Perhaps no term gets thrown around more when talking about riding your bike than “body position”. It is recognized as being an essential part of your riding skills and performance, but what does the term really mean? For something so important there is a lot of confusion surrounding it. Do you want to be in a low “attack position” or in more of an upright “throne position”? Do you want your weight on your feet with little to no weight on your hands or do you want to have weight and pressure thro...
Oct 25, 2024•24 min•Ep. 126
If you have followed my newsletter for any length of time then you know that I am a huge advocate for better breathing habits. Breathing is the one lever that you can pull that will improve just about everything you do on the bike, including cardio, strength and even your skills. As important as it is, though, few riders really focus on it as part of their training program. The good news is that it doesn’t take a lot of time and you don’t need fancy equipment. In fact, a great way to train your ...
Oct 12, 2024•12 min•Ep. 125
As you get older dealing with pain becomes more and more of a reality. Old injuries flare up, wear and tear add up and it all leads to more and more pain. Pain leads to time off or even surgeries and surgeries definitely lead to time off. Time off leads to loss of fitness and motivation which can lead to quitting. So one of the best strategies for riding for a lifetime is to do everything you can to address pain early and to prevent it from getting worse. Prevention is the best plan of all becau...
Sep 12, 2024•37 min•Ep. 124
While most people come into mountain biking worried about their fitness and cardio, it doesn’t take long to realize that your technical skills play a big role in your performance. Better skills mean you can ride faster and waste less energy, as well as helping keep you safe. Over the last several years skills training has become extremely popular, with countless videos showing you how to improve your skills and a lot of skills camps popping up. In fact, if you’re reading this then I’d bet money ...
Sep 05, 2024•28 min•Ep. 123
When I started MTB Strength Training Systems in 2005 I did it so I could share how functional strength training could help my fellow riders enjoy riding more. I was 30 at the time and my focus was on helping riders maximize their performance, which led to my involvement with several pro riders and teams. 10 years later I turned 40 and found my priorities changing. Now I was interested in longevity as well as performance and I was finding that my old training methods weren't having the same effec...
Jun 24, 2024•32 min•Ep. 122
Over the last 5-10 years my cardio training program has changed a lot. My old plan was to ride 5+ days a week and hit some hard intervals after my workouts. But now I can’t ride as much as I used to and my body can’t take the wear and tear of hard interval training for very long. With this new reality I’ve found myself using different training methods that I did in the past to not only keep me fit for trail riding but also to improve my health and longevity. I’ve posted some podcasts and blog po...
May 17, 2024•55 min•Ep. 121
When it comes to building MTB specific cardio, the best method is to actually ride your bike - that is the most sport specific training you can do. However, there are times when you can’t ride as much as you would like or you want to focus on specific qualities that you need on the trail but don’t use enough on the trail to continue to improve. There are also health benefits that you can get from a smart conditioning program that you can’t get from riding alone. This means that if you want to ma...
Apr 26, 2024•45 min•Ep. 120
Low Back Pain is one of the most common things that riders suffer from both on and off the bike. It can ruin the good time that mountain biking is supposed to provide for us and in extreme cases can even make riders quit riding. Even more frustrating is that there doesn’t seem to be a consistent, predictable pattern with low back pain and it is often a mystery as to the specific underlying cause. But if you ignore it then it tends to get worse until you have to deal with it. I have experience wi...
Mar 08, 2024•42 min•Ep. 119
As you get older, strength training changes from a “good to do” to a “must do” status. Losing your strength, muscle and power are all realities for the 40+ year old rider and strength training is the best way to slow that process down. This is the #1 tactic for riders who want to do this for a lifetime - get and stay strong and you’ll avoid age-related physical decline for as long as possible. Plus, improving your strength, power and muscle mass can help improve performance and reduce your risk ...
Feb 16, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 118
In this episode of the Riding For A Lifetime Podcast I share with you my morning routine that helps me set my day on a good trajectory. Maximizing your health and longevity becomes a big priority as you get older. You can get away with abusing your body in your 20’s and still being able to get after it but if you want to be able to perform well on a consistent basis into your 40’s and beyond you have to start making good daily habits a part of your routine. Over the last several years I’ve devel...
