Bike specific training

Locknatious

Locknatious

Likes Bikes
Mywifesirrational said:
Well I certainly don't doubt the fact that your wife is doing core stability, but that does not mean its safe to say it is worth her time at all over other forms of training and rehab.

Core stability training more often than not will focus on co contraction of the trunk musculature, this creates greater intervebral disc pressure, for many people this does not help symptoms. Secondly medically she would get a reduction in symptoms regardless of seeing a physio, as the body is quite amazing at healing it's self.

Thirdly, peer reviewed scientific evidence, not my opinion, but evidence from some fairly reputable researchers is showing that is not a particularly efficacious approach and actually may be detrimental.

Maybe you should ask your wife's physio for their evidence and rationale, I think you might find it lacking, the average physio has a bachelors degree, they aren't exactly trained to understand something as complex as the vertebral column (very few people are) or have the ability to disseminate complex medical research. All the best for her surgery, L5/S1 replacements can be nasty.

The myth of core stability.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=the+myth+of+core+stability
Despite a decade of extensive research in this area, it is difficult to see what contribution CS had to the understanding and care of patients suffering from back pain

Systematic review of core muscle activity during physical fitness exercises
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23542879
The available evidence suggests that strength and conditioning specialists should focus on implementing multijoint free weight exercises, rather than core-specific exercises, to adequately train the core muscles in their athletes and clients.

A meta-analysis of core stability exercise versus general exercise for chronic low back pain.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23284879
Compared to general exercise, core stability exercise is more effective in decreasing pain and may improve physical function in patients with chronic LBP in the short term. However, no significant long-term differences in pain severity were observed between patients who engaged in core stability exercise versus those who engaged in general exercise.

Core stability exercises in individuals with and without chronic nonspecific low back pain.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22080309
The widespread use of abdominal bracing in clinical practice, whether it be for patients with LBP or healthy individuals, may not be justified unless symptoms of spinal instability are identified.

Acute effect of labile surfaces during core stability exercises in people with and without low back pain.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20801670
Individuals with LBP exhibited adaptive trunk muscle activity levels while maintaining similar levels of balance and lumbar movement to healthy controls. Since research suggests no one mode of exercise is more beneficial in LBP rehabilitation, the practicality and safety of labile surfaces for LBP exercise rehabilitation must be questioned from this study.

If you'd like a read of my personal and educated opinion... it's more performance orientated than clinical.
http://www.rotorburn.com/forums/showthread.php?246702-Core-Stability-a-neuroscience-approach


Show them the meta analysis and the systematic review, they tally up to just over 200 studies included, with many discarded due to lack of quality. The results are of these are reasonably robust.
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Physiotherapy isnt the only form of rehab she is doing, also does hydrotherapy. and if only the body was as good as you say it is at healing itself, because its been a long 3 years waiting for it to heal.

I had a look at your links, and I also did a search on that website and found articles stating core stability/strength is good for you. (everything has its pros and cons and you state it in your personal opinion your anti core)
http://www.mayoclinic.org/core-exercises/ART-20044751?p=1 I found this link in your first link myth of core stability.
also found this
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0062321/

And I was with her when she went to see the neurosurgeon who told her to do core exercises to strengthen the muscles so they are strong during the recovery phase.

I can see this going on forever and just want to leave it at this, i'm pro core stability/strength your anti core stability/strength and were not going to change each others mind.
 
Mywifesirrational

Mywifesirrational

I however am very normal. Trust me.
Locknatious said:
Physiotherapy isnt the only form of rehab she is doing, also does hydrotherapy. and if only the body was as good as you say it is at healing itself, because its been a long 3 years waiting for it to heal.

I had a look at your links, and I also did a search on that website and found articles stating core stability/strength is good for you. (everything has its pros and cons and you state it in your personal opinion your anti core)
http://www.mayoclinic.org/core-exercises/ART-20044751?p=1 I found this link in your first link myth of core stability.
also found this
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0062321/

And I was with her when she went to see the neurosurgeon who told her to do core exercises to strengthen the muscles so they are strong during the recovery phase.

