Ride Strong
Page 17
The exercises in this chapter for the upper and lower back are essential since they tackle a cyclist’s postural tendencies towards hunched and rounded shoulders and a flattened lumbar curve or lower back. This poor posture can make you susceptible to injuries that can force you off the bike, as well as limiting power potential by changing the position of your hips and back on the bike.
Both the exercises in this section are truly ‘corrective’ in that they both strengthen the weak areas of the back and hips and at the same time help to mobilize the tight areas that can be restrictive. When performed together with the thoracic foam roller exercise in particular, these exercises can have a profound effect on your back strength, posture and cycling performance.
The prone cobra
The prone cobra works all the muscles along the back of the body, but notably isolates the upper-back muscles. The way the exercise is performed here, with the thumbs turned backwards, also works the external rotator cuff muscles of the shoulder, which can become weak through hours spent holding the bars. As you sit reading this, visualize the position of your upper back and arms as you hold the ‘tops’ of the handlebars, and then reverse that position, lifting your chest, extending your back and turning your thumbs backwards. It should literally be the exact opposite position.
Because this is a ‘postural exercise’, it is best performed with progressively prolonged isometric holds. As you develop more endurance in these muscles you can increase the duration of the held position and reduce the rest in between each repetition. The ultimate goal is three minutes’ time under tension in total, broken down into progressively longer holds with fewer ‘sets’ to perform.
The prone cobra restores basic levels of postural strength to your back. Your bike fit can improve with regular use of this exercise too, as it will allow you to achieve a ‘flatter’ or more stretched out aerodynamic position. Lower back injuries and shoulder impingement problems can also be kept at bay with the prone cobra.
Off the floor
Preparation
Start by lying flat on your front, head turned to one side, and your arms at the sides of your body, with your little fingers close to your sides and thumbs pointing away from you.
Movement
Lift your upper back off the floor, turning your thumbs backwards as you move, and squeezing your shoulder blades together. The goal is to turn the arms backwards as much as possible, keeping them close to your sides and stretching the front of your chest. Leave your legs on the floor if you can, and keep your neck long at the back so that your chin is tucked in and you look down towards the floor. Focus in extending the most through your upper back, by arching through the upper back and opening your chest forwards.
Swiss ball variation
This Swiss ball variation of the same exercise feels slightly different but fundamentally works on the same areas. Because of their role in stabilizing the ball, the hip and glute muscles become more active in this variation too, which may make it a better option for some. Overall, this prone cobra offers a bigger bang, working the mid and upper back, but also the lower back, glutes and hamstrings.
Preparation
Position the ball underneath your hips (as shown), with your feet resting against a wall where it meets the floor. Your feet should be a little wider than hip width to give you a solid base from which to move.
Movement
Press your hips into the ball, engaging your glutes and tucking your hips down, raising your body into the prone cobra position by extending your back and turning your arms backwards. Your arms should stay close to your body, but you should rotate them backwards from the shoulder as much as you can. In this variation of the exercise it’s important that you extend evenly and don’t ‘hinge’ at any point in the lower back. If you feel this exercise is uncomfortable in the lower back, you may not be engaging your glutes enough, so focus on pressing your hips into the ball strongly to avoid this.
Wide arms variation
This Swiss ball wide arm variation of the prone cobra uses the weight of the outstretched arm to increase the challenge to the mid-back muscles, to match the added load to the hips but choosing to work on the ball. It is the hardest of the variations here, and can be made even more challenging by carrying a light dumbbell in each hand. A weight of only 1kg can make this a really challenging exercise for the muscles of the mid-back and the external rotator cuff.
Preparation
Position the ball underneath your hips (as shown), with your feet resting against a wall where it meets the floor. Your feet should be a little wider than hip width to give you a solid base from which to move.
Movement
Press your hips into the ball, engaging your glutes and tucking your hips down, raising your body into the prone cobra position by extending your back and turning your arms backwards. Take your arms wide, so that they are level with, or slightly below, your shoulders, rotating your arms backwards from the shoulder as much as you can by turning the thumb backwards and upwards. In this variation of the exercise it’s important that your arms are at least level with your body, if not slightly behind the line of your body (as shown), to emphasize the work to the mid-back muscles. If you feel this exercise is uncomfortable in the lower back, you may not be engaging your glutes enough, so focus on pressing your hips into the ball strongly to avoid this.
How many reps and sets?
Since this is a ‘postural exercise’ the progressions focus on longer holds for the isometric position, with progressively shorter rest periods. In the set descriptions below, ‘on’ means that you are in the position, and ‘off’ means that you come out of the position.
