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  In contrast to this remarkably evolved and uniquely human movement, when we swing our leg over a bike and sit in the saddle we are using engineering and mechanical efficiency through the bicycle to aid our movement. We have effectively used our highly evolved brain to create a machine that can get us from A to B even quicker. The engineering masterpiece of the bicycle is the triumph of the human brain over the limitations of our physical body, offering us many benefits not only for transport but also for sport and leisure.

  Body, meet bike

  And so we come to a fundamental human truth; we evolved to walk the earth, not pedal it. And although the invention of the bicycle has given us both a useful method of transport and a fun gadget to play with, taking on board this basic biomechanical fact can help ensure that your cycling has a wholly positive impact on your health and well-being and doesn’t come with any negative side effects. Understanding how the body is designed to move can help you not only stay injury free, but also perform at your best by way of maintaining flexibility and strength parameters that translate to fitness and power on the bike.

  If cycling becomes your only means of exercise in an otherwise sedentary lifestyle, you can encounter problems, and in this chapter I am going to explain why.

  Providing structure, movement and support to the human body, the musculoskeletal system is a term given to the muscles and bones together. Although most musculoskeletal problems are not immediately life threatening, they can significantly affect your quality of life and ability to exercise. Consequently, your musculoskeletal health underpins your ability to move without pain or injury and your potential for optimal physical performance as a cyclist.

  Aside from aches and pains caused by impact injuries, most recurrent niggles are chronic problems caused by changes in muscle length, and subsequent loss of joint mobility and core control. These issues have often taken some time to develop and therefore can take some time to unravel. By the time we have a symptom or ‘pain’ we may be at a tipping point where treatment alone provides only temporary relief and where taking a proactive and considered approach with exercise is essential in order to prevent the problem from worsening.

  It’s true that cycling is ‘kind’ to the body as an exercise option, because it’s ‘low impact’ – which is why many people turn to cycling in the first place. But recurrent muscle or joint problems can stop you riding your bike, something any keen cyclist fears the most. An enforced break from the bike can be inconvenient and depressing, and so learning to protect and nurture your musculoskeletal health is essential if you want to continue riding uninterrupted by common problems.

  Sitting culture, seated sports

  Even the low impact nature of cycling can become a negative influence in the long run for a body designed to have feet making regular contact with the ground. With a well-aligned body and upright spine, the ground forces coming up through the feet as we walk, run and move are a positive stimulus, transmitting force through the springlike mechanisms of the fascia (tissues surrounding and linking the muscles), stimulating positive bone density changes and creating a natural pumping mechanism for the viscera or internal organs, keeping them healthy and mobile.

  Seated on a bicycle our spinal alignment is very different to our upright walking posture. The lumbar curve is reversed, maintaining a flexed position, and the upper back does not rotate and move in its normal manner. In order for us to be able to see where we are going the neck has an excessive inward curve as we look forwards and ahead of us. These deviations from the human ‘norm’ can cause problems when this posture is often repeated without any ‘corrective’ or ‘balancing’ measures to counter the time spent in the saddle.

  Our position on a bike as a posture for prolonged movement represents a significant deviation from the biomechanical or primal ‘norm’ of upright walking, jogging or running.

  In addition to the potential problems caused by cycling itself, most of us now spend an inordinate amount of our time sitting in a chair, another modern shift that negates our evolutionary resting postures such as kneeling, squatting and sitting cross-legged. Under more ‘primitive’ conditions these postures represent an important part of our movement vocabulary and would have helped to keep joints mobile and muscles long.

  Our office-based work culture has long been recognized as problematic for back health, and with ‘work’ now being largely cerebral rather than physical we are encouraged to get our exercise as part of our leisure. While cycling has the advantage of allowing us the freedom to roam in the fresh air as we raise our heart rate, it does not offer the body all of its biological movement requirements.

  Where a seated lifestyle can cause problems of its own, choosing a ‘seated sport’ like cycling as your main mode of exercise adds to them if ‘corrective’ or ‘balancing’ exercises aren’t incorporated into your health and fitness plan.

  The primal patterns and their importance to cyclists

  The human body is an amazingly versatile movement machine. Alongside ‘gait’, all other human movements can be broken down into combinations of squatting, lunging, bending, pushing, pulling and twisting.

  In his book How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy!, Paul Chek explains the significance of these ‘primal pattern movements’ like this:

  If you couldn’t correctly perform these seven movement patterns quickly and effectively without thinking about what your body was doing, you probably wouldn’t survive in the wild. Even though our lifestyle is very different from our developmental ancestors, these seven movement patterns are still key to performing daily tasks and staying injury free. (Chek, 2004)

  Many sports still rely on these movement patterns in developing the athletes’ ability to play the game. Rugby players, for example, who run, throw and tackle as part of their training, incorporate many of the primal patterns as part of their conditioning. A sport like rugby allows the human body to maintain the kind of physical conditioning that would have been part of our daily lives as more primitive human beings. The human athlete is on his/her feet, moving in short bursts in multiple directions, generating force from the ground up to throw, tackle, push and pull.

