Depending on your goals you can choose how many plates are you going to put on the barbell. For trials its best to use 80%-100% of 1 rep max. This will help you to get your strength levels up quickly and also heavy squats and deadlifts are perfect for boosting your testosterone levels which will help you with all the other lifts and burning fat/gaining muscle whatever your goals are.
If you think youre already quite strong and lack in explosive speed its better to use about 50%-80% of your 1RM. This weight range is more for strenght-speed.
25%-50% is best for speed-strength, now you will get more speed than strength out of your training.
And for pure speed training its up to 25% of your 1RM, this will already be pretty much like plyometrics.
20inchdude on OTN.com said that he is doing longer sets because that should help him with long sections. For the endurance in sections its best to ride sections and if you feel that isnt enough you could try HIIT training. In the gym I would concentrate on getting your lifts up. For this its best to use 1-5 reps per set for bigger compound lifts like squat, deadlift and benchpress and 8-12 reps for assistance work (dips, curls, tricep extensions etc.)
For calves and abs you can do 15-20 reps as these muscles are in work the whole day and need some more volume.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Most important bodyparts in trials
When I was at the worlds in Canberra, watching the 26" elite I heard 2 guys talking.
1: "hey look how high they can jump, they must have really powerful legs!"
2: "it seems like they use their lower back more"
and that is absolutely true, watch any trials video and you can see that the lower back gets a lot more range of movement than legs.
Ill use a picture of Damon Watson here to explain it a little better
You can clearly see how much movement the lower back gets.
The best exercises to get your lower back more powerful are squats and even better are deadlifts. Most trials riders can deadlift quite a lot even when they have never been in the gym, because riding has made it a lot stronger.
Next is legs and upper back. Legs arent used as much as lower back but they are still very important, like in vertical jump.
About the upper back, lats are very important because they help you to pull the handlebar towards you. If your lower back and legs are super strong but your lats cant keep up with them you wont be jumping very high. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. To improve them the best exercises are pullups and barbell rows, and hold the bar about as wide as you hold your bikes handlebar.
So the most important bodyparts in trials are:
1. lower back
2. upper back and legs (TRA says that front squats are even better to improve legs because then you will get more work for quads)
3. forearms, bicep, tricep (for forearms you dont need to do extra work when you are already deadlifting and doing weighted pullups but you can if you want to)
4. everything else
1: "hey look how high they can jump, they must have really powerful legs!"
2: "it seems like they use their lower back more"
and that is absolutely true, watch any trials video and you can see that the lower back gets a lot more range of movement than legs.
Ill use a picture of Damon Watson here to explain it a little better
You can clearly see how much movement the lower back gets.
The best exercises to get your lower back more powerful are squats and even better are deadlifts. Most trials riders can deadlift quite a lot even when they have never been in the gym, because riding has made it a lot stronger.
Next is legs and upper back. Legs arent used as much as lower back but they are still very important, like in vertical jump.
About the upper back, lats are very important because they help you to pull the handlebar towards you. If your lower back and legs are super strong but your lats cant keep up with them you wont be jumping very high. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. To improve them the best exercises are pullups and barbell rows, and hold the bar about as wide as you hold your bikes handlebar.
So the most important bodyparts in trials are:
1. lower back
2. upper back and legs (TRA says that front squats are even better to improve legs because then you will get more work for quads)
3. forearms, bicep, tricep (for forearms you dont need to do extra work when you are already deadlifting and doing weighted pullups but you can if you want to)
4. everything else
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Squats and Vertical Jump
You have probably heard about rocket engines something like that "this rocket engine can produce 3 000 000kg of force/thrust" that much energy is needed to get a heavy rocket in air.
You dont need that much force to get your body off the ground though. But bodyweight and how much force you can make in as short time as possible is still important in jumping. If you would make that rocket lighter or would make the engine even more powerful, would it go faster and higher?
What about making your engine more powerful? Would you jump higher if you can produce more force in the same amount of time? Yes you would, if you weight 80kg and can squat 160kg in like 0.4 seconds then think how fast will you move when you just need to move your bodyweight only.
Some people in the gym squat slowly up and down. When you want to get more powerful then you should go up as fast as you can, like you do when jumping.
So if you want to improve your vertical jump go and squat, for power use the weight which is about 80-90% of your 1 rep max and do short sets, 5 reps is used by many athletes. Improve your squat to bodyweight ratio and you will see yourself going higher and higher. About 1.5x bodyweight squat is something you should aim as your first goal.
for motivation check this guy out, he can squat more than 3x his bodyweight and has probably the highest vertical jump in the world currently. 50"/125cm standing vertical....
You dont need that much force to get your body off the ground though. But bodyweight and how much force you can make in as short time as possible is still important in jumping. If you would make that rocket lighter or would make the engine even more powerful, would it go faster and higher?
What about making your engine more powerful? Would you jump higher if you can produce more force in the same amount of time? Yes you would, if you weight 80kg and can squat 160kg in like 0.4 seconds then think how fast will you move when you just need to move your bodyweight only.
Some people in the gym squat slowly up and down. When you want to get more powerful then you should go up as fast as you can, like you do when jumping.
