If the Taint Ain't Healthy Then You Ain't Healthy

I recently stopped into the bike shop where I put in some occasional hours of work and got to talking with a fellow rider that I hadn't seen in awhile. As with any two cyclists who haven't seen each other in awhile the question arose, "have you been riding much?". To my dismay, he told me hadn't been due to a medical condition. It turns out that he had gotten an abscess in his perineum region (I'm guessing it was a Bartholin gland abscess) and had had surgery to remove it. This surgery had left an open cavity that he had to have packed with new gauze and bandages every morning by medical personal at the medical clinic. Yet another riding friend I know through the shop has told me on multiple occasions about his buddy who almost died from a staph infection that started, oddly enough, from a saddle sore. Both scenarios are scary stuff. Besides the obvious reasons, if you are a serious/competitive cyclist, conditions like this will keep you off the bike for a good long while. Basically kiss a season of racing good bye.

So obviously my friend's abscess didn't spontaneously manifest itself. There were certain things that came into play before hand that could have caused his ailment. First of all he started seeing symptoms after he had been on a week long bike tour. During the tour he had ridden a lot of miles and had been in a pair of bibs for a significant amount of time. Its tough to say if anyone of these factors or whether all of them together contributed to what happened, the important thing to realize is that cyclists should take good care of that area of the body that comes in contact with the chamois. All to often cyclists, myself included, overlook this aspect of cycling health and problems arise. Abscesses might be one extreme, but saddle sores, ingrown hairs, staph infections and acne can all occur in the chamois area. I know because I've experienced most of them.

For the most part, from my perspective, chamois area health consists of two main factors. Avoiding chafing and hygiene. It is important to not allow for chafing and abrasion in the chamois area. Abrasion leaves the skin open to infection by bacteria. When avoiding chafing look for comfortable shorts that fit well. Unfortunately, its hard to know if you've found a pair of shorts that are winners until you've put a good long ride in them. One thing I would suggest, is avoid putting long rides in on an old chamois. Their lifespan is finite. Another anti-chafing aspect involves chamois cream, I personally never use it, but a lot of my friends swear by it. Chamois cream works by providing lubrication between the skin and the chamois. There is all different types at all price ranges, but the brand that seems to be the most in favor with the cyclists I know is Assos. It is also by far the most expensive cream that I've seen. Also, with comfort, can't forget to consider your seat. I've always heard the the softer and squishier the seat the more potential there is for chafing. Which might sound counter intuitive, but trust me, you won't ever see a Tour rider with a big fat gel seat on his bike. Along those lines, I would imagine if your seat is too wide that could cause some issues as well since it gives more area for you skin to rub against.

The second aspect of coach Boynton's chamois health is, as I already mentioned, is
hygiene. This encompasses the reduction of bacteria that could possibly cause infection. Now before you start thinking the best way to reduce infection is to take a bath in isopropanol every morning, realize there is no need to go to nearly that extreme. Especially when you consider there are actually bacteria on your skin that help you resist infection. These bacteria are actually better adapted for life on your skin than infectious bacteria and out compete them for resources. Interesting huh, make sure to tell your Mom that one. So really, what you're trying to avoid is an overwhelming amount of the wrong types of bacteria. There is a few ways to go about doing that and most of them deal with your chamois. First always wear a clean chamois. If you must wear a chamois that is unclean make sure it is dry. Always lay out shorts to dry you think you might have to wear again. Make sure to remove your shorts as soon as you can after riding. Don't drive home after a race in them and don't sit down at the computer after a training ride and start writing a long arse blog or something... err. Avoid riding in wet shorts for long periods of time. Also, take a shower and clean yourself after riding. Do it for yourself and the people around you. Lastly, if you're already using a chamois cream, try using one with an antibiotic in it.

On a final note, pay attention to your nether regions. Check yourself on a regular basis such as before you go to bed or when you get out of the shower. If you feel some pain or soreness keep an eye on it and take necessary actions if needed. Treat that area with respect, because really, an unhealthy bum is the last thing you want to keep you off the bike.

Why a Coach?!

I recently approached a local business owner/cycling enthusiast and offered him my services as a coach. We sat down and went over some preliminaries and when it came down to the end of it all, like any good business owner, he wanted to make sure he was making a good investment and asked for a page write up on "why a coach". What could I do for him that just riding couldn't do or self coaching couldn't do? That's a very fair question I thought. In reply I gave him my blog address and told him to check it out on Monday, because really, as a coach, I should be promoting the occupation of coaching whenever and as publicly as I can.

