that core strength on the trail.

Core training is important but it doesn’t need to be complicated. Use these training tips to help you improve your core strength and core function so you can have more pain free fun on the bike as you get older.

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson

p.s. In this podcast I talk about the impact breathing has on core strength and function. If you want to improve your breathing then you need a program that addresses this important factor in fitness and longevity.

The Guide To Better Breathing for MTB is the only breathing program for mountain bikers on the market. In it you will find ways to assess and improve your breathing, workouts to help you improve your cardio fitness and ways to use your breathing to improve your mindset around competition. You can find out more about this unique program by clicking here.

The 40+ MTB Rider Training Program also has a breathing section along with strength and mobility training specifically designed for the 40+ year old rider. It is a comprehensive program that can be done at home with little or even no equipment. You can find out more about it and get your copy by clicking here.

Getting older doesn't have to mean slowing down, it simply means that you have to train smarter. I hope that these tips and programs can help you do just that.

Since turning 40 over 7 years ago I’ve realized that my training priorities have to change. I’ve been talking more about the concept of Riding For A Lifetime to help give those new priorities a name.

I’ve decided to change the focus of my podcast to focus on these new priorities and have renamed it  the Riding For A Lifetime Podcast. With it I’ll be sharing training advice and interviewing experts in the field of improving performance while also improving your “healthspan”.

I got this idea from reading Peter Atia, who is a longevity doctor that recently came out with a book called Outlive that looks at the concept of both “lifespan” and “healthspan”. Lifespan is how long you live, healthspan is how well you are able to keep doing the things you enjoy as you age. 

Having to quit doing what you love at some point because of age and/ or injuries is a terrible way to spend your later years. In the book he talked about training today for what you will need as you get older.

It was an interesting thought experiment that got me thinking about some of the things I’ve changed and how they apply to this concept. Here are 3 things that the 40+ rider needs to have in their training program that may not directly relate to improving your MTB performance but will help you age in a way that will support your performance as you get older.

- Hypertrophy/ Bodybuilding Training. A frustrating fact of life is that eventually you hit a point where your body starts to decline. No matter what you do you can’t avoid it completely so you need to do something to slow the process.

One of the worst things to happen is called sarcopenia, which is a fancy term for muscle loss. At a certain point, maintaining your muscle mass becomes extremely important in helping you maintain optimal function. This is why building muscle as a reserve against this future loss and working to maintain it as long as possible is vital.

For a sport where athletes are usually trying to minimize muscle gain it sounds counterintuitive to tell a mountain biker that they need to add muscle and train like a bodybuilder, but this is exactly what I advise the 40+ year old rider does. This is one of the biggest contrasts in how a young pro would want to train and how an older hobbyist wants to train and why you may be missing out if you don’t take this into account.

I have a post about Why Mountain Bikers Should (Sometimes) Train Like Bodybuilders where I tell you how to incorporate hypertrophy training into your routine. And no, adding some muscle won’t kill your performance. In fact, for a lot of riders it will actually help them increase their strength and add some “armor” for when they crash.

- Running & Jumping/ Power Training. As I’ve aged I’ve realized how important it is to maintain your ability to run and jump. Power is another thing that goes with age and, just like muscle mass, you want to build a reserve against future loss and fight to maintain what you have. Running and jumping are also the most basic power exercises you can do and help to maintain a sense of athleticism that is important as you age.

Something as simple as doing 3-5 sets of 3-5 short sprints (10 yards), broad jumps or vertical jumps as part of your workout can help a lot with maintaining power and athleticism. 

- Breathing. In the book Outlive Peter refers to how important breathing is to moving properly while maintaining stability. Stability is another thing that we lose as we age and having proper core function is the key to avoiding it. And breathing properly is the key to proper core function.

At its most basic level, proper breathing simply means to use your diaphragm to drive your breathing. If you don’t do this then you are using other muscles that are supposed to be used for bracing and moving. This dysfunction is something that you can usually get away with when you’re younger but really starts to become a problem as you age.

Overuse injuries from years of bad movement start to crop up, with low back pain being one of the most common. Making sure you are breathing optimally and applying that breathing to your workouts and riding is a key component of being able to ride for a lifetime.

While we like to say that age is just a number, the truth is that it is more than that. Your body does start to decline as you get older and it isn’t just in your head. Understanding what these changes are and how you can best minimize their effects is an important part of being able to live longer and enjoy life as you do.

