The Riding For A Lifetime Podcast

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: 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...

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. 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 use a variety of set and rep schemes, with the bulk of them focusing on the 2-4 sets of 3-8 reps. You don’t need to train to failure to see results and IMO it should be avoided as a 40+ year old rider. Don’t use bodypart training and instead focus on total body or upper body/ lower body splits. Don’t Overdo Circuit Training Use Isometrics to help round out your strength and safeguard your health. Build up the intensity of your workouts over several weeks. Change your workout every 4-8 weeks, with longer periods with the same workout being better. Last Piece Of Advice Is Not To Lift For Social Media Or Look To It For New Ideas What does this look like in real life? 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… 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,...

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: https://www.bikejames.com/strength/carving-faster-corners-with-the-stick-and-kb-windmill/ 2. Elevated Lunge 3. Bent Press https://www.bikejames.com/strength/the-bent-press-for-mtb-how-this-forgotten-exercise-can-improve-your-riding/ 4. DB Cheat Curl https://www.bikejames.com/strength/db-cheat-curls-for-better-mountain-bike-hip-power/ 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 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...

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...

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...

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,...

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...

I have a special guest for today’s podcast. Steve Maxwell is one of the most influential people in my strength coaching philosophy and has been responsible for a lot of “aha” moments for me that have helped improve my training programs. I’ve been following Steve for well over a decade, first as a leader in the kettlebell community and later as an expert on training for a lifetime. He has been a part of the physical culture of this country for 50+ years and knows a thing or two about how to keep fit as you get older. I was lucky enough to get Steve on the podcast for an interview and had a great conversation with him. We covered his origin story (or why you should listen to him) as well as his insights into Isometrics, Mobility and Breathwork. If you want to learn more about Steve or checkout his programs you can find him at http://www.maxwellsc.com. He also has a lot of great free articles and videos you can find there as well. I hope you enjoy this podcast interview and get something from it that can help you ride for a lifetime. Getting older doesn’t have to totally suck and with the right approach you can stay fit and healthy for life and the trail. Until next time... Ride Strong, James Wilson

While we all breathe, few of us are conscious of it and the impact that it has on our performance and health. This is unfortunate because how you breathe is an important factor and most of you reading this have one or more breathing dysfunctions. One of the most common is Overbreathing. This is where you breathe more than is necessary to meet your metabolic needs, breathing in more Oxygen (O2) and breathing out more Carbon Dioxide (CO2) than is necessary. While this may not seem like a big deal, chronic Overbreathing can cause some health and performance problems. So how do you know if you suffer from Overbreathing? Well, the easiest way to tell is to check to see how many breaths you take in a minute. Anything over 10 breaths per minute is Overbreathing, with 6-8 breaths per minute being optimal. If you Overbreathe at rest then odds are really high that you do it while working hard as well. And this means that you chronically Overbreathe, which impacts a few things. First, it is metabolically inefficient. Each breath you take requires energy and so the fewer breaths you take to meet your body’s need for oxygen the less overall energy that you will use. This is helpful from both a health and a performance standpoint. Second, Overbreathing disrupts the natural levels of the gasses in your blood. This creates a new internal environment for your body to react and adapt to. While taking in more O2 might seem like the right idea, especially during periods of high effort, the flip side is that you are also blowing off more CO2. Again, this may seem like a good idea on the surface but doing so causes some different problems. In the short term, your body needs CO2 to offload oxygen from red blood cells. Called The Bohr Effect, this means that you need CO2 present in the blood to get oxygen to working muscles. Blowing off more than is needed means that you have less CO2 to unlock oxygen, which means that it takes longer to get it where it is needed. In the long run, chronic Overbreathing and blowing off too much CO2 also causes your body to adapt in some less-than-optimal ways. One way that it adapts is by lowering the set point for when you trigger the “I can’t catch my breath” feeling that we all dread so much. This is caused by rising levels of CO2 and your body’s tolerance to it - the more it can tolerate the harder you can work before triggering that feeling. When you chronically breathe out too much CO2, especially at rest or during your daily activities, then you create a new, lower set point for your body to trigger that feeling. Your body adapts to the lower levels of CO2 by becoming less tolerant and more sensitive to it, which is the opposite of what we want on the trail. The other way that your body adapts to chronically lowered levels of CO2 is to break down bicarbonate to maintain blood pH balance. Your body requires a strict Acid/ Base balance in the blood and Overbreathing creates a shift in that balance that your body has to react to. By breaking down the bicarbonate that is in the blood your body keeps the pH level balanced, however this comes at a price. You now have less bicarbonate available to buffer lactic acid and the acidic environment created by hard efforts. This means you are less able to deal with this environment and your ability to push hard is diminished. So while it may not seem like a big deal, Overbreathing creates both short- and long-term problems that affect your health and performance. The good news is that it isn’t hard to fix and just requires some time and attention. The main thing you can do is to shift to nose breathing and become more conscious of your breathing. Check in on your breathing throughout the day and make sure you aren’t mouth breathing or Overbreathing. By simply doing these two things you will make a big impact. You can also spend some time each day doing Breathwork, which is just a way to help you slow down your breathing while creating a higher CO2 environment...