In some ways I've put the carriage before the horse. This probably should have been my first entry for this blog, but so be it there is no time like the present. As soon as this task was given to me I began listing reasons in my head for hiring a coach and then I also remembered a section in my USA Cycling Coaching manual that touched on just this topic.

To start, I realize there have been many successful self trained athletes. These include a healthy portion of athletes ranging from international greats such as Jan Ulrich to local heroes such as Jesse and Mark Lelonde. But most of us aren't that lucky or gifted to be able to be that successful without some sort of guidance or outside motivation. Most of us will hit a glass ceiling in our competitive undertakings sooner or later and we will struggle to find our way to the next level of performance. For me that motivation happened post the 2005 MTB season. Up until that season I had always beaten my friend (and current roommate) Cory handily. Whether I was on a single speed or geared bike, whether the course was technical or flat out, there was no question that I would beat Cory. During the race season of 2005 I didn't beat Cory once. What had happened? Cory had gotten a coach and had improved his performance so much in less than a years time that he was now handing it to me. That was enough convincing for me and I went about seeking out my own coach. Hiring a coach, for me, was the next level of commitment to the sport I loved.

There was a lot of intermediate steps I could have taken before hiring a coach. Such as I could have read some training books or consulted the internet, but those things can't do everything for you a coach can do. A book can offer you a plan, but it can't give you objective feedback, work with your weaknesses, change workouts to fit your life or analyze your progress, like a coach can. When a coach gives you a plan it is meant to work with your life. It is personalized for you. Not only that but a coach can act as a motivator, someone to hold you accountable and give you praise for a job well done. So based much on these factors I made the choice to hire a coach. Besides, Cory was getting faster by the day and I couldn't let the pounding that I was getting from him continue.

But don't be mislead. A coaches job doesn't end after he hands you your workouts for the week. He helps you develop skills, habits and strategies that will help you become a better competitive cyclist. For example, when I had some issues with my sprint I consulted with my coach and had a one on one clinic with him. Also, back when I was just starting out in the 4's Gordy use to always give me tips on the course if he had raced it earlier that day. Its a great thing to get that one on one expert advice from someone who has been there. Another thing that a coach does is help their clients with setting measurable/achievable goals. These are imperative to reaching success as a competitive cyclist. You need something to focus on. An additional task of a coach is to have a hand in governing your level of training intensity. They will tell when it is a good time to push the envelope (i.e. in your build period) or when to hold back (i.e. after the occurrence of an injury).

When it comes to hiring a coach I think a lot of people have an issue with the idea handing over a wad of money every month for a service that is supposed to make them go faster. I mean really, couldn't you save that money and spend it on other things, such as fancy bikes and wheels that are "guaranteed" to make you faster. Well you could do that, but I have two points to make about that. One anecdotal and one based on a peer reviewed journal article. Firstly, I coached a talented young client last year. His mountain bike looked like it had been pieced together with parts found in a dumpster and his road bike was bottom tier and prone to falling apart during races. Anyhow, the kid managed to win the overall in a Comp marathon WORS race and take 3rd in the overall in the 3's at Superweek. Yeah, he was fast, but a little coaching can go a long way to help in winning. A lot farther then fancy equipment will. Not convinced? Good, because you should always be skeptical of personal anecdotes such as the one I just stated. The real concrete evidence comes in my second point. There was a study that was published in the journal Sports Medicine entitled "Improving Cycling Performance: How Should We Spend Our Money" (I've provided a link to the abstract of the article below, but it is difficult to find the full article online without having to pay for it). To make a long article short, the authors, AE. Jeukendrup and J. Martin basically tested subjects in a 40km time trial and changed factors to find what would be the most cost effective and give the most overall time decrease. The average time decrease results for novice cyclists were as followed: carbohydrate beverage ingestion- :42 seconds; caffeine- 1:24; lighter bike (flat TT) 0:13; lighter bike (uphill TT 3% grade, 20km)- 1:34; lighter bike (uphill TT 6% grade, 20km)- 3:38; aerodynamic positioning- 2:00-3:00; aerodynamic frame- 1:44; Training/coaching- minimum 3:35, maximum 7:18, average 5:27. Wow, I would have to say those are some pretty convincing results. Clearly, there is something to be said for being coached. And the best part is you take your fitness were every you go, no matter what bike you ride.