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson

MTB Strength Training Systems

p.s. As you can see, there are some differences between how a 40+ year old rider should train and what you see being shared on social media by pro riders in their 20’s. Sure, it isn’t as fun and sexy as jumping up onto a giant pile of boxes or doing some crazy stuff that looks like your training for the circus but if you want to see results as an older rider you can’t follow those fitness trends.

What you need is a program like my 40+ MTB Rider Training Program. In it you’ll find exactly what you need to improve your strength, cardio and mobility in a safe, sustainable way. It incorporates the best training methods I have come across for the 40+ year old rider into a program that you won’t find anywhere else.

You can click here to learn more and get your copy today. It is guaranteed to help you or I’ll refund your money. So don’t wait, click the link above and get started on your journey to enjoying riding even more.

While pretty much anyone who has ridden a mountain bike realizes that grip strength is extremely important, it is a widely misunderstood subject when it comes to how to best improve it for the demands of trail riding. 

This has led to an epidemic of riders who lack the functional grip strength needed to most effectively - and safely - interact with their bike through their hands. This shows up as wrist pain, hand numbness, elbow issues and reliance on “winged grips” to secure the hands on the handlebars.

The problem is that there is a very important aspect of grip training that most riders simply don’t know about, much less how to train for it. This aspect of grip strength in something that you don’t see talked about much in the fitness world in general, which means that if you haven’t heard about it then it isn’t your fault.

In today’s podcast I take a deep dive into the type of grip strength we need on the trail, why the conventional methods of grip training aren’t enough and what you can do to fill in this performance and health gap.

Show Notes:

Grip strength is an important factor in your life and riding. Off of the trail, grip strength is an indicator of functional core strength and longevity.

On the trail, grip strength is one of the few things that science has shown to have a direct impact on your riding performance. (The Science of Going Downhill Faster)

On a practical level, grip strength is a key factor in how you are able to translate your strength and power into the real world. Grip strength will also play a role in how well you are able to translate your technical skills to the bike.

As you can see, grip strength is extremely important and shouldn’t be something that you build by accident - you have to create the type and level of grip strength you want on purpose.

So what is “grip strength” and how do we improve it for the purpose of riding faster?

For most people the definition of grip strength revolves around the ability of the fingers to flex/ close either against resistance or to resist movement. (captains of crush type trainers or farmers walks)

Some people will include wrist movements like forearm curls or the stick and rope.

This is a good start but only part of the equation, and in some cases not even the most important.

This definition of grip strength leaves out one of the most important aspects of MTB specific grip strength -  3 dimensional wrist stability.

First, I think that there are a lot of great methods for building the pinching/ holding grip strength most people are familiar with. Exercises like Farmers Walks, Hangs from a Pull Up Bar and Plate Pinches are all excellent ways to build this type of grip strength.

Where I would say that most riders are lacking is in their ability to stabilize the wrists. The ability for the wrist to resist movement is a key factor in your ability to use your other grip types of grip strength.

On the bike it is often the limiting factor in the grip strength equation and the reason that so many riders suffer from wrist problems and pain on the bike.

Those winged grips are basically the industry's answer to this problem, which is to find a way to mechanically stabilize the wrist instead of advising riders to fix the actual problem.

To build this type of grip strength you need to incorporate leverage based training tools. These are training tools that have the weight at one end of the training tool and a handle at the other.

The Steel Mace and Heavy Indian Clubs (10+ pounds) are the two best tools available.

You can also use a misloaded adjustable dumbbell, heavy hammer or sledgehammer for a similar training effect.

You can use them either to train wrist stability directly or incorporate it into other exercises. Presses, Rows and Farmers Walks all take on an entirely new feel and challenge.

You can also use them to train Grip Strength Endurance, which is what you are really after as a rider. Indian Club Swings and Mace 360’s/ 10-2’s are amazing exercises for building the specific type of grip strength endurance you need on the bike.

On a side note, kettlebells are not a superior training tool for building this type of grip strength endurance. They only challenge your wrist stability in one plane while these tools challenge it in 3 dimensions - you have to keep your wrist from rotating or moving side-to-side or up-and-down.

I made the mistake for a long time of assuming that my kettlebell work was enough but it wasn’t - the 3 dimensional wrist strength you need on the trail is simply not trained as effectively with it.

So if you are not doing any grip training then you need to start - there is no way you can maximize your performance and fun with a weak grip. And if you are already doing something then make sure that you are training all of the important aspects of grip strength, especially the 3D wrist stability.

Until next time…

Ride Strong,

James Wilson