  In general, we are designed for short bursts of strength-based activity interspersed with light activity or rest. In terms of ‘primal endurance’, walking or jogging would have been the main mode of movement, with long-distance endurance running becoming useful and specialized in certain circumstances.

  Functional strength basics for cyclists

  The word ‘functional’ is used widely in health and fitness to describe an ability to perform daily tasks effectively and problem free. In a sporting context it is also used to describe your ability to carry out the athletic demands of the sport.

  In this book, the ‘primal patterns’ form the functional foundation that will keep you pain and injury free and help you excel as a cyclist. In practical terms you will see them in Chapter 3, illustrating essential strength exercises for cyclists.

  Although modern lifestyles are fairly sedentary, lifting, carrying and moving objects are still common movements that everyone will encounter and need to manage in order to avoid injury. Sports people engaged in activities that require strength as part of the game will be aware of their strength and conditioning status by way of their performance. To continue the rugby analogy, most players will be lifting and moving weights in the gym in addition to their sport-specific drills on the field to facilitate better performance. Most people (including cyclists) who are not engaged in fitness training of this type will only become aware of their lack of conditioning when they become injured, often when they have to lift, move or carry something heavy unexpectedly.

  Many sports like rugby have inherent ‘functional strength’ elements included in them, but endurance sports like cycling are highly repetitive and relatively ‘low load’, negating the core stimulus of ground forces while developing the cardiovascular system or ‘engine’ in relative isolation.

  Lots of people who love cycling a
re not naturally ‘sporty’ types. They often report that they were not good at sports at school because they lacked the natural strength, coordination and speed required for more ‘functional’ sports like rugby or hockey. They may have started to ride a bike later in life to commute to work, and then almost accidentally found themselves riding further and faster and enjoying cycling as a sport and pastime in itself.

  Even those who consider themselves ‘endurance athletes’ will often have specialized quite early to the detriment of developing more varied movement abilities and motor programmes, and will therefore be disadvantaged in terms of strength. For example, like many others I know, I went from being a competitive swimmer to being a competitive cyclist, and aside from the few hours of more general PE at school, my feet never really touched the ground.

  General conditioning vs cycling specific training

  Several physiological and theoretical arguments have held cyclists back from pursuing conditioning exercise off the bike as part of their training.

  At its extreme, the ‘sport-specific training’ proposition suggests that any time spent on more ‘general’ conditioning activities takes up valuable cycling time and represents a distraction at best and a detrimental influence at worse.

  The main thrust of this theoretical and practical approach is supported by established sports science, which proves that performance on the bike is largely determined by the physiology of your cardiovascular system or aerobic ‘engine’, and therefore the bulk of training should be spent targeting these elements through the cycling movements themselves. This allows for maximal adaptation of not only the central cardiovascular systems of the heart and lungs, but also all the peripheral changes that occur at the muscular and cellular levels as you pedal.

  In light of this physiological understanding, strength training could be considered counterproductive for several reasons. Firstly, since strength is not a primary determinant of cycling performance, there seems little benefit to be gained from time spent on it, especially for ‘amateur’ cyclists for whom time is precious.

  Secondly, there is the fear that strength training will result in muscle development and bulk that will diminish performance by way of making the cyclist heavier. In a sport where your ‘power to weight’ ratio is highly relevant when you point your bike uphill, there is real legitimacy to this reasoning.

  Finally, even when considering the strength elements of cycling that are notable for all cyclists, such as seated and standing climbing and sprinting, there is the argument that off-the-bike conditioning is not specific enough, because the movements involved (such as pushing, pulling and squatting) do not have any direct ‘carry over’ to cycling.

  In this book I will show you that most of the benefits of the ‘primal pattern’ strength training (together with corrective stretching and core work) are indirect. That is to say, they benefit the cyclist by way of maintaining human ‘norms’ that prevent injury both on and off the bike rather than directly improving cycling fitness. These indirect benefits include better health, greater consistency and robustness in training, and a more linear progression.

  Having said that, I fully understand the need for specialization in training to become a ‘cyclist’, and I am not suggesting that ‘general conditioning’ becomes the main focus of any cyclist’s training programme. However, I am suggesting that this overspecialization can lead to problems that can easily be prevented with a little time spent on off-the-bike essentials. This is where a corrective or balancing approach comes into its own, by introducing the essential conditioning that will keep you functionally fit both on and off the bike, in the minimum time.

  Essentials of on- and off-the-bike training

  In recognizing the physiological importance of sport-specific training, to consider yourself a ‘cyclist’ most of your training time should be spent on the bike, refining your cycling-specific aerobic fitness and movement patterns. For this reason, I would suggest that two-thirds to three-quarters of the time you spend exercising per week should be spent on the bike. The remaining quarter to a third should be spent on conditioning work, focused on improving those elements that you lack the most.

