Thread: Building a Program.

A shit load of leg press with a good weight and high reps!!

Well I'm no biker but it seems to me whatever exercise your doing should be with high reps like 12-15 till failure.

How long have you been DH racing? The best way to be a faster rider is to practice, practice, practice. However, having a strong upper body will help too. I read an article a couple months ago about how Brian Lopes trains. He does three upper body workouts a week, splitting up the muscle groups. I'll have to see if I still have that article.

I am a XC rider myself, and I am going to be entering my first races this summer. I have found that one legs workout a week helps build leg strength. I usually work legs on Monday, allowing at least two days rest afterwards for recovery. I stick to 12-15 rep sets like Scotty suggested. I also (usually) work my upper body three days a week, although I have been slacking a bit since I started my new job.

There a few other MTB'ers on this website. Hopefully they'll chime in with their thoughts.

First of all, does this have a specific season or is it year-round meets?

Secondly, you'll need to do general work to raise both your aerobic and anaerobic work capacity-- that means cyclic endurance work and lactate threshold work (intervals, fartlek, etc).

Thirdly, specific work to raise strength and endurance in the relevant body parts-- quads, hams, and hips are going to be the main ones here.

The general rule is to start with very general work and gradual work towards specificity.

I would say that an all around workout program should help. Definately doing some leg work, squats, leg curls. Also having a strong upper body could not hurt either, it might help you have more control over the bike in rougher terrain. I had a couple friends in college that were wrestlers, they had to go balls out for 3 minutes at a time using all the muscle they had. But if you are going all out for that amount of time like in your biking I would say you need alot of cardio to get your lung capacity up. I am not sure of there exact training but they did alot of cardio along with lifting.

If that fails, you could always add a couple rockets to the bike.

I would suggest plyometric type exercises for your legs. I'm an inline speed skater and I go thru a list of plyometric exercises once a week. I've been doing them for about a month and at this last meet, the results were definitely noticable. I used to weight train my legs in the 10-15 rep range but I found that it didn't help, and it actually slowed down my sprinting. And my practices also generally sucked. My skating improved when I cut out the weight training on my legs and I know biking is very similar as far as what muscle groups are used since that's what we use to cross train with. So perhaps just doing some plyometric exercises may work for you as well.

Plyos would help close to a race, but he's also looking at having to keep up 90% intensity (in his words) for four minutes-- that's a pretty good level of power-endurance to try and develop.

Oh yeah, and WeltCup, keep those tires on the ground, because when you get air, you lose speed and traction.

What is plyometric excercise? I have never heard of this before.

Just curious.
Thanks.

Originally posted by Snake_Eyes
Plyos would help close to a race, but he's also looking at having to keep up 90% intensity (in his words) for four minutes-- that's a pretty good level of power-endurance to try and develop.

There are also plyometric exercises designed to develop muscle endurance, which incidentally, is what I need more of in my legs. I've got a whole list of exercises using your own body weight with different purposes and intended for different parts of the training season. Just a suggestion. The best thing he can do is to try some different programs and find out which one works best for him, all we can do is suggest. Of course that is time consuming but it's the best way. I tried some things on my own and also talked to several coaches as well as top level speed skaters to get ideas for my training. Thru trial and error I've been finding what works best for me.

Plyometrics, at least as the term is properly used, don't develop endurance by themselves. They develop muscular power and speed-strength.

They could be used in conjunction with a CV routine to produce the result of speed/power-endurance.

My point was while it would be useful close to a race, there's no point in keeping that form of training throughout the season.

The best overall program can pretty much be drawn up on general rules, since no one method or program will be optimally effective through the entire preparation period. You have to define the goal and use the various methods to work towards it.

Originally posted by barc77
What is plyometric excercise? I have never heard of this before.

Just curious.
Thanks.

Good question. I always assumed they were just exercises using your own body weight but since you asked, I had to look it up.

"Although the actual term "plyometric" is new, this particular form of training has been in existence for quite some time. The term was first applied in 1975 by American track and field coach Fred Wilt to describe the training methods of the Eastern European athletes at the time, which were the supposed difference between the eastern and western athletes. Translated from its Latin origins, it literally means "measurable increases" , although there is some speculation as to the effectiveness of this particular form of training. It is thought of as the missing link between weight training (strength) and athletic performance (power), with particular emphasis on the speed of activity.