Still not convinced? Talk to someone who has a coach. I picked up two never coached before clients this past Winter and they are always telling me about how much stronger they feel on the bike now. To me, that's pretty awesome. It makes a coach all warm on the inside. (And ironically, now, some of my clients are beating me. Again, that's pretty awesome.) But don't take my word for it. Just chat it up with someone. I'm positive that they'll have worlds of good things to say about being coached.

Link to original USA Cycling article.

Link to the abstract for Improving Cycling Performance: How Should We Spend Our Money

The Performance Pyramid

Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about the elements that can effect performance. There are a lot of factors that we cannot control such as genetics and access to the best equipment, but there are also factors we can have control over in our life that can effect our performance (even more so than genetics). These controllable factors can be categorized into three main groups: Rest, Nutrition and Training. To help explain these factors better I've come up with a diagram I like to call the Performance Pyramid. Now, before I get into explaining the Performance Pyramid I have to point out a few things. One, I know the name sounds cheesy, but whatever its more politically correct than calling it the "Performance Ménage à Trois". Two, I realize that every time you pick up a coaching book its got about 80 diagrams in it in the shape of a pyramid, so heck, why fight it. Might as well join the club. Third, since there are so many pyramid diagrams out there and this is such a basic idea, I pre-apologize if I accidentally plagiarize any other coaches out there.So looking at the diagram we can clearly the see the three parts I have already mentioned. At the base is training. It is here because it is your foundation and it is what makes you an athlete. Without this base you are no longer an athlete. If you lack in either of the other two components you will lose performance, but your body will still carry characteristics rendered from your sport and it will still attempt to rebuild itself into being stronger at what you do. There are generally three elements that an athlete trains: strength, endurance and skill. In the case of cyclists, endurance is heavily trained, but one cannot be great on endurance alone. Strength and speed skills have to be trained as well. It is also important to achieve the correct level of training. Both too little and too much can be detrimental to your over all performance. The level of training you can maintain is determined much by the other two portions of the pyramid.

The second area of the triangle is rest and recovery. This includes sleeping (napping), passive recovery and active recovery. This is a very fundamental part of training and probably the one most overlooked by driven cyclists. With how busy life can get its all to easy to train that extra hour and take an hour away from sleep, but this is not something one should make a habit of. Sleeping and rest is very important. It is when your body repairs itself. When trying to grasp the importance of sleep you should conceptualize it like this- training determines the potential for growth, rest and recovery determines the actual growth. All your performance gains are made during rest. You should shoot for 8-10 hrs of sleep a night. If you can take a nap during the day and/or put in recovery rides do so. Stay off your feet as much as possible (this is where you guys that work on computers all day are lucky). Also, try to keep your sleeping rhythmic. Get to bed and wake up around the same time everyday. Avoid third shift hours.

The third section of the pyramid includes food, nutrition and diet. Rest gives you the time to repair, but food gives you the building blocks to rebuild whats been broken down. I'm not a dietician or nutritionist by any means and this is probably the piece of the pyramid that I struggle with the most in my personal life, but I do have a few ideas on the subject. First of all avoid over processed foods. The human race is 160,000 years old (give or take), it wasn't until recent centuries that we started eating processed foods. Our bodies are obviously going to work better with what they've dealt with the longest. Keep it simple. Another point I like to make is stay away from fad diets. How Britney Spears lost 20 lbs in a month isn't going to make you a good cyclist. Also, with that said, political agenda diets aren't going to help you out a bunch either. Eat some meat, eat some dairy, eat some eggs (just don't go overboard, of course). Proteins and amino acids are the building blocks of muscles. The nutrition part of the pyramid also includes when to eat. Make sure to eat soon after working out to fill your glucose window. I've heard the window is only open anywhere from 15-45 minutes after working out, so the best thing would be to eat as soon as possible after your exercise. Also consider what you eat during your glucose window. The latest research shows a 4 to 1 ratio of carbs to protein works best for recovery. And on an exit note for this piece of the pyramid, beware of indulging in life's vices. Simple sugars, cigarettes, drugs and excessive drinking don't make getting on the podium any easier.

My goal for this blog was to provide a visual aid for the elements of your performance that you have control of in your day to day life. If you wish to reach your peak performance you have to take into consideration all the pieces of the pyramid. To neglect one or multiple areas of the pyramid is to deny yourself your full potential as an athlete and a cyclist. Strengthen your passion by incorporating this train of thought into your life.

