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Core Training 101

Posted by Coach under Training

For those of us out there who prefer to take our chances with the dirt, I have been following Bike James’ blog for some time now as he really offers insightful and informative training info specific to mountain bikers. This s the first in a series which I will be posting up on the blog and targets core strengthening exercises presented a little differently to what I have seen in the past, whats amazing is just how much sense they make…

By BIKE JAMES

Core strength is very important for mountain bikers. Unfortunately, a lot of riders still train with crunches and other exercises that do not adequately strengthen the core for the specific demands of riding your mountain bike. Without proper core strength you end up with a sore lower back and neck.

This core strength sequence, which I call the Ab Sequence, are some basic exercises that you should perform everyday in order to strengthen the core and reduce injuries. When riding a mountain bike your core has to provide the platform for you to pedal and maneuver around your bike. This routine will help create the mountain bike specific core stability needed to dominate on your bike.

This core strength sequence consists of 4 exercises – the Glute Bridge, the Plank, the Side Plank and the Bird Dog. You can right click on the links below and select “Save as…” to download the IPod compatible video file.

Core Activation Drills

You can also watch the video demo of this sequence below:

Here are some pictures and coaching cues for each exercise:

Glute Bridge (6-10 reps):

• Lie on your back with your feet shoulder width apart and your heels drawn into towards your butt.
• Brace your abs and squeeze your glutes to bring your butt up off the ground.
• Squeeze your glutes until your hip fold is straight. Make sure that you are not pushing your belly button towards the ceiling and that you feel no pressure in your lower back.
• Staying tight, bring yourself back down to the floor.
• Do not relax at the bottom. Instead, do a light touch on the ground before coming back up.

Plank (30 seconds):

• Make sure that your elbows are under your shoulders and not pushed out under your face.
• Keep your shoulders “packed in” and keep them pulled down away from your ears.
• Keep your abs engaged by pulling your bully button in towards your spine.
• Keep your glutes squeezed tight.
• Maintain a straight spine and keep your butt down and in line with your shoulders and heels.

Side Plank (15 seconds each side):

• Lie on your side with your feet stacked on top of each other and elbow on the ground under your shoulder.
• Draw you belly button into your spine, squeeze your glutes and bring your hips off the ground.
• Keep your shoulders and hips square and maintain a straight spine.

Bird Dog (30 seconds each side):

• Start on your hands and knees.
• Start by bracing your abs. Squeeze your glute and extend one leg back and the opposite arm out.
• Keep your thumb pointing to the ceiling and your toes pointed to the ground. This will help you keep your hips and shoulders square.
• After you are finished with the first arm and leg pairing come back to all fours. Brace your abs and extend the other leg and arm out.

MTB Cribs: Greg Herbold

Posted by Editor under General, Product

Minn for the win!

Posted by Editor under Racing

Mud, rain, wind and roots. Those four words certainly do a good job of describing this past weekends World Cup Downhill event in Maribor, Slovenia. Greg Minnaar took the win in a stacked field, slipping past the eyes of the F[r]EECASTER followers whose eyes were most certainly on Sam Hill. As Greg said, “it must be the bike”.

Check it out for yourself:

Ed

Morewood Zula by Rouler Imports

Posted by Editor under 2010 Product, Product

A nice Zula punt from our firends @ Rouler Imports in Australia:

Welcome “Coach”

Posted by Editor under General, Nutrition, Training

Mondays are usually a drag, but when they follow the biggest mountainbike festival/ weekend on the calendar they are particularly painful! Having had a great weekend at the Karkloof Classic, its difficult to sit down indoors with a desk littered with papers and stare at a computer screen, not to mention trying to be productive while doing so. I think the only thing that makes this possible is the smell of coffee emanating from the downstairs machine, and the fact that there is a warm shaft of sunlight stretching across the floor… Fortunately there are a few things that make Mondays bright, for instance this Monday is the day I get to introduce a new supplement writer on the blog; Coach.

