It’s raining. The three of us - Marathoner, Neighbor/Drinkin’ Buddy and I - met at the YMCA this morning. More on that in a moment.
There’s a guy at work who has recently started racing mountain biking races around here. He’s been racing rookie/beginner races. He took first in a race back in March, so was feeling good going into a race last weekend. He got his ass kicked.
He got stuck behind “The Yellow-Shirt Man” for most of the technical parts. Unfortunately, my work-friend is a much better technical rider than The Yellow-Shirt Man, but less fit. In the open areas, Yellow-Shirt Man just took off. In the closed in areas, work-friend couldn’t get around. Eventually, Yellow-Shirt Man’s tactics paid off.
Yellow-Shirt Man took second. Work-Friend took tenth. Out of 19.
Monday, he says to me, “I’m coming out with you on Wednesday mornings. I need you to help me get fit.” Then he says, “I’ll give you credit when I win my next race.”
“What, are you going to carve my name in the bottom of your trophy?”
“You’re my new sponsor. On the registration forms, it’s just an open text field. I’m putting in your name.”
Awesome! cesimpson.com is happy to announce it is now the official sponsor of one mountain biker.
I know little about mountain biking. From our few talks, it seems similar to rugby or soccer or the like - a multi-sprint sport, featuring relatively short periods of high power output, followed by longer periods of technical work at lower power outputs.
But, how much power? I don’t know. For how long? I don’t know. Featuring what sort of heart rates? I don’t know. Anything anyone can add to my understanding of the sport of mountain biking would be helpful and much appreciated.
Workout
- 21-15-9
- Cleans @ 135#
- Dips
- For time: 9:05
- Rest
- 5 minutes < rest > 10 minutes
- 21-15-9
- Thrusters (Front Squat + Push Press) @ 95#
- Pull Ups / Chin Ups
- For time: 12:43
I worked my way through my final 9 thrusters to Stray Cats’ Rumble in Brighton playing on the radio. Sure felt like I was in a street fight.
Those pull ups need work. I can pump out dips all day long. My first set I knocked out 10 pull ups then 5 chin ups. After that I couldn’t do a single pull up and chin ups came in sets of 3-5.
After I was finished, I was waiting for Marathoner to finish his cleans/dips and did some Knees-to-Elbows on the squat rack. Nothing too serious - 3×10.
Anyway, welcome to the team, MountainBiker.
4 Comments
Hmmm. Depends a lot on the type of racing. I presume it’s probably short track ish (maybe 1-2 mile loops that they do laps of for 30-60 minutes?)
I haven’t done a lot of racing on my MTB, but it seems like it differs from road in that you’re pretty much going hard all of the time. There isn’t much of a pack or a draft. Things usually get strung out pretty quickly and you end up with groups of 2-3 riders together…if that.
So since there isn’t as much letting riders pull you around for the race (as on the road) you would ideally be fit enough to ride at your anaerobic threshold for the duration of the race. But an hour at threshold takes awhile to develop.
You also have to have a good jump (max power) and good anaerobic endurance (so you can go hard for as long as anyone else wants to go hard if you need to).
As your friend noticed, if you are a superior technical rider but get stuck behind some strong roadie who can’t handle singletrack, you won’t do all that well. In MTB racing, the hole shot becomes pretty important. The race gets bottlenecked on the technical stuff. There isn’t much room to pass. You basically want to be able to go incredibly hard to get to it before anyone else and then ride hard enough through it so that you gap riders of lesser skill. Then, you ride hard enough so they can’t catch back on in the less tech sections. Again, depending on the type of racing your friend is into–the technical sections can be the bulk of the course (as with a lot of endurance races) or a very minor portion (as in a lot of the weekly local off road races).
I’ve heard hammer on the open sections recover in the singletrack is the way it goes…but I don’t imagine most racers are taking it easy in the tech sections either.
Your friend would probably get a lot of benefit from threshold work and tempo work to boost his muscular endurance and power at his LT…and a bit of max power work to get some snap in the legs. Though depending on his background and how much base training he’s done, I’d ease into the threshold work and max effort work with some solid base and tempo miles as they can be pretty taxing.