Suggested progressions to work through are:
3 × 20 seconds on 10 seconds off × 2–3 sets
3 × 30 seconds on 15 seconds off × 2 sets
3 × 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off × 2 sets
3 × 1 minute held with 30 seconds’ rest × 1 set
Though it may be tempting to go straight to the ‘harder’ sets here, it is more sensible to work through the progressions and focus on the quality of the position (staying as high as you can, turning your thumbs right back, and squeezing your shoulder blades together).
Working through the floor-based prone cobra for 8–12 weeks before progressing to a new level of the exercise is usually a good idea. The only exception is for riders who tend to be hypermobile, where the Swiss ball versions may feel more comfortable straight away.
Extension with rotation
This next sequence of exercise variations strengthens the muscles of the back while restoring movement in rotation. The variations also help restore some cross-patterning movements that keep a human nervous system wired for movement. When performed together with the thoracic foam roller exercise in particular, these exercises can have a profound effect on your back strength and mobility. If you found that in working through the essential stretching exercises your upper back mobility was particularly poor, including one of these exercises will help you re-establish mobility and core strength together.
‘Cross-patterning’ or ‘cross-crawling’ movements remind the nervous system how to coordinate the left and right sides of the body. As humans, we are designed to move ‘contralaterally’. That is to say as the right leg swings back (as we walk for example) the left arm swings back, and vice versa. On a bike, this natural cross-patterning does not happen. In fact, if anything we function with an ipsilateral (same side) movement: as the left leg pushes down (and back) the left arm pulls on the bars. For cyclists who often consider themselves uncoordinated off the bike, reminding the body of this all-important contralateral coordination can help you move better in general, and can open up cross-training options too.
Alternating superman
The alternating superman exercise works diagonally across the core to coordinate and balance strength in the left hip and right back and vice versa respectively. It can help to highlight asymmetries in the ‘posterior sling’ of muscles from one hip to the opposing side
of your upper body. Many human movements require correct coordination and timing of the left and right sides of the body, not least in the arm swing when we walk or run, but also when we push and pull objects as we stand on our feet.
The alternating superman helps cyclists maintain the left-right coordination that is important in many sports and activities, but is largely absent from cycling. It also helps restore mobility in the upper back at the same time as improving strength.
Off the floor
Preparation
Start by lying flat on your front with your head turned to one side and your arms outstretched overhead. Your thumbs should be turned up for this exercise (as shown).
Movement
Moving from the shoulder and hip with a straight arm and leg, raise your right arm and your left leg off the floor, trying to match the height of your arm to the height of your leg, and lifting your upper body with your arm just enough to allow for the movement. Keep your chin tucked in and your eyes looking down, so that the back of your neck is in line with your upper back. At the same time as you are lifting your arm and leg, stretch one away from the other so that you feel you are stretching your spine and making the line from your toes to your fingertips as long as possible.
Hold the best possible position you can with determination for 5 seconds, before lowering and then repeating on the opposite diagonal. Move into position slowly and steadily and focus on the quality of the movement using the technique points here.
Swiss ball variation
The Swiss ball variation of this exercise represents a considerable balance challenge as compared to the floor exercise. It may take some practice before you find you are able to do this exercise at all, but if you keep working at it you will find you can eventually come into an effective alternating superman position.
Preparation
Lie flat over your ball and spread your hands and feet into a rectangular square shape, using your cupped fingers and your toes to get a sense of how your weight is distributed across all four points. Try to balance such that your weight is evenly distributed across all four before you start to move.
Movement
Moving slowly so that you can respond reflexively to the change in balance on the ball, start to raise your right arm and your left leg. Counterbalance one with the other as you move towards a position where your opposite arm and leg are extended in line with your body. You will notice that if you raise your leg too quickly in particular, you will roll forwards on the ball. This is because your leg is much heavier than your arm. It pays to raise your leg steadily and slowly, so that it doesn’t get ahead of your arm. Once extended, hold the lengthened position for 5 seconds as best you can, before lowering your right arm and left leg and swapping sides, as shown middle and bottom.
How many reps and sets?
Perform 8–12 repetitions for 2–3 sets, with 30 seconds’ rest between sets. Choose one of these exercises and work on it for 8–12 weeks, before changing to the other variation.
Strengthening the front and sides of the body
The next selection of exercises predominantly strengthens the front of the body, notably the abdominal muscles. However, no exercise here only works one muscle at a time, or exclusively one dimension, and so muscles of the hips and back will get involved too, linking the front of the body with the other muscles surrounding the core.