With our focus in the past being on product, industry news and racing updates it seemed a little silly not to add more valued content to the blog in the form of training and nutritional information., and this is exactly what “Coach” is here to do. I can’t promise how often we plan to have articles as we do not want to force content but rather put it out when there is something worth writing about. We do however plan to have a great archive of content on training techniques, bike set-up procedures and nutrition. The first article with this in mind is taken from sportsinjurybulletin and is a great read on bike set-up to avoid injury. Written by Sean Fyfe and physiotherapist, tennis coach and director of TFP [Tennis Fitness Program] it is a great way to open what we hope will be a feature packed section on our blog. I hope you enjoy!

Ed.

Sean Fyfe highlights the importance of bike set-up in avoiding cycling injuries.

Posted by Coach under Training

Introducing Sean Fyfe:

Sean Fyfe is a physiotherapist, tennis coach and director of TFP (Tennis Fitness Physio), a Queensland based company specialising in sports medicine, elite tennis player development, strength and conditioning and childhood motor learning programmes

By: Sean Fyfe

In 2003 I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to venture into the Pyrenees mountain range in the south of France to witness the penultimate mountain stage of the Tour de France. It was one of the greatest stages in recent years, when Lance Armstrong fell off his bike in the final ascent only to remount, attack and put the winning time on Jan Ullrich to clinch his fifth consecutive tour victory. I had watched the tour on TV before, but it wasn’t until I was on the mountain that I could grasp the passion and fanaticism surrounding the sport of cycling. Injury to any cyclist with even the smallest amount of the commitment I saw on the mountain that memorable day would be devastating.

Fortunately, in the sports injury world cycling is more often a benign force than a cause of trouble. Because it is low impact, it provides many people who otherwise would struggle to perform regular exercise with the chance to stay healthy and active. Among recreational and competitive cyclists, compared to high impact sports such as road running, the rate of injury is favourable and injuries are often easier to prevent and address.

Nevertheless, clinicians should have a clear appreciation of the sport’s biomechanics and in particular how bike set-up relates to injury. It can often be something as simple as a small change in bike or shoe set-up that is the direct cause of an injury, so unless this is accounted for during assessment and management, the injury will never be properly resolved.

Read on…

“wet socks and muddy underpants”

Posted by Editor under Racing

Morewood/ Blackmountain take 1st and 3rd at Lyon Avalanche Cup

After a great season opener at the Sea Otter Classic, Fabien Cousinie and Florent Payet have been back in France preparing for the 1st World Cup round to be held in Maribor in two weeks. Attending the Avalanche Cup n Lyon this past weekend, Cous Cous and Payet were flying the team flag high in-front of a high-stake crowd including the CEO of Blackmountain, Pjilippe Lasalla.

The Avalanche Cup series, somewhat of a “mini” World Cup, with many of the top gravity riders in the world in attendance. As strange as it may sound, the lack of pressure on riders at events like these often brings out the best in the field as nobody is concerned about the points race of the World Cups, and for many younger, less experienced riders this gives them a great, low-pressure platform to prove themselves against some of the best in the World. With mixed weather and a great course, this years Lyon event was bound to do just this. Check out the [Fr]English report from Morewood/ Blackmountain Captain, Fabien Cousinie: HERE

Men’s DH Results:

1. Fabien Barel (Mondraker Factory Team) 1:27.566

2. Aurélien Giordanengo (Mondraker Factory Team) 1:28.938

3. Florent Payet (Black Mountain Morewood United) 1:29.579

4. Thibaut Ruffin (Commençal Superiders) 1:30.791

5. Carlo Gambirasio (Surfing Shop) 1:31.030

6. Fabien Cousinié (Black Mountain Morewood United) 1:31.731

Men’s 4X Results:

1. Fabien Cousinié (Black Mountain Morewood United)

2. Thibaut Ruffin (Commençal Superiders)

3. Florent Payet (Black Mountain Morewood United)

4. Aurélien Giordanengo (Mondraker Factory Team)

Video Intro:

An artistic eye definitely runs strong in the Charrier family; with Jaycee [Jean Christophe] now the media front-man of Bos Engineering, and formerly involved with Sunn Bicycles as well as Commencal in their respective hay-days, a new, younger Charrier is beginning to show his face in the sporting industry. This Charrier, young Victor, is the son of Jaycee, and with a keen interest in film is the producer for many of the Bos Engineering promotions as well as the Morewood/ Blackmountain video below. With a great eye for photographic art this talented Frenchman is bound to make an impact on the mountainbike seen very soon:

Video by Victor Charrier

Looking forward to seeing the big guns come out at Maribor! Check back soon for a Sam Hill injury report.