I can see this going on forever and just want to leave it at this, i'm pro core stability/strength your anti core stability/strength and were not going to change each others mind.
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It's good that she is doing more than physio, some of the research I posted strongly shows that a broad range of activities is the best approach for LBP asyompomatic or diagnosed.

Unfortunately one of those is not actually a study, it's an advertisement. While it quotes 4 studies, all are either opinion or review articles without statistical analysis,they are also quite old in the scheme or core stability and hold very little weight in their quality.

The other study is a systematic review and does indeed have an element of quality, but you need to actually read more than the punchline at the end (this is prescribed readings in one of my classes), their results are negligible in the statistcal analysis, but they say at the end it may help.... seems like a little on the biased side to me.

Find me a systematic review with preferably with a meta-analysis, from a decent journal and I will more than happily read it and if need be change my view - I will change my mind if the evidence is there, but it doesn't exist unfortunately, I have looked. Core stability is essentially a hoax, peoples misguided views are quite different from what good quality research is telling us. Yes I am biased, BECAUSE i have read the evidence, a lot of research, I teach this, I go to conferences, I do medical research in this area, I work for a surgeon who understands he knows little about exercise and joints and needs someone in with some knowledge... but the idiots out there have marketed this so well people will not believe because it goes against what they have heard previously. Even the guy who coined that phrase core stability in 1994 has distanced himself from this form of mindless cult.

I could l another 20-30 randomised controlled trials in LBP, sports performance, injury prevention showing some pretty decent evidence that core stability is not the answer to anything, but I would be wasting my time.

edit: Google and read the Lederman paper, it's quite good and highlights a lot of aspects that are wrong with the concept of core stability training.
 
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Mywifesirrational

Mywifesirrational

I however am very normal. Trust me.
rsquared said:
MWI - these exercises all appear to be targeting a strength phase, what's the best approach in terms of periodised training between strength, power, endurance?

I would think you would build your base/endurance, then work strength, power, strength, power etc in periods of 8-10weeks (tapered around key events obviously). Is this correct?

Muscular endurance and power would both be important for mountain biking.
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This could potentially be a very long answer.

You can't train all three effectively together, so while strength and power can be trained together, endurance is best trained specific to the exercise - ride more, but is should also be trained in a difference macro cycle.

Presuming one had a set goal date for an event - typically you'd train strength with a reasonable amount of volume - the time length depends on intially training status, so someone well trained 6-8 weeks is more than enough. If someone hasn't trained before I'd go 12-16 weeks - but it really depends on how they progress towards their goals.

You'd taper off into power training focus, lower volume, lighter loads but move very ballisticly. 4-6 weeks is more than enough in this phase, as the technique has already been learnt in the previous macrocycle cycle, avoiding fatigue is very important here as you must more the load as fast as possible for every rep. Very beneficial for sprinting and short sharp climbs.

Lastly endurance, you be riding the entire time, but during the strength phase you must taper off the cycling somewhat, as the calorie deficit this will cause along with the aerobic stimulus blocking anaerobic adaptation (look up the Mtor pathway in google with the word concurrent training if you like being bored).

If someone is quite unfit, doesn't matter what you do, mixing it all together and doing a bit of everything yields the best results.

rsquared said:
Also, even though shoulder press movements may not be specific to cycling technique, I'd definitely recommend incorporating them into any program purely to provide shoulder joint strength/stability for injury prevention in crashes etc.
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Yeah, I tend to avoid overhead presses, the clinician in me tends to be concerned about shoulder impingement. While it's certainly a good exercise for deltoid development, any form or press or row works the rotator cuff as good if not better, providing a more effective stimulus for shoulder stability. Same goes for dips, great exercise, but brutal if shoulders are not 100%. That was my rationale, as i don't know the age or quality of mxdame's shoulders.

driftking said:
While this was directed at MWI ill throw my 2cents in.