Track Standing Tall

This past Tuesday I went out for a mountain bike ride with some of my coworkers. To keep things interesting I brought my rigid single speed along. To be quite honest this was my first mountain bike ride of the year and a matter of fact, since moving to Madison, I rarely hit the trails anymore. So with that made apparent, I noticed a few things about my riding that had actually improved since the last time I had been out on my mountain bike. The biggest thing being my ability to remount on climbs and still be able continue the climb without having to return to the base of the hill or walk the bike. I immediately thought this to be a curious skill to have picked up without actually mountain biking and got my mind working. What had I been doing to learn a better uphill remount? The best answer to this question that I could come up with was track standing.

Since I've moved to Madison and started commuting to work I've made it a point to practice track standing when ever I come to a light or stop sign (this is one of the reasons I back track standing so much, because its something that you can practice out on just about any ride and you don't have to allot any extra time for it, its as easy as "just don't put your foot down") . But even before I lived in Madison I use to track stand twice everyday on my commute to class while crossing the main street between campus and my house. So in essence I've been track standing for awhile now, but I've gotten really good at in recent years. I'm a big fan of the track stand, but I think a lot of people relate it to hot dogging and showing off, especially now with the surfacing of the whole fix gear-hipster-messenger-track stand comp thing. When people think like that they overlook a very fundamental and important skill that, in my opinion, can carry over to many aspects of cycling. Yes I said, "in my opinion", because since I last checked there has been no peer reviewed articles focusing on track stands. This blog entry, in fact, is a bit more anecdotal then my usual pieces, but I'm going to admit that now and leave any differing views on the topic up for discussion. So, in my opinion, I feel that all cyclists (mountain bikers, roadies, bmx riders etc) can reap benefits from learning how to track stand. A few of these advantages that I've noticed are, but not limited to: better balance (obviously), more stability if bumped during pack riding, better handling at slower speeds and a more intimate relationship between bike and rider.

At this point I hope I have you somewhat convinced or at least leaning towards learning how to track stand if you aren't already doing so. In which case, here are some pointers on how to maintain a healthy track stand. First, if you are riding a bike that can coast (i.e. not a fixed gear) find a small incline to start your track stand on. I usually like to let the incline slow me to a halt. If you are on a fixed gear you won't necessarily need an incline. Put your dominate foot forward. Stand and bring your body forward in order to place your weight equally between the wheels. Turn the front wheel in a forty five degree angle towards the lead foot. At this point you want to put pressure on your lead foot. This pressure should equalize with or be slightly more than the force of gravity that is trying to pull you backwards on the incline. If you find that the pedal is coming through on its rotation too far then relieve the pressure on the lead foot and let the bike roll back slightly and reapply pressure. On a fix geared bike some of the mechanism of the track stand differs in comparison to a bike that can free wheel. There is no need for a slight incline with a fix gear because you can effectively roll the bike backwards by back pedaling. Below is a little video I found online. They explain things slightly differently than I do, but its still the same concept.

Track standing can take a while to master, especially if you're only doing it at stop lights and not making special time to do it. The important thing is to not get frustrated and keep at it. You're going to look a little goofy at first and you might make a fool out yourself at some stop sign somewhere, but hey, if you're already wearing lycra things can't get that much worse, right? Soon enough though you'll get better at it and become comfortable with your new found skill. And as you get better you'll be able to fine tune your skill by not using your brakes, keeping yourself steadier with less movement, and being able to sit down while you track stand (to name a few). Or for major hipster points you can always learn how to do no handed-no footed track stands. Don't forget to wear your girl pants and a bandanna while attempting such a feat.

Your commute and training

In honor of bike to work week I've catered this weeks blog towards commuting and training. I myself am a big fan of cycling to work and encourage all of my coaching clients and coworkers to do so. In this blog you'll probably see me get more political than any other blog (well hopefully, since this isn't supposed to be a political blog by any means). Why? Because I feel strongly that commuting to work is an all around good thing for all parties involved. The most obvious reasons being: it saves on gas and automobile costs, gains/maintains fitness (its a good way to multi-task), there is a negligible carbon footprint, its a great gateway into competitive and serious cycling (its how I got my start) and its also a great way to get outside and become intimate with your surroundings and community. When I talk to people who aren't commuting, cyclists or otherwise, I hear too many "can't"s and not enough "yeah I'm going to do that". The way I see it is if there is a will there is a way. There is only a few actual reasons that one can't ride to work. I look at the cars at my work I really can't see a reason why most of the people that drive can't just ride in. My friend and manager of a local bike shop, Luke, said it best, "its funny how perfectly able bodied people feel like they need to encase themselves in large rolling hunks of metal in order to travel anywhere". Yeah, why is that? Stop making excuses and being lazy and get out of that car and onto a bike. Its not going to kill you. Its actually going to make your life better.