Jan 27, 2024•30 min•Ep. 117
The term “MTB Specific Training” gets thrown around a lot but what does it really mean? At its core, it means using a training program that helps you ride faster, longer and with more skill. While the most “MTB specific” thing you can do is to actually ride your bike, there are certainly things you can do off of the bike that can help. In the gym this takes the form of strength training that improves your strength and movement quality in ways that help your riding. Strength is one of the more ge...
Dec 08, 2023•41 min•Ep. 116
In this podcast I wanted to share my experience with meditation for mountain biking. I’ve been meditating in some way since I was first introduced to it through a Tai Chi class I took in college and I’ve found it to be a powerful tool in helping me perform better. You can also read a summary article from the notes for the podcast below… Meditation is one of those words that elicits a pretty mixed reaction from people when you bring it up. Some people are totally into it, some people think it is ...
Nov 19, 2023•47 min•Ep. 115
Something that I try to impress on my kids is the importance of being able to admit when you are wrong and make a change. Too often we spend our time trying to justify why we do what we do rather than trying to challenge it and see if it holds up. But that isn’t how we grow. There is a saying about how there is a difference between 10 years of experience and the same year of experience repeated 10 times. For too many people they end up repeating the same things over and over and never really gro...
Nov 10, 2023•53 min•Ep. 114
Something that I think is hard to have a conversation about Riding For A Lifetime without touching on is the subject of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). HRT has gotten a lot more popular over the last few years and is something that I think the 40+ year old rider should consider. To be honest, HRT is something I resisted for a long time. I felt like it was cheating and if I couldn’t do it “naturally” then I didn’t deserve it. However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve had a few things change my mind. ...
Nov 03, 2023•34 min•Ep. 113
Core Strength and Core Training are two buzzwords that dominate discussions around improving your MTB specific fitness in the gym. It is pretty widely recognized that having a strong core can help improve your performance and prevent injuries but what is Core Strength and what is the best Core Training? In this episode of the Riding For A Lifetime Podcast I cover core training for the 40+ year old rider. While a lot of the things I discuss are just good core training strategies, I look at them t...
Oct 27, 2023•37 min•Ep. 112
Since turning 40 over 7 years ago I’ve realized that my training priorities have to change. I’ve been talking more about the concept of Riding For A Lifetime to help give those new priorities a name. I’ve decided to change the focus of my podcast to focus on these new priorities and have renamed it the Riding For A Lifetime Podcast. With it I’ll be sharing training advice and interviewing experts in the field of improving performance while also improving your “healthspan”. I got this idea from r...
Oct 20, 2023•30 min•Ep. 111
While pretty much anyone who has ridden a mountain bike realizes that grip strength is extremely important, it is a widely misunderstood subject when it comes to how to best improve it for the demands of trail riding. This has led to an epidemic of riders who lack the functional grip strength needed to most effectively - and safely - interact with their bike through their hands. This shows up as wrist pain, hand numbness, elbow issues and reliance on “winged grips” to secure the hands on the han...
Apr 04, 2023•36 min•Ep. 110
I have a special guest for today’s podcast. Steve Maxwell is one of the most influential people in my strength coaching philosophy and has been responsible for a lot of “aha” moments for me that have helped improve my training programs. I’ve been following Steve for well over a decade, first as a leader in the kettlebell community and later as an expert on training for a lifetime. He has been a part of the physical culture of this country for 50+ years and knows a thing or two about how to keep ...
Feb 02, 2023•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 109
While we all breathe, few of us are conscious of it and the impact that it has on our performance and health. This is unfortunate because how you breathe is an important factor and most of you reading this have one or more breathing dysfunctions. One of the most common is Overbreathing. This is where you breathe more than is necessary to meet your metabolic needs, breathing in more Oxygen (O2) and breathing out more Carbon Dioxide (CO2) than is necessary. While this may not seem like a big deal,...
Jan 31, 2023•14 min•Ep. 108
Over the last few years I’ve had my eyes opened to the importance of medical training in case of an emergency. Most of us are never exposed to the realities of incurring a serious injury on the trail and few are really prepared to do anything if something happens. It doesn’t take much for a ride to go from fun and casual to a potential life and death situation. And even if it isn’t a life and death situation right away, a few bad breaks and things can go from bad to worse pretty quickly as well....
Jan 26, 2023•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 107
