Synaptic

I came to a crossroad this afternoon.  After I got home from my ride I found myself with a bit of time before I needed to join Sam in the kitchen and begin preparing the main entree for the Hammer Camp, "Crank Crackin' Quinoa".  I could've spent my free time cleaning and fixing up one of last year's race bikes to get it ready to sell (it is after all time to clean-out the stable and make room for the new steeds) or I could write a blog post.  Naturally I chose the easiest one, and hence this post.

I had a good ride today out to the northwest of Tucson.  Here's a view of the Catalina's, home to the infamous Mount Lemmon (a 27 mile steady climb from 3000 ft to over 8000).  You can even see some snow up there.


After the ride I did my Synaptic Training.  I'll explain what that is, but first, let me give you a brief history of my weight lifting experience.

When I first started seriously training for races I got started by buying a copy of Joel Friel's "Mountain Bike Training Bible".  This is a heck of a book and I still refer to it every once and awhile.  In it he outlines an off-season/early season weight lifting program which involves a lot of squating, leg presses, and quad lifts.  Since I played some football in high school and got really into weight lifting I easily adapted to this lifting program.  However, after doing it for several years I never realized any direct benifit and so I completley stopped any sort of lifting program.

I knew this wasn't a good solution though and this year I pursued another avenue to build strength.  I met Darrin Permenter at several races last year and knew that he was a Certified Physical Therapist (NSCA-CPT) and had talked with him about off-the-bike training.  In January I figured it would be worth a phone call to Darrin to just talk with him about some strength options for cyclists.  Knowing that he was a pretty dang good mountain bike rider himself, he would be sauvy to the needs of a bike racer like me.  Several days after our conversation I had a training plan in hand and began to spend about 40 minutes, 6 days a week on some strength training after my ride.

The strength training is like nothing I have ever done.  It begins with some dynamic stretches targeted around the hips and core.  Then I move into some odd-looking, but effective jumping exerecies to increase my elasticity and explosive strength.  After that I spend most of my time lifting weights, but in an enterirley different way than I ever have.  Instead of lifting a lot of weight, the focus is on the movement and number of reps.  When I have become strong enough that a movement becomes easy, instead of increasing the amount of weight, I increase the amount of instability, forcing more of those stabalizing muscles into the movement.  This is really effective in increasing the difficulty of the movement and I haven't found myself wanting any more weight than my 15 lbs dumbbells.

Here's a good example of a progression I go through.  First, start with a push-up.  Take three seconds to lower yourself down, pause for one second, and then explode back to the top.  Repeat.  When that becomes too easy, do the pushup on a physio ball, following the same tempo.  You'll find yourself fighting the ball, doing everything you can to stay stable so you can do the pushup.  When that becomes too easy then do the pushup on the physio ball but lift one leg off the ground.  There will be even more instablity.

Darrin's been talioring my plan to the demands of cycling.  If you think about riding your bike, your body is basically moving in two seperate planes.  First, your upper body is pushing and pulling on the bars and second, your legs are moving in a circular plane, up and down.  Your core is in between and is used to isolate those movements.  We've been working on strengthing both these planes of movement and my core.  In addition, the instability has caused me to begin using some muscles that I have never used before and they are now firing when I ride my bike and more muscles firing means more strength going into the pedals.

It has been great to do some work off the bike and almost immediately see its positive impacts on my cycling.  I think the work I'm doing with Darrin is not only going to be good for my cycling but will be good for my health overall.  It has never been a bad thing to be more flexible, more balanced, and stronger.  If you are interested in pursuing a program like this, and you should be for your overall health, you can get in touch with Darrin through his website:  Synaptic Training.  The website is new so there isn't much info on it but his contact information is there.  He also does VO2 Max and Lactate Threshold Testing, and programs design for all kinds of sports other than cycling.

We'll it's past time to begin working on dinner so I should get to it.