by Jo McRae
The split squat is a great addition to any cyclist’s conditioning programme as it is more challenging in the frontal and transverse planes (at the sides and in rotation) than the more symmetrical movements of the bend and squat, and therefore helps to promote multiplanar stability when practised with good form. Also in a split stance any asymmetries in leg, hip and core strength and alignment can be more easily identified and addressed.
If you are a cyclist who doesn’t have a background in running or games it may be safest to strengthen your split squat technique first, before lunging, or before introducing any games or multidirectional sports as part of your cross-training. Selecting and integrating appropriate cross-training elements to suit you will be discussed further in Chapter 6.
Pushing
A pushing movement is one where you exert force to move something away from you, or move yourself away from a solid surface such as a wall or the ground.
In any standing push in the functional or primal sense, force is generated from the ground up via the legs and transmitted through the core or trunk to be expressed through the chest and arms.
Pushing movements may be single arm or double arm, with single-arm movements often being combined with a twist through the upper body and a counterrotation on the opposite side. Punching or throwing actions are good examples of explosive single-arm ‘push’ movements.
Double-arm pushes can exert more force (but not necessarily speed), and for all-round conditioning it is important to train both single- and double-arm variations. A common fault with a push is to excessively round the upper back through the movement and thrust the head forwards of the body. This is particularly common for people with poor posture who are stiff and slumped through the upper back and tight in the chest, a posture common in cyclists who sit at a desk for most of their day.
Although there is not much direct carry-over with pushing movements on the bike, as part of maintaining a balanced conditioning programme functional pushes are important. For this reason, standing pushing exercises should be your first choice since they have the most practical carry-over to real-life situations. More isolated pushes can be used to develop the abdominals or to balance or correct for core weakness. A push-up is an example of a relatively isolated core exercise that is often used in this way to strengthen the core.
Pulling
A pulling movement is one where you exert force to move something towards you, or move yourself closer to a solid object.
Functional pulling movements are performed standing up with force generated from the ground up through the legs and core and expressed through the arms. The exception is in ‘pull-up’ or climbing movements, where force is generated by the back and arms with a co-contraction of the core/trunk musculature.
Pulling movements may be single arm or double arm, with single-arm movements often being combined with a twist through the upper body and a counterrotation on the opposite side.
The main conditioning exercises for developing pulling strength are variations of rowing movements, which develop the large ‘lat’ muscles that give a triangular shape to the back of the body from the shoulders to the waist, the rhomboids between the shoulder blades, as well as the biceps at the front of the arms. The row can be performed in relative isolation first, to develop upper back strength and then integrated with other patterns for a more ‘functional’ movement in the true sense.
Isolated exercises are those that target specific muscles or areas of muscles that have become weak or need development. Integrated exercises work the whole body, relying on chains or ‘teams’ of muscles working together to generate strength and power. In this book there are relatively isolated strength exercises for the back and abdominal muscles in the core section of Chapter 4, to target the areas that often become weak in cyclists. The exercises in the strength section of Chapter 3 are relatively integrated, to teach the body to move as a working whole. In practice it is often wise to isolate first, then integrate, which is why for many readers it would be sensible to work on the stretching and core essentials first (in Chapters 2 and 4), before introducing the strength exercises (in Chapter 3).
Isolated exercises for the back (such as the prone cobra in the Core section of this book) help correct for the cycling posture, which tends to stretch and weaken the mid and lower back musculature. These movements are often necessary as an adjunct to the main movements where the muscles are particularly weak. Ideally, more integrated pulling movements (such as the bent-over row in the essential strength section) should be included too. If you have access to a cable machine in a gym, this is one of the best ‘free weight’ tools to finally assimilate pulling movements with lunges, squats, bends and twists to improve the carry-over to standing strength on the bike.
Pulling movements should be a priority in any cyclist’s training programme because of their postural benefits both on and off the bike. They can also improve performance when a rider stands out of the saddle and pulls on the bars in coordination with the drive generated by the legs.
Twisting
Twisting movements are some of the most important of all the primal movement patterns as they connect, link and facilitate so many of the others.
Force generated from the ground is transferred through the core via a twist in any single-arm asymmetrical movement, such as the pulls and pushes described on the preceding pages. In almost all ‘functional’ movements, the feet are anchored and the torso or trunk rotates above the pelvis, transferring load and speed through the core to the arms.
In many real-life lifting situations a bend is combined with a twist, since often the object we are trying to pick up off the floor cannot be approached symmetrically or ‘square on’. This combination of bending and twisting is the movement with which many people (including cyclists) injure their lower back, giving good reason to ensure conditioning in both movements separately, as well as combining them.