Ed.

Jack Parrow goodness!

Posted by Editor under General

Some of you may or may have not seen or heard of the Western Cape maniac known only as “Jack Parrow”. For those of you who have not heard of this musical [if you can call it] lunatic, do yourself a favor and google “Jack Parrow” and watch some of the youtube video’s which come up. For those of you a little more familiar with the man, here is his latest video “Dans dans dans”. Laugh! Its nearly Friday!

Compliments of Urban-Ninja

Houffalize World Cup 4X #1

Posted by Editor under Racing

No surprises were to be had at the opening round of the World Cup 4X series at Houffalize: Graves who is on-fire and seemingly great form coming off the back of a win at the Sea Otter Classic obliterated the field. Consistently snapping everyone out the gate each and every round, Graves progressed with ease to the final, crossing the line convincingly ahead of Tomas Slavic for his first World Cup win of the season.

In the women’s event, the name at the top of the results sheet was perhaps a little surprising, but the cause for it was a little less so: with a crash in the early part of the track seeing defending World Cup Champ, Anneke Beerten and Austrian Anita Molcik tangling up, Harakova was able to avoid the pile-up and slip onto the top box.

From www.uci.ch:

Women’s 4-cross: Victory for Horakova

Raced at night under artificial lighting, the Houffalize 4-cross competition attracted large crowds. The extremely dry, dusty conditions and gravel-covered corners made for spectacular racing.

The line-up for the women’s final was as expected: Horakova, defending World Cup Champion Anneke Beerten (Suspension Centre), her new team mate Emmeline Ragot and Austrian Anita Molcik, the fastest qualifier. Molcik and Beerten were fastest out of the gate for the final, but tangled in the first corner, allowing Horakova to sneak through. Molcik managed to avoid going down and took second, followed by Ragot, with Beerten limping home in fourth.

“I was pretty happy with my gates,” commented Horakova, “But I didn’t think I could win. In the final, Anita cut inside and forced me to go higher on the first corner. That worked in my favour as she and Anneke bumped, allowing me to go through to the front.”

Men’s 4-cross: Graves untouchable

Graves was already untouchable in the men’s heats. He was joined in the final by Tomas Slavik (RSP 4 Cross Racing), Michal Prokop (Agang Racing) and Dutch mainstay Roger Rinderknecht. Once again, Graves got the holeshot, with the two Czech riders Slavik and Prokop bumping elbows through the first couple of corners before Slavik finally pulled ahead in the lower half of the run.

“On those first two turns you had to be careful,” Grave explained “because anything can happen there. A good start definitely helps on this course, but you still aren’t completely safe, because there are plenty of spots to get passed. It is definitely good to start the season off with a win, because it takes the pressure off, so I’d say am pretty happy right now.”

The lads from DirtTV were once again on-scene to provide some of the action:

Enjoy,

Ed

Sea Otter to the power of XX

Posted by Editor under 2011 Product

Still trying to catch up with all of the Sea Otter press, product launches and race reports. Being three weeks behind to begin with isn’t helping the cause, but slowly but surely we are getting the info up and online. There has been a lot of talk on the web and forums regarding the latest offerings and showcases from SRAM; X7, X9 and X0 two and three by ten groups. Following on from their success with the XX two by ten groupset which debuted in 2010, SRAM are taking the new platform right down to their entry-level X7 package and increasing the scope by allowing for triple-chainring setup on the drive systems, making for the ultimate in wide-range gearing for all levels of performance. Always on the ball with their media launches, SRAM made no surprises at Sea Otter with dinners, invite-only parties and VIP functions. Fun for all!

I don’t plan to bore you with the pics of the groups as I think its old news to most of us by now, but here is a great video by SRAM from te Sea Otter Classic:

Ed