So if you want to improve your vertical jump go and squat, for power use the weight which is about 80-90% of your 1 rep max and do short sets, 5 reps is used by many athletes. Improve your squat to bodyweight ratio and you will see yourself going higher and higher. About 1.5x bodyweight squat is something you should aim as your first goal.
for motivation check this guy out, he can squat more than 3x his bodyweight and has probably the highest vertical jump in the world currently. 50"/125cm standing vertical....
Thursday, October 22, 2009
About jumping in the sport of biketrial
Ever watched some videos where riders sidehop shoulder height walls and pedal up even more? Well I have and I did some research, read some books and tons of articles on the net + talked with some riders who really can get their bike on shoulder height walls.
Well the answer is quite simple F=m*v
so lighter riders seem to be much faster than the heavier ones who can jump the same height.
As jumping takes less than a second you dont have much time to achieve your top speed, so you need to be as explosive as possible. So how do you do it? Well the best way to get better at something is to practice doing it but if that isnt good enough for you and you want faster results then you need to find out what is your weak spot and improve it. If you ride your bike a lot then the problem shouldnt be explosiveness and you dont need to do much or any plyometrics as trials is a plyometric activity too.
Well most riders like me has a lack of raw power and the easiest way to improve your strength is to lift. Riders like TRA and Damon Watson had been lifting so I thought why not to try it out and the results were amazing. I improved my sidehop height 4-5inches with 4 months without even riding.
If youre interested in lifting weights for trials and dont know where to start then you should at first learn some techniques of the main compound lifts as they will be the ones you will do most of the time.
search how to squat and deadlift from youtube. These are the main 2 excercises you need to improve. Also the upperback is very important, especially lats as these muscles help you to pull your handlebar(check out a vid of DamonW and you will notice how fast he pulls the handlebars while sidehopping) perfect excercises to improve your upperback are pull ups, weighted pull ups and barbell rows. I dont suggest using the pulldown machine or any other machines, the best is to use free weights because then you will use all the smaller muscles instead of focusing just one muscle.
Anyway when you have been going to the gym for a few weeks and can safely perform squats and deadlifts you could try this workout for about 5-6 weeks if youre a beginner and see by yourself how much you have improved your sidehop height.
The program is designed by Mark Rippetoe who is one of the most famous strenght trainers in the world. I did some minor changes to make it suit to trials more.
Week 1:
Monday - Workout A
Wednesday -Workout B
Friday - Workout A
Week 2:
Monday - Workout B
Wednesday - Workout A
Friday - Workout B
Note: This doesn’t include warm-up sets
Workout A
3x5 Squat
3x5 Bench Press
1x5 Deadlift
**2x8 Dips
Workout B
3x5 Squat
3x5 Standing military press
3x5 barbell rows
**2x8 pull-ups
for the weights you should be using as much weight as you can and put on more weight every week (like +2.5kg or if thats too much then a bit less)
and its better to start with a bit lower weights and slowly go up than to start too heavy and stall quickly
Well the answer is quite simple F=m*v
so lighter riders seem to be much faster than the heavier ones who can jump the same height.
As jumping takes less than a second you dont have much time to achieve your top speed, so you need to be as explosive as possible. So how do you do it? Well the best way to get better at something is to practice doing it but if that isnt good enough for you and you want faster results then you need to find out what is your weak spot and improve it. If you ride your bike a lot then the problem shouldnt be explosiveness and you dont need to do much or any plyometrics as trials is a plyometric activity too.
Well most riders like me has a lack of raw power and the easiest way to improve your strength is to lift. Riders like TRA and Damon Watson had been lifting so I thought why not to try it out and the results were amazing. I improved my sidehop height 4-5inches with 4 months without even riding.
If youre interested in lifting weights for trials and dont know where to start then you should at first learn some techniques of the main compound lifts as they will be the ones you will do most of the time.
search how to squat and deadlift from youtube. These are the main 2 excercises you need to improve. Also the upperback is very important, especially lats as these muscles help you to pull your handlebar(check out a vid of DamonW and you will notice how fast he pulls the handlebars while sidehopping) perfect excercises to improve your upperback are pull ups, weighted pull ups and barbell rows. I dont suggest using the pulldown machine or any other machines, the best is to use free weights because then you will use all the smaller muscles instead of focusing just one muscle.
Anyway when you have been going to the gym for a few weeks and can safely perform squats and deadlifts you could try this workout for about 5-6 weeks if youre a beginner and see by yourself how much you have improved your sidehop height.
The program is designed by Mark Rippetoe who is one of the most famous strenght trainers in the world. I did some minor changes to make it suit to trials more.
Week 1:
Monday - Workout A
Wednesday -Workout B
Friday - Workout A
Week 2:
Monday - Workout B
Wednesday - Workout A
Friday - Workout B
Note: This doesn’t include warm-up sets
Workout A
3x5 Squat
3x5 Bench Press
1x5 Deadlift
**2x8 Dips
Workout B
3x5 Squat
3x5 Standing military press
3x5 barbell rows
**2x8 pull-ups
for the weights you should be using as much weight as you can and put on more weight every week (like +2.5kg or if thats too much then a bit less)
and its better to start with a bit lower weights and slowly go up than to start too heavy and stall quickly
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)