For the competitive cyclist commuting has more to offer than just the above advantages. A commute to work in the morning and commute home in the evening offers the chance to have two training rides per day. Many pros ride multiple times a day. Commuting effectively offers you the chance to incorporate some of the elements of a professionals training regiment into your daily routine. Now when I say you get two training rides a day in I must point out that it is a rare occasion that anybody ever gets two hard training rides in a day (one example of when you would train like this is when you are preparing for a team race in a 12 or 24 hour event). What commuting offers is a chance to get one easy recovery ride in, say in the morning, followed by your serious training ride after work (or vice versa depending on your schedule). Ideally recovery rides are 45 minutes to an hour and a half long and very easy paced. The idea behind a recovery ride is to ride enough to induce a recovery response by the body but not ride enough to break down muscle fibers. The way I understand it is you are "tricking" your body into giving itself a spurt of growth hormone. A recovery ride will actually help you recover faster than no recovery ride if done right. (I actually love talking about and doing recovery rides, but I'll get more into that some other time.) Also, for me, commuting offers a chance to get away from the trainer and log miles in during the winter months, but its too nice out right now to get into a discussion about that either.

Anyhow, since this weekly blog is directed to towards novice to experienced cyclists everybody reading this should be able bodied enough to get themselves to work via bike, granted its within a reasonable riding distance. But other than that commuting can offer many obstacles and these obstacles differ greatly from person to person. The obstacles are numerous and I'd like to think I have a solution for all of them, but that would one very lengthy blog. So the best thing I think I can offer up is how commuting works into my training routine.

Ideally, all life craziness, risks of overtraining and bad weather aside, I commute 4 days a week in a 5 day work week. I leave one day a week where I don't touch a bike in order to recover from the rest of the week (on that day I try to carpool to work with friends). My ride to work is seven miles. It takes me about 35 minutes on a day with ideal conditions. In the winter it can take up to 15 minutes longer. I ride until the temperature hits single digits, but I honestly really don't like the rain (I got enough of that while I lived in London). On light days I ride my fix geared commuter bike with fenders and an especially low gearing to work. This ensures the ride stays light, the spin stays high and keeps me from being a meathead and chasing down "power commuters". On days I have actual intervals and workouts I ride in on one of my road bikes and use some self discipline to not race cars and other commuters. Keeping it light is important. Even when I'm late for work I don't push it. I carry my clothes and lunch in a messenger bag. After work I go out in the country and do my workouts and then ride back to work to get my bag and then ride home lightly... and that's my commute in a nutshell.

One last thing I'd like to mention about commuting is the equipment. I think it best to see commuting as similar to entering any new cycling discipline. For example, if you are a mountain bike racer and want to start racing road you will need a lot of new equipment including a new bike, but a lot of your equipment from mountain biking will carry over to road racing so it won't be like starting from scratch. The same can be said for commuting. Its probably best to get a specific commuter bike, but a lot of your older race equipment will work great as commuter "hand-me-downs". But that's just me. Try not to get in the mindset where you need a totally separate line of equipment in order to commute. It'll just end up being an excuse to not ride. And that's never good.

Commuter chronicles.

Sprint!!

This past Tuesday I had a one on one sprint session with my coach. It brought up a lot of good points so I pushed this weeks topic through to the begining of the cue so I could write about it while it was all still relatively fresh in my head. I always thought I was a decent sprinter, but I had an old teammate point out some faults in my sprint (for 2nd) at a crit a few weekends ago which prompted me to organize a one on one with Gordy. For this blog I plan on focusing on the form and technique of the sprint along with some exercises you can do to strengthen your sprint. I don't plan on getting too much into strategy of a good sprint, but for the basics on that a good book to check out is Racing Tactics for Cyclists by Thomas Prehn.

Much of the following I've compiled from both my coach, Gordy and Chris Carmichael's book, The Ultimate Ride. Carmichael breaks the sprint down into 3 parts: the jump, the acceleration, and the top end. The jump is the initial part of the sprint. Its what launches you away from the other riders and forms a gap, making it harder for other riders to draft you. Also, when a gap is formed, it has to be closed before you can be passed. The jump is usually done out the saddle. It is also done in a low gear to allow for a quick acceleration. When jumping and accelerating out of the saddle keep your upper body in place over the bike. Don't swing your upper body back and forth or bob up and down (that's my problem). Use your arms to swing the bike back and forth (approximately 10 inches) while powering through with your legs. Your cadence should be high, somewhere around 130 rpm.