Over the last few years I’ve had my eyes opened to the importance of medical training in case of an emergency. Most of us are never exposed to the realities of incurring a serious injury on the trail and few are really prepared to do anything if something happens. It doesn’t take much for a ride to go from fun and casual to a potential life and death situation. And even if it isn’t a life and death situation right away, a few bad breaks and things can go from bad to worse pretty quickly as well. The reason I bring this topic up isn’t to scare riders away from riding but to empower them to be the hero if they are called on. Nothing sucks worse than standing there while someone needs help and you don’t know what to do. The funny thing is, though, that it doesn’t take much for you to better prepare yourself. We’re not trying to become EMT’s or emergency room doctors, we’re just trying to stabilize the situation long enough for the real help to get there. One of the best resources I’ve found to help me become better prepared for a medical emergency is the company Mountain Man Medical. They have a great free online course that they offer and they have the best prices on quality medical gear. Brian McLaughlin is the Director of Medical Training at Mountain Man Medical and a former Corpsman (medic for the Marines) who brings a lot of experience and insights into this area for us. I’ve had Brian on the podcast before and I wanted to bring him back to talk about the Sweetwater Trauma Kit that they sell on www.mountainmanmedical.com, which is what he recommends starting with if you don’t have a trauma kit yet. We talk about each of the items in the kit and why they are important, review the MARCH checklist that you want to use if you encounter a medical emergency and we even cover what to do with a snakebite. BTW, if you are going to invest in some medical equipment then be sure to use the coupon code BIKEJAMES at checkout to save 10%. Don’t leave your safety in the hands of someone else - you are your own best First Responder if something goes wrong. If every rider who reads this will invest just a little time and money in being better prepared then we’d all be better off. Until next time… Ride Strong, James Wilson MTB Strength Training Systems

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of using Isometric Training to improve your health and fitness. I’ve posted a lot of articles, podcasts and videos going over how mountain bikers can use this powerful training tool in their programs. But I’m not the only one out there who is obsessed with spreading the word about Isometric Training. There’s a man who has been working tirelessly over the last several years to get isometrics into the training programs of weekend warriors and high level performers all over the world. Brad Thorpe is considered by many to be the world’s leading expert in isometric strength training. A serial entrepreneur, multi-patented inventor of Isophit, and educator. Brad has over 30 years of experience in the fitness and performance industry. Since launching Isophit in 2015, Brad has grown the Isophit family to 350+ members across 31 countries. The more well-known Isophit family members include the US Army, FBI, Cleveland Cavaliers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Houston Rockets, Miami Heat, New Orleans Pelicans, Philadelphia 76ers, Detroit Tigers, UCLA, and more recently the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center. I had the chance to interview Brad last week so I could learn more about what he is doing and to pick his brain about isometrics and how they can be used to improve your health and performance. While it’s tough to include detailed show notes for an interview like this, I can tell you that we talked about some interesting results that research has found with isometrics, including how isometric neck strength plays a role in preventing brain injuries. Getting stronger is important for having more fun on the bike, especially as we get older, and isometrics should play an important part in helping you do that. I hope you enjoy this interview and learn something that you can take away to help you with your training and riding. Until next time… Ride Strong, James Wilson MTB Strength Training Systems ----------------------------------- With just two 20 minute workouts a week you can safely and effectively improve your health and fitness using isometrics. Click the link below to learn more and get your copy of the Atomic Strength Isometric Training Program today. Click Here To Get The Atomic Strength Isometric Training Program

Isometrics are one of the most effective training tools in your toolbox. They are effective, safe and have a lot of research behind them. They are also extremely versatile. You can use them in different ways to accomplish different goals, including getting stronger, helping you prepare for a better workout and making your regular exercises harder and more effective. I recorded a video/ podcast sharing 3 ways that you can use isometrics to help you get better results from your training program. Show Notes: By Themselves To Get Stronger As A Warm Up/ Activation Technique Combined With Movement Based Exercises To Increase Intensity As you can see Isometrics have a lot to offer and a lot of ways to work them into your program. I’d recommend adding these training techniques into your program to improve your results and decrease your risk of getting hurt while training or riding. Until next time… James Wilson p.s. The Atomic Strength Training Program is the only MTB specific isometric workout program in the world and what I recommend to any rider who wants to start tapping into the power of isometrics for themselves. It combines Overcoming and Yielding Isometrics into a 15 minute workout that is guaranteed to improve your strength and fitness. Click here to check it out and get your copy today.