Whether or not you in a strength, power or endurance phase comes down to your reps, sets and load.
strength is going to be done before power primarily as speed power uses about 40% of your 1RM. So the obvious is maximizing strength allows you to use more load for power workouts.

The routine MWI gave 5-6 reps sits very much towards strength based workouts, pure strength tends to be lower about 1-3 reps.
You would usually start power workout as a build up to the event as you said. I think its only a small 4-6 week period for power. MWI?
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Interesting thing with power I have a dynamometer in the laB i can attach to any apparutus, so we can measure power and more importantly it's decline due to fatigue. Seems to what we have experience for power training lower reps 4-6 is best as the power tends to drop of rapidly after this piont, but well trained people seem to take a few more reps even at the same relative effort level.

Yeah power 4-6 weeks. The challenge with cycling is knowing when to taper off prior to an event and just juggling the different forms of training effectively, taking peoples life and time into account...
 
D

driftking

Wheel size expert
MWI
Do you happen to have the pfd or the full article for the two following

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20801670

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22080309

additional one
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22784233

I managed to find the other 3.
I am just saving them all into the computer for later use. As you know I am looking at moving into similar area of study. I figured I should gather some information while you are throwing it out. :)

Any others you feel like giving me would be welcome.
 
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Mywifesirrational

Mywifesirrational

I however am very normal. Trust me.
driftking said:
MWI
Do you happen to have the pfd or the full article for the two following

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20801670

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22080309

additional one
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22784233

I managed to find the other 3.
I am just saving them all into the computer for later use. As you know I am looking at moving into similar area of study. I figured I should gather some information while you are throwing it out. :)

Any others you feel like giving me would be welcome.
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All sent, downloaded remotely from work, I'll work out whats a quality read and send it through one once I get some more time... really needing a 32 hour day at the moment.
 
Mywifesirrational

Mywifesirrational

I however am very normal. Trust me.
Answered it in the other thread, publishing 'articles' like that, from a prof. of all things seems almost unethical to me.
 
W

wozza

Likes Bikes
Its well worth checking out MTB strength training systems or bikejames.com, which has great tips/resources for improving speed, endurance & general trails skills.
 
Mywifesirrational

Mywifesirrational

I however am very normal. Trust me.
driftking said:
Oh man, will MWI reply to this one or not. We shall see.


I take it you didn't read this thread And all the core debate on here.
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I wasn't! :rant:

I'm not a fan of bike james, some of the good stuff he has, which isn't much, is outweighed by the pseudoscience crap, the stuff that's completely wrong, or so obvious its a space filler. Maybe it's just of requirement of giving out fitness advice in a commercial environment?
 
D

driftking

Wheel size expert
Mywifesirrational said:
I wasn't! :rant:

I'm not a fan of bike james, some of the good stuff he has, which isn't much, is outweighed by the pseudoscience crap, the stuff that's completely wrong, or so obvious its a space filler. Maybe it's just of requirement of giving out fitness advice in a commercial environment?
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I think its just a requirement of any PT courses (I have no idea what he has studied) but it does surprise me how many courses still teach trainers aspects of training without the scientific support to back it up.
Even if they wanted to emphasis core work they should at least provide the evidence for both sides of the fence to really give a picture of where the science sits on the topic.

Its the same idea with my little whinge about tabata.
Technically all they are doing is HIIT. Tabata is a specilized type of HIIT not just HIIT with shorter intervals.
Ok its very pedantic to complain about something but its the same sort of miss information and miss understanding that goes through the Industry due to lack of supported teaching.

I still like core training. I do sit on the fence i think it has value in some areas but not so much others and while maybe not ideal from a science point of view I am very open to the potential of what has not get been understood and there is plenty of anecdotal evidence for core training (afterall everything we know at some point was not understood or misunderstood). As we have discussed in other threads some sports definately would benefit, mma and wrestling where torque generated by the core is crucial.

I will be clear to other users I am not saying core strength is not necessary, its not that core does not matter, its the addition of specific core training that is on the fence wether it makes any difference over compound and sport specific training that hits the core anyway.
 
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