As far as what those power levels/heart rates would be–I imagine a 30-60 minute Citizen MTB race would probably look like Average HR would be in the vicinity of your threshold HR (maybe a bit below). So if your pal is about our age, something like 165-175 on the average…with a lot of spikes up to the high 180s and consistently above 155 or so. Power output…who knows. I’ll venture a guess based on the road racing I’ve done.
I’d be surprised if folks in the Citizen races are holding more than 225 - 250W for 30-60min. And that’d probably be again with a lot of 10-30 second spikes @ ~300-400W with a lot of sustained riding @200-220W and consistently above 180W. Perhaps a couple of 5-10 second efforts @ 600-1000W depending on how strong the riders are (say for a fast start or if you’re trying to outsprint someone at the line).
I’m no coach and my training is all still under heavy development but I’m always happy to talk about it with other cyclists should they be interested in tossing ideas around.
I also thought of a question for you and/or JB–I’ve been trying to work on the various parts of Snatch technique lately and managed to incorporate power snatches into a workout yesterday. They actually felt pretty good with the exception of one thing:
The grip put some stress on my thumb and the muscle on my palm right at the base of my thumb and they were pretty sore at the end of the session. I was using just a standard, overhand grip on the bar spaced pretty wide–maybe 2-3″ beyond those thin marks that are sans knurling.
I guess I’m just curious what a proper hand position for the snatch would be. I know the grip is supposed to be wide, but is there a better way to hold the bar?
I was also thinking about working on the full lift by breaking it down a la some of the crossfit videos I’ve seen. Any thoughts on breaking down the snatch into pieces? Right now, I think getting the bar off of the floor and overhead in full squat is a little beyond me.
Many thanks, my friend.
Jesse,
First, thank you for your biking advice. I showed what you wrote to MountainBiker and he said, “He pretty much hit MtB right-on.” I’ll be calling on your experience in the future, I’m sure.
About the Snatch.
Yeah. Long, extended sets of wide-grip anything hurt my hand in just the way you described. I don’t know of any way around it.
Grip width:
I’m 5′6″ and grip the bar so my ring fingers are on the 81cm mark.
I’ve heard it said that if you are taller than 6′, you should just grip the bar all the way out to the collars.
You, I think, are between 5′6″ and 6′, right? Adjust proportionally, I’d say, and go from there.
Overhand grip is good. A lot of people like the hook grip. It gives a much stronger grip on the bar.
Note, however, this will cause you pain. You will feel like your thumb is going to be ripped off.
That pain will go away (or you will become numb to it) over time. You can also put a skinny single or double wrap of tape around your thumb to protect the skin from abrasion. The tendons will still feel like they’re going to shred, but it should provide some relief for your flesh.
I should now say, I’m not very good at a proper snatch. My power snatch is WAY higher than my full squat snatch. That being said, I’m currently on a three track method of teaching myself to snatch.
Method #1: Do an overhead squat (or several) immediately after a power snatch. Try to increase the weight at which that feels comfortable, and also decrease the catch height.
Method #2: Do Drop Snatches. Start with a snatch grip, bar on your shoulders. Now simply drop into an overhead squat position as quickly as possible. Your arms extend as your body drops between your legs. The bar’s trajectory should be a small, smooth descent.
Method #3: One-arm barbell and dumbbell snatches. I’ve found it’s easier to catch in a full squat one-handed. The balance (or, at least my confidence of my balance) is significantly higher.
Basically, I’m alternating working on all three of those, hoping that the skills will all intersect one day to let me do a proper snatch at some reasonable weight.
Thanks a bunch, man.
I may give the hook grip a roll and see how it feels….but at least it’s good to know that I have a brother in the pain.
All three of your methods sound great. I was definitely thinking about Method 2…and I’d heard you mention Method 1 before…but Method 3 is definitely a new idea. I’m going to give the drop snatches a whirl this weekend and maybe do some one arm work too.
Hope things progress well with Mr. MTB. Someone asked me recently why I don’t race Mountain Bikes. My reply: “It’s too hard.”
Post a Comment