Core without flexion
‘Core without flexion’ is a concept I use as a catchphrase to allow cyclists, and others, to grasp the idea and practicality of strengthening the abdominal muscles without overemphasizing flexion. A flexion movement is any movement where you bend forwards, and many abdominal exercises, like traditional crunches off the floor, rely on this movement to contract the abdominals into their shortened range. While there will always be exceptions to the rule, overemphasis on exercises like the traditional sit-up can lead to problems for cyclists, since they are already stiff along the back of the body, and the muscles of the upper abdomen in particular can be short due to poor posture through the upper back and prolonged periods spent bent over the bike. An additional concern is that many cyclists have a flattened lower back or lumbar spine, and some may be at risk of lumbar disc injuries with excessive flexion exercises. Although this may only refer to a minority, if there are safer and more effective alternatives it makes sense to use them to avoid this sometimes serious injury.
Wanting to avoid flexion presents a problem for cyclists who want to strengthen their abdominals without worsening their posture by excessively shortening the ‘upper’ abdominals in particular. My proposed solution to this problem is to avoid flexion as much as possible, and instead work in all other dimensions while maintaining a ‘neutral spine’, or by bending or twisting in the frontal (sideways) and transverse (twisting) planes.
The only exceptions in this chapter are the Swiss ball crunch and the lower body Russian twist with cross crunch. The Swiss ball crunch includes lumbar flexion, but with full hyperextension by way of a backwards bend over the ball between each repetition, while the lower body twist with cross crunch includes a full rotational stretch between repetitions. These exceptions have an inherent flexibility element to help maintain flexibility while developing strength, but should still be avoided if you know you have a history of lumbar disc problems.
‘Flexion dominance’ is a term used to describe the tendency of many people (cyclists included) to have many more forwards bending movements in their dayto-day lives than backwards bending ones. Excessive ‘flexion’ movements in your daily or weekly movement vocabulary can cause problems, so training the core without excessive flexion becomes an important goal if you are looking to restore balance and optimal performance.
Four-point exercises for stability and ‘inner units’
The variations on four-point exercises in this next section are designed to strengthen the ‘inner unit’ of the abdominals (the transversus abdominis and pelvic floor muscles), but also the ‘inner units’ of the hip and shoulder joints. Both the hips and shoulders are very mobile and depend on a ‘rotator cuff’ of deeper stabilizing muscles to hold the joints in place, while the larger muscles crossing the joint generate force and movement.
Joints need to be ‘stable’ in order for force to be transmitted across them, and so working on the intrinsic ‘stability’ of the spine, hips and shoulders is important if you want to maximize your potential for force generation on the bike. Where stability is poor, your body will limit the amount of power that crosses the joints in order to avoid injury, and so without adequate stability your performance gains will be limited.
Some of the best exercises for focused stability work on your shoulders, hips and trunk are what I call ‘horse stance’ exercises, or ‘table top’ variations. I learned the importance of these horse-stance exercises through my training with the CHEK institute, but they also form a staple of traditional and clinical Pilates exercises. These exercises performed on all fours provide a ‘big bang’ of stability benefits to all these important areas in one hit.
They are often considered ‘rehab’ or ‘prehab’ exercises, and refer back to the fundamental core fitness we develop in the trunk, shoulders and hips through crawling as babies and young children. Working through the core with the opposing arm and leg action develops the stability we need for more powerful movements later on, and can also maintain your shoulder and hip stability in the minimum time.
Since the glutes are key drivers of the legs, stability at the sides of your hips in particular can help you maintain ‘neutral’ alignment with your legs as you pedal, rather than having your knee roll in and out with the up and down action. Weakness in the gluteus medius muscle (the lateral glute on the side of your hip) is often implicated in knee problems and these four-point exercises teach you how to activate this area before subsequently integrating that strength into movements such as those in Chapter 3 of this book.
Equally, shoulder stability is important on the bike too. As you hold the bars f
or hours on end you are stabilizing against the force generated by the legs to ensure no effort is wasted and to avoid inefficient and unnecessary shoulder movements. When you stand out of the saddle, stability in the shoulder gives you the potential to generate force efficiently through your arms and core, adding to the more direct power you generate through your legs and hips.
It may seem like a bit of a leap to understand how floor exercises performed on all fours can benefit your riding, but stability of the hips and shoulders (as well as the abdomen) is really important. Training the lateral stabilizers of the hips to maintain knee stability and the rotator cuff of the shoulder to maintain shoulder stability, these exercises should be a priority if you have any knee or shoulder problems that get in the way of your riding.
Horse stances
This type of exercise can be difficult to get a grip of if you prefer doing everything at speed, or don’t see the training benefit unless something ‘hurts’. It’s important to take your time to understand what you are trying to do and how your body should feel if you want to really see the benefits. This first variation – the horse stance vertical – provides the foundation for all the subsequent variations, so don’t skip it before progressing to the others, particularly if you haven’t tried this type of exercise before.
Vertical
Every other variation of the horse stance described here should start with this fundamental ‘hover’ position, which provides the foundation for all other movements of the arms and legs. This variation of the exercise challenges the transverse plane (twisting) the most.
Preparation