  Cycling movements are very different from those that I am about to introduce, and there are some specific strength requirements that must be developed on the bike itself, where you are pushing harder on the flats, climbing in and out of the saddle, or sprinting as hard as you can. I want to make it clear that these elements are essential to achieving your peak potential as a cyclist, and become particularly important in semi-competitive or competitive situations. The off-the-bike essential conditioning in this book provides the foundation for the sport-specific strength and skill that must then be developed on the bike to maximize your potential gains.

  On-the-bike strengthening techniques and practices are outside the scope of this book, but are an essential part of an optimal training programme. I will hint at where these elements fit in throughout Chapter 6 on periodization and planning.

  For now, I want to introduce each of the primal patterns since they are so important and provide a framework for the biological norms or standards we should all be aiming for. I will illustrate in brief some of the day-to-day activities that require these movements, and highlight the problems and injuries that might develop from deconditioning. Later, in the essential strength section of Chapter 3, I will show you how to train them yourself.

  Squatting

  Squatting is essentially any sitting movement.

  In day-to-day situations, its most common use would be in combination with a bend to lift an object off the ground and move it forwards or overhead. It is important to maintain an inwards curve of the lower back. This approach to lifting/moving weight is also referred to as a ‘neutral spine philosophy’ and will be discussed further in the strength section of Chapter 3.

  In terms of ‘sport-specific’ carry-over, the squat forms the foundation for standing/sprinting power on the bike, as it is the foundational movement for any ‘jump’. Squat work can be dovetailed with cycling-specific accelerations or ‘jumps’ to translate gains in strength to speed and power on the bike, particularly for accelerations out of the saddle, either on the flat or uphill.

  Bending

  A relaxed bend posture relies on the passive flexibility of the ‘posterior chain’ of muscles and tissues to reach the ground, while saving energy in the muscles of the legs. If you can’t touch the ground with straight legs you have lost some of your flexibility in the bend.

  Flexion dominance is a term used to describe the movement bias in most people’s daily lives towards forwards bending or flexion. Where backwards bending (or extension) is not part of our daily vocabulary, problems can develop because we can become unbalanced.

  A bending movement is one that allows us to pick objects off the ground or below us, or reach for something by leaning forwards.

  Under light loads a straight-legged bend saves energy in the leg muscles and relies on the elasticity of the fascia (connective tissue) along the back of the body.

  Lifting/moving a heavier load off the ground requires a different bend movement, using slightly bent legs to recruit the hip muscles (buttocks) to support and share the load with the back, and working with the lumbar spine as ‘neutral’ as possible.

  To distinguish between the squat and bend, in a squat the load is above your centre of gravity, while in a bend it is below. In the squat a knee bend initiates the movement and the torso stays relatively upright, while in the bend a tipping at the hips/back initiates the movement and the knees bend as a secondary motion.

  Range of movement in bending is often inhibited by shortened hamstring muscles at the back of the thigh, a common consequence of sedentary lifestyles and a lot of time spent sitting in chairs. A bend combined with a twist is the most common movement that injures the lower back due to lack of conditioning, for example by lifting things awkwardly off the floor or out of a car.

  For cyclists who experience lower b
ack ache with riding of any kind, or even worse experience the onset of neurological symptoms (weakness or shooting pains) when riding, a close look at deficits in flexibility or strength in the ‘bend’ pattern is critical.

  Of all the ‘primal patterns’, I would say a deficit in your ability to bend is most likely to cause injury and diminish your performance on the bike. A deficit may be anywhere along the spectrum of flexibility, core stability and strength, or most likely a combination of all three interrelated elements. This is why you will see many exercises in this book that ‘correct’ for this most common dysfunction by way of both strengthening the back in a backwards bend and also lengthening the hamstrings.

  Lunging

  Lunging movements are those involving a step or stride with one foot in front of the other where both legs bend and one foot leaves the ground.

  A lunge is less stable than a squat or bend, but more versatile when linking other movements and is common in many sports and games that require a rapid change of direction when running around the field or court.

  A lunge often connects force between the legs and upper body through the core when combined with a twist, transmitting force from the ground up, and expressing it through the torso and arms. In conditioning terms, the ‘typical’ lunge is forwards, but a lunge can be multidirectional too, moving the body or force backwards or sideways or somewhere in between.

  A ‘split squat’ is a more controlled, less dynamic version of the same movement, where both feet stay on the ground and the torso moves up and down. A split squat can be used to create more balanced strength in the movement before adding power and pace in the more dynamic ‘sporting’ lunge.

  Lunging before you have a good grounding in a ‘split squat’ can be aggravating for those not used to the deceleration forces involved, or for those with a ‘quad dominant’ muscle imbalance pattern. Cyclists often fall into this category, and so for these reasons I have chosen to include the split squat rather than the lunge in Chapter 3 on essential strength exercises for cyclists.