For a lot of riders an off season is forced on them by the local riding conditions. However, this definition of an off season gets really blurry when a rider lives somewhere that they can ride year round or they are able to get out in less-than-ideal weather (fatbikes, inclement weather riding gear). Because they aren’t forced to stop or cut back on their riding, for these riders the term has to take on a different meaning if they want to get the benefits of an off season (and yes, there are benefits to it). First, there are benefits to taking an off season. It is a chance to address weaknesses in your general conditioning that can hold back your overall riding performance. For example, if you need to add strength or increase your mobility then that can be tough to do if you are riding as much as you can. It also gives your body a break from the repetitive stress that riding places on it. It can also provide a mental break and refresh your enthusiasm for riding. So how do you do this if you don’t have to take a break from riding? I’d like to say up front that riding your bike is the best way to get better at riding your bike. There is a reason that riders from places that you can ride year round do well (Australians, New Zealanders, SoCal) and why people go there in the off season to train. For riders like this I recommend that you don’t look at it as an off season as much as a change in your priorities. During the riding season riding your bike is the priority. Everything you do is geared around riding as much as you can and feeling as good as you can while doing it. This means that you don’t want to lift so heavy that it takes away from your ability to recover and ride. You also want to prioritize riding 3+ times a week, which will take away from the time you can spend on strength, conditioning and mobility work. During the off season time you want to reverse these priorities. This means that you want to make sure that you get your time in with strength, cardio and mobility work even if this means cutting back on how much you are able to ride. It also means that you will be fine with feeling sore and tired from your training sessions when you are able to ride. For an example of how these differences might look, during the riding season you may ride 4 days a week and only strength train 1-2 days a week with little to no extra cardio conditioning (riding your bike counts as cardio). During the off season you may ride 1-2 days a week while lifting 3 times a week and getting in 2 cardio training sessions. During the riding season you may focus on strength training tactics that don’t leave you sore and tired like isometrics and low volume/ moderate intensity training. During the off season you may focus more on more aggressive strength training tactics like 5-3-1 to build strength or high volume/ moderate intensity stuff to build some muscle. During the riding season your cardio training is riding your bike. During the off season you can focus on targeted conditioning strategies that will help fill in specific gaps or improve your foundation for bigger cardio gains when you ride more. Mobility and recovery should be something you focus on all year round but you may spend more time on it during the off season to improve areas that you need like the hip hinge or the rotational hinge needed for cornering. Having an off season is part of the bigger picture that it takes to become a better rider over the long term. While you may find that skipping out on the off season doesn’t seem to matter from one season to the next you will find that over the course of several seasons riders that skip it will not progress as much or as fast as riders who do. Until next time… Ride Strong, James Wilson

One of the best things about mountain biking is that it allows you to get away from civilization and out into nature in a way that nothing else can. The ability to cover a lot of ground and do it in a human powered way means that we can get to places and enjoy trails that not everyone can. And while this is one of the things that draws a lot of us to riding, it also presents a unique danger that not many riders really consider. The truth is that most mountain bikers are woefully unprepared to deal with a medical emergency or a survival situation on the trail. While most of us carry something to fix a flat or simple mechanical problem on the trail, few of us think about being prepared for something happening to us or someone else we’re with or come across. Sure, a phone to call for help is great but you may not have coverage and it may take some time for help to arrive - in that type of situation you are your own best First Responder. While there are a lot of things you should consider carrying to help you be better prepared, there are 3 simple and inexpensive things that every rider should have on them. In this video/ podcast I share what those things are and why they are important to have on you when you go for a ride. You can watch the video replay or listen to the audio replay through the link below. You‌ ‌can‌ also ‌find‌ the podcast ‌on‌ ‌‌Itunes‌,‌‌ ‌Podbean‌,‌‌ ‌‌Spotify‌‌ ‌‌and‌ ‌all‌ ‌other‌ ‌major‌ ‌podcasting‌ ‌platforms.‌ ‌ Show Notes: The most important medical emergency you want to be able to deal with is major bleeding. Being able to stop the bleed can be the difference between life and death. This means that the first thing you need to carry is a tourniquet. If you want to keep your loadout simple then the one I recommend is the SWAT-T. You can find it through the link below and use the Coupon Code BIKEJAMES for 10% off. https://www.mountainmanmedical.com/product/swat-t-tourniquet/ This style of tourniquet is effective and can serve multiple purposes. It is also inexpensive and easily folds up to fit in a pocket. The second is a multi-use rescue whistle. Being able to signal for help is essential and a whistle is a great way to do that. It also has a light. Having a light is essential if you get caught out on the trail after dark and have to see well enough to fix your bike or help someone who is hurt. The third thing is a lighter. I also put a 1 foot length of duct tape on it and put some strips of road bike inner tube. The tape can help in a lot of ways - taping down a chest seal or pressure bandage for example. The road bike inner tube burns easily and hot and makes starting a fire easy (tinder). A fire can be the difference between life and death if you are caught on the trail after dark in a cold environment and it can also be used to signal for help. I’ve got a video on the more advanced loadout I take with me on the trail that you should check out for more ideas and tips on how to be better prepared. What we do is a lot of fun but it is dangerous and we owe it to ourselves and our fellow riders to be able to help out if something goes wrong, turning a potential tragedy into a cool story. Until next time… Ride Strong, James Wilson MTB Strength Training Systems