On observation of sports involving jumping at the elite level, particularly basketball, volleyball and the jumping field events, it is obvious that these athletes have the ability to spring very high indeed. Perhaps what is most striking is not how high they can rise, but how quickly they can elevate. Athletes such as Michael Jordan are able to translate from changing direction to releasing a jump shot extremely quickly. This has obvious advantages, especially in team sports such as basketball or volleyball.

Plyometric training is designed to enable muscles to reach their maximum strength in as short a time as possible. Focus is placed on improving eccentric strength, achieving a rapid eccentric/concentric transition (termed amortization phase) and decreasing ground contact time using high force jumping exercises (for the lower limb). "

And so then I had to look up isometric exercises as well, hehe.

"The term "isometric exercise" means tensing a muscle and holding it in a stationary position while maintaining the tension. While isometric exercises are useful, especially for those recovering from injuries that limit range of motion, they are not -- by themselves -- the most effective."

I know with the plyometric exercises I've been doing, I try to add more reps and/or more time to each exercise, trying to push that envelope further and further. My coach is actually working on a training program suggestion for me for thruout the entire season. In speed skating anyway, the coaches have said that any weight training should be kept only during the first month or two at the beginning of the season. So again, it's like you have to find what works for you and the training is going to vary depending on the time of the season. I'm still in the process of coming up with a good yearly training program for myself.

Krypto:

How long does a speed-skating match last? And how is the season structured throughout the year?

And yes, that's what I was referring to in saying that plyos don't develop endurance in and of themselves-- they're basically designed to increase the rate of force development and reversal strength.

Originally posted by Snake_Eyes
Krypto:

How long does a speed-skating match last? And how is the season structured throughout the year?

And yes, that's what I was referring to in saying that plyos don't develop endurance in and of themselves-- they're basically designed to increase the rate of force development and reversal strength.

Gottcha. Yeah, and I do need to develop more endurance in my legs. I'm a powerful sprinter but I'm only good at full throttle for about 3 (100m) laps before my legs tighten up really bad. One set of exercises in my training book says "these endurance exercises are designed to increase aerobic capacity" and they are just exercises using my own body weight. That's where I got the idea that some of the "plyometric" exercises I was doing are good for endurance.

Anyway, right now I'm only racing indoors (will get into outdoor a bit later and those races are longer) so my longest race is a 2000 meter and my shortest race is a 500 meter. I race all year long in league meets and invitationals from Oct-May, usually no more than one or two meets per month. Then in June is Regionals and in late July/early August is Nationals. After Nationals the coach gives us about a month off then we start back up in September. So September is the beginning of the season with May-July the end of the season. The number of races I do just depends on the meet. For league meets I only have two races, either a 500m, 1000m, 1500m, or 2000m. I also do relay races at some of the bigger meets.

Originally posted by I Are Baboon
How long have you been DH racing? The best way to be a faster rider is to practice, practice, practice. However, having a strong upper body will help too.

There a few other MTB'ers on this website. Hopefully they'll chime in with their thoughts.

hey,

ive been racing dh for about 4 years and xc for about 6. I know practice is going to be the most bennefecial but i think ive gotten to the point of where i can ride nearly enything of the course and now its just speed that i need to gain.

Originally posted by Snake_Eyes
Plyos would help close to a race, but he's also looking at having to keep up 90% intensity (in his words) for four minutes-- that's a pretty good level of power-endurance to try and develop.

yes muscle endurance has to be insanely good for this sport to be able to be competitive. the only other way to last is to have an amazing recovery time so you can use a short rest and then sprint again.

Originally posted by Snake_Eyes
First of all, does this have a specific season or is it year-round meets?

Secondly, you'll need to do general work to raise both your aerobic and anaerobic work capacity-- that means cyclic endurance work and lactate threshold work (intervals, fartlek, etc).

Thirdly, specific work to raise strength and endurance in the relevant body parts-- quads, hams, and hips are going to be the main ones here.

The general rule is to start with very general work and gradual work towards specificity.

My race season is generally from late may util late september. id like to peak in mid august. I also do tons of cardio stuff for workout probably alot more than i do strength stuff right now. im pretty happy with where my lactate threshold is but it can allways improve. but i need to work on leg speed and muslce endurance.

Thanks for all the help guys youre great.

Originally posted by WeltCupMeister1
Thanks for all the help guys youre great.

So what kind of bike ya got??????

Originally posted by I Are Baboon


So what kind of bike ya got??????

'00 Giant DH Team ATX
'02 Giant DH Team
'01 Cannondale Jekyl
'99 K2 Razorback
'98 Specialized Stumpjumer