The root causes of bend and twist injuries are often a combination of lack of flexibility in the hamstrings, lack of abdominal engagement on a forward bend, and poor movement technique between the back and the legs in the coordination of the movement itself. This provocative combination can injure cyclists, keeping them off the bike for an extended period.
In conditioning terms, the classic integrated (functional and on your feet) twisting movements are variations of the ‘chop’, in which the prime movers are the abdominal obliques that rotate the torso, together with the associated ‘anterior sling’ muscles from the adductor of the inner thigh to the opposite shoulder. In the ‘reverse chop’ (its opposing movement) the prime movers are those that rotate the core from behind – the ‘posterior sling’ from the glute of the grounded leg to the opposite latissimus dorsi (Chek, 2004). In more isolated examples, many crawling and crunching variations involve an opposing leg and arm action and target the twist movement for a functional core.
Including twisting exercises as part of your programme is important to maintain the mobility of your spine in particular. Isolated twists can also be a good way to strengthen your abdominal muscles without becoming flexion dominant by way of too many ‘crunch’ type exercises.
Gait – walking and running
Walking and running are undoubtedly our most basic of human movements. Our upright posture and our ability to move easily and efficiently on two feet are at the heart of our movement potential.
Remembering and reminding our bodies how to walk and run with good posture and alignment can help us maintain our musculoskeletal health and well-being, and enables us to participate in many complementary sports and activities.
You would think that walking at the very least was something we all do every day, and for the most part that’s true. But consciously walking or running for health and well-being in a mindful way, rather than rushing around carrying heavy bags or running for a train, can be an important part of a balanced conditioning programme. For some, cycling is an attractive option because of pain and injury issues associated with
running or running sports. But even for those who have turned to cycling for its low-impact cardiovascular benefits, maintaining a minimal amount of walking to keep the joints and bones healthy should be an essential.
Knowing where to start
Understanding human movement and the importance of functional strength is one thing, but knowing where to start on your own conditioning programme can be something else altogether. In my experience, with all the best intentions in the world ‘paralysis by analysis’ is one of the biggest barriers to actually getting stuck into some exercise that might change your body for the better. Fear of ‘doing it wrong’ is one of the main reasons cyclists fail to start on a conditioning programme, but in this book I’m going to make it as easy as possible for you to do something practical straight away.
Following the ‘success formula’
Cyclists are often put off conditioning exercises because even if they believe them to be beneficial in theory, in practice they are concerned about causing injury or excessive muscle soreness that will have an immediate and undesirable impact on their cycling. The reason for this is simple.
For many cyclists, to launch in with whole-body strengthening exercises represents a challenge above their current level of overall condition. Just because you are a fit cyclist on the bike does not mean that you are a fit human being off it.
You may have a developed cardiovascular system, but that does not make you any more able to move well off the bike, or any less likely to injure yourself by accident lifting weights or even moving your own body weight in an unusual way. The truth is that in the broader sense you may be relatively out of shape, so it’s hardly surprising that the sudden introduction of dynamic conditioning work can be uncomfortable, and in some cases risky.
Muscle soreness is one of the main reasons cyclists avoid other exercise, and this unfamiliar ‘symptom’ discourages riders from taking their off-the-bike training any further than the first troublesome experiments. When something that is supposed to be beneficial makes cycling uncomfortable or more difficult, as a rider you are fairly quickly persuaded away from the arguments altogether. However, if you choose the exercises that are most appropriate to you by using the examples in this book, you will experience minimal soreness and maximal gains. If you overstretch a muscle, or work too hard on a strength exercise, you will notice some muscle soreness, granted, but in this book I am encouraging you to exercise little and often so that your immediate impressions are that you feel better, on and off the bike, not worse.
The key to harnessing the benefits of Ride Strong: Essential Conditioning for Cyclists is to select exercises that are at the right level for you and respect the ‘success formula’. The success formula states that the more deconditioned you are, the more likely you will need to focus on exercises to the left of the equation, and then progressively shift your emphasis steadily towards the right (so flexibility first, then core stability and then strength).
Through years of working one to one with clients and with the application of the principles I have learned through my studies with the CHEK institute, I have found this success formula concept is key to choosing exercises that are right for you. I hope that through the course of this book you too can grasp the basics that will inform your exercise choices.
The success formula
Remember the success formula:
FLEXIBILITY + CORE STABILITY + STRENGTH = POWER POTENTIAL
Both new and experienced cyclists may neglect the need for all-round conditioning, and some may never have strengthened their body through the essential primal patterns that will be outlined in their basic form in Chapter 3. If this describes you, or you turned to cycling because of injury problems in another sport, start by balancing the muscles in your body first by stretching, and improving your core stability and control, before finally moving on to the strength basics outlined in this book.