One of my favorite people in the mountain biking world is the legend Ryan Leech. Ryan spent decades changing what we thought was possible on a bike and has shared his passion for riding through in person coaching and his coaching website https://www.rlc-mtb.com. I’ve had Ryan on several times and he always brings a unique and interesting perspective on our sport and how to improve your skills and mindset. In this podcast we talk about the impact of social media on mountain biking, how priorities change as we get older and what it really takes to improve as a rider over the long run. Until next time... Ride Strong, James Wilson

If you haven’t done it already then this is the year that you need to start making strength training a priority for improving your MTB specific fitness. Improving your strength can help your fitness, your skills and your ability to walk away from a wreck. But not just any type of strength training program will do if you want to see results from your off season training and have them stick around until the end of the riding season. While a lot of riders assume that since we use a lot of cardio and endurance that we need to emphasize high reps and low weight, this approach isn’t what works best. Science is starting to reveal what the best approach for mountain bike strength training is and it seems to favor a more aggressive approach in the gym. This study that I came across looked at the effects of a traditional strength training approach to cycling - using a more endurance based protocol and stopping strength training during the riding season - with a less traditional approach which used maximal strength training in the off season and continued with it during the riding season. Show Notes: The conclusion was that adding non-traditional strength training to a XC racers program could help them maintain and even improve their anaerobic fitness and power. Mountain biking requires more anaerobic power and endurance than road cycling, which is why real strength training helps to improve performance. So remember that next time someone tells you that strength training doesn’t help you mountain biking performance that context matters - the studies that say that are done on road cyclists and that using maximal strength training delivers better results than endurance based strength training. Both the science and the real world evidence tells us that if you want to maximize your MTB fitness - and fun - then you have to do strength training as part of your routine. Until next time… Ride Strong, James Wilson MTB Strength Training Systems p.s. Are you still looking for the right program to get your off season training started? You only have a few more months left so you don’t want to waste any more time. To help you get going with a plan that will help you feel better on and off the bike I’ve put together a New Year’s Training Bundle with 4 programs covering a different aspect of training. 40+ MTB Rider Training Program - As the only training program made for the 40+ year old mountain biker, this program combines unique elements into a one-of-a-kind strength and cardio workout that will improve your fitness without leaving you feeling sore and tired. It comes with two workout programs - one that uses DBs/ KBs and one that uses only bodyweight - so you can use it no matter what equipment you have access to. Better Breathing for MTB Program - My newest training program shows you how to assess your breathing and how to use different breathing workouts and strategies to improve your cardio and endurance in a way that intervals and regular cardio training can’t. 15 Minute Trail Rider Tune Ups - This is a collection of twenty weight 15-minute workouts that are great for when you are short on time and/ or energy. They make great travel workouts and are also perfect for in-season training as well. MTB Mobility Routines - This series of follow-along videos takes you through different mobility routines. You have general routines as well as routines that target specific problem areas like the low back. Together this is almost $200 in programs but as part of the New Years Training Bundle you can get it for only $29. You’ll have everything you need to start the New Year off with a bundle of some of the best MTB specific training programs you can find. But this special deal will only last for 1 week and will end on the 10th. Click the link below to get your New Year’s Training Bundle for only $29 before this deal ends. Click Here To Get The New Year’s Bundle For Only $29