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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of using Isometric Training to improve your health and fitness. I’ve posted a lot of articles, podcasts and videos going over how mountain bikers can use this powerful training tool in their programs. But I’m not the only one out there who is obsessed with spreading the word about Isometric Training. There’s a man who has been working tirelessly over the last several years to get isometrics into the training programs of weekend warriors and high level...

Isometrics are one of the most effective training tools in your toolbox. They are effective, safe and have a lot of research behind them.  They are also extremely versatile. You can use them in different ways to accomplish different goals, including getting stronger, helping you prepare for a better workout and making your regular exercises harder and more effective. I recorded a video/ podcast sharing 3 ways that you can use isometrics to help you get better results from your training...

For a lot of riders an off season is forced on them by the local riding conditions. However, this definition of an off season gets really blurry when a rider lives somewhere that they can ride year round or they are able to get out in less-than-ideal weather (fatbikes, inclement weather riding gear). Because they aren’t forced to stop or cut back on their riding, for these riders the term has to take on a different meaning if they want to get the benefits of an off season (and yes, there are...

One of the best things about mountain biking is that it allows you to get away from civilization and out into nature in a way that nothing else can. The ability to cover a lot of ground and do it in a human powered way means that we can get to places and enjoy trails that not everyone can. And while this is one of the things that draws a lot of us to riding, it also presents a unique danger that not many riders really consider. The truth is that most mountain bikers are woefully unprepared to...

One of my favorite people in the mountain biking world is the legend Ryan Leech. Ryan spent decades changing what we thought was possible on a bike and has shared his passion for riding through in person coaching and his coaching website https://www.rlc-mtb.com. I’ve had Ryan on several times and he always brings a unique and interesting perspective on our sport and how to improve your skills and mindset. In this podcast we talk about the impact of social media on mountain biking, how...

If you haven’t done it already then this is the year that you need to start making strength training a priority for improving your MTB specific fitness. Improving your strength can help your fitness, your skills and your ability to walk away from a wreck. But not just any type of strength training program will do if you want to see results from your off season training and have them stick around until the end of the riding season. While a lot of riders assume that since we use a lot of cardio...

One of the best experiences of my coaching career was being able to work with Aaron Gwin at the beginning of his riding career. I had a connection with Rich Houseman, who “discovered” Aaron at a local SoCal DH race. Rich called me and told me that I needed to start helping this kid because he was going to be great. I had the chance to work with Aaron for about 3.5 years, before he was a sponsored rider and then through his time with Yeti. Aaron was actually the reason that the Yeti team hired...

One of the things that I’m known for is that I am a big advocate for standing pedaling. In a sport where riders are told to use seated pedaling - particularly high RPM seated pedaling - as much as possible the advice to stand up more really surprises some riders. My opinion on the subject comes from my background in functional movement and how to best apply it to the bike. It also comes from understanding where the “sit and spin” advice comes from and why it is flawed if you apply some...

Something that I try hard to get riders to understand is that everything they do starts with their breathing habits. How you breath affects not only your cardio and endurance but also how well you move and can execute your skills on the bike. If you have bad breathing habits then the easiest thing you can do to improve your performance is to fix those bad habits. You didn’t start out with bad breathing habits and your body wants to breathe in a more efficient and effective way if you give it...

Mountain biking is a great sport but it also isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s a tough, grinding activity that demands a level of toughness from the people who do it that no other cycling sport does. A drawback to being tough, though, is not paying enough attention to injuries. Ignoring injuries or using painkillers like Tylenol to mask them isn’t an effective long term strategy.  You also don’t want to use injuries as an excuse to stop training and do nothing. If you want to ride for a...

I was working out with my daughter this morning and we were talking about how I was her age when I started to get serious about strength training. I told her that while I had “worked out” for a few years before turning 16 and getting my license, it mainly consisted of periodically sneaking into the local rec center with some friends and hitting the weight room 5 times in one day. I didn’t have a way to be more consistent but that changed when I got my license. After that I got a membership to...