I have structured this book so that as your physical condition improves, you can progressively add exercises in the correct order through the different stages as outlined in Chapter 6.
If you have not done any ‘conditioning’ exercise for a while, designing a programme that includes just stretching and core essentials may be the best way to start. Just skip the ‘Strength’ part altogether in Chapter 3 to start with.
If you find that in working through the stretching essentials you are extremely tight, then a stretch-only programme may be even better.
If you don’t use it you lose it – and how to get it back
Flexibility first
When the neuromuscular systems are understimulated they tend to lose their inherent memory and muscle balance. Muscles that are not regularly stretched become short and tight, and those that are not worked become weak. A nervous system that once had a memory for a movement like a squat may lose track of that memory, or find it altered or changed to work around restrictions and tightness.
When you come from a place of relative deconditioning, you have to re-establish normal length-tension relationships in muscles and around joints as a priority before reintroducing whole body strength movements. This is why re-establishing flexibility and mobility norms with the essential stretches for cyclists in Chapter 2 should be the first priority.
Core isolation second
Where one muscle has become short or tight, another corresponding muscle often begins to weaken. Sometimes the weakness happens first due to lack of stimulus through ground forces or loading, and then the body tends to tighten up in an attempt to stabilize. Either way, together with improving and restoring flexibility, re-establishing core control and stability in the trunk should be the next priority.
Pre-stretching the short and tight muscles before strengthening the weak areas in relative isolation is the key to changing the body, moving it towards better balance and optimal performance on the bike.
The essential core exercises in Chapter 4 will help you identify and isolate key weak spots to that you can re-establish good posture, control and muscle balance. For most readers, I would recommend designing a programme from the essential stretches (Chapter 2) and essential core exercises (Chapter 4) to start with.
Integrated strength last
The essential strength exercises for cyclists in Chapter 3 represent a reintroduction of the more integrated primal patterns that I have explained here. Some of you will be able to incorporate these straight away, or as part of a periodized plan during your ‘off season’, whereas others will do better to focus on the stretching and core exercise for a little longer.
If you have not done any off-the-bike conditioning before or for some time, I recommend you leave out Chapter 3 for your first year of conditioning. Equally, if you start your essential exercise plan during the season when you are doing the most riding, you may want to save the introduction of the strength exercise for your off season.
Once you are confident with the core exercises, and/or you are in your off season, I recommend you introduce the essential strength exercises for cyclists in Chapter 3 of this book. I have explained the essential exercises in Chapters 2, 3 and 4 in the order of stretch, strength and core, as this is the order in which you would write them into a programme that includes all three elements. The details of how to choose your exercises within a seasonal plan are outlined in Chapter 6 of this book on programme design and periodization.
The emphasis of your programme should change according to the season, as well as in respect of your physical condition when you start your plan. The exercises you are using within your programme should vary and change at least every 8–12 weeks to keep your body adapting and developing by way of a change of stimulus. The essential exercises in this book, together with the recommendations regarding cross-training in Chapter 5, should be all you need as a time-squeezed cyclist to ride strong all year round.
2. Essential stretches
Overview of this chapter
•Why should cyclists stretch?
•Problems associated with stiffness and
the benefits of stretching
»Symptoms of stiffness and tightness
»Benefits associated with stretching
•Positional problem areas for cyclists
»The cyclist’s spine
»Muscles of the upper body and neck
•Tightness caused by the cycling action
THE ESSENTIAL STRETCHES
•Mobilizations and stretches for the spine and back
»Mobilizations for the thoracic spine (upper back)
»Longitudinal foam roller mobilization
»Horizontal foam roller mobilization
»Mobilizations for the lumbar spine (lower back)
»The McKenzie press-up
•Stretching muscles – different approaches pre- and post-exercise
•Stretches for the lower back
»Swiss ball side stretch
•Mobilizations and stretches for the hips and legs
»Piriformis stretch
»Wall glute stretch (post-exercise only)
»Iliotibial band (ITB) foam roller mobilization
»Swiss ball quad and hip flexor stretch
»The hamstrings stretches
»Supine knee extension
»Supine knee extension – strap assisted
»Active isolated stretching (AIS) style – strap assisted
»Passive doorframe stretch – post-exercise only
•Stretches for neck and upper back
»Upper trapezius neck stretch
»Sternocleidomastoid (SCM) neck stretch
ESSENTIAL STRETCHES READY REFERENCE PICTURES