After you've initiated the sprint your next step is to accelerate. Depending on the grade of the road you will either stay out of the saddle or sit. If its an uphill sprint you should stay out of the saddle. If its on a flat or a downhill get back in the saddle. It is advantageous to sit in the saddle if you can. When you sit and sprint your body has a better anchor for putting power to the pedal. You use both the saddle and your core to support you as opposed to when you are out of the saddle and you anchor yourself only with your core. The key to accelerating, when all else is equal, is having a good sequence of shifts. It is important to keep your cadence high and to not shift into a gear that will bog you down. You should shift into a higher gear once you've spun out the gear that you are in. And you want to shift through your higher gears one at a time, don't skip through gears. This will again run the risk of bogging you down. While you are pedaling you'll not want forget about pulling up while pedaling and keep a smooth movement through the whole rotation. Mario Cipollini use to say that anybody can push the pedals down hard, but he focused on pulling up on the pedals as well while he sprinted.

In a perfect world you would hit the top speed of your sprint right as you crossed the line. This is another thing that Cipollini would do. He would try to keep accelerating all the way to the line. If you do this it forces your competition to not only have a higher velocity in order to pass you, but they must also have a faster acceleration than you. But as we all know the world isn't perfect so often times you will find that you cannot accelerate any more and you have reached your top end speed before you reach the line. If this happens it is very important to maintain your speed until the finish line if you can. This is something you should work on when practicing your sprints. You'll have to train your body to tolerate the lactate caused by your maximum effort.

Something else that I'd like to share, something that my coach went over with me, is how to pick a sprint point or a place where you'll know when you can go all out. To do this you find the gearing that you'll most likely be finishing the race in (i.e. 52x13). Go to the finish line in that gear and count out 20 (this count with differ depending on the rider and there sprint ability) pedal revolutions while riding backwards on the course and away from the finish line . Then find a landmark to mark that spot once you've counted out those rotations. This marks the spot where you can most likely go all out and still be accelerating to the line. Granted, you will never know how the final sprint will end up, but its good to know where you can hit the sprint hard and not have to look back.

As far as workouts go, while in your base you'll want to focus on speed skills (such as form sprints and high cadence intervals), leg strength (both in the gym and on the bike) and core. When you hit your build you'll want to pull the sprint elements you trained in your base together into a solid techinique. To do this practice actual sprints but with different variations. Do shorter and longer sprints. Do sprints on uphills, flats and downhills. Do sprints from slow speeds and from high speeds. Just make sure to work on different types of sprints so you are ready for multiple situations that could arise during a race.

My Neck... My Back...

One aspect of my cycling that I've really been working on a lot lately is my posture and form on the bike. More specifically I've been focusing on a maintaining a neutral spine throughout the course of my rides. I would have to say that it is something that I have definitely overlooked through the years and judging by what I see when I'm out riding, many other cyclists overlook this point as well. But I, probably like most people, hear and read about proper form on the bike and just assume that I'm doing it right. It wasn't until I had a professional fitting and the fitter pointed out how much I curved my back that I actually became concerned with this issue.

The person who did my fit was David Kohli, the owner and founder of Perfect Circle Cycling. It was quite a slap in face. It can be hard to hear that you're doing something so fundamental so completely wrong... especially after some success in cycling and acquiring a coaching license. At this point I couldn't fight it anymore, I had to swallow my pride and do what the Kohli ordered and improve my posture on the bike. But not everybody has the luxury or the convenience to have a professional fitter tell them if their back is in a neutral position or not. All is not lot though, other options for checking your posture may include, but are not limited to: Having a cycling friend look at your posture while you are riding; look at pictures or videos of yourself riding; set your trainer up next to a mirror and watch your form; or even ride in the evening and watch your shadow as you ride.

Lets say, for arguments sake, you find out your back looks like part of the McDonald's arch when you ride. So what? What difference does it make if you have a curve in your back? Well, I guess it wouldn't be the end of the world if you didn't correct your posture, but that's not what this blog is all about. I like to focus on things that I hope in some way (even if it is not in a huge way) will improve one's cycling... and here are the main reasons I have come up with for achieving and maintaining a neutral spine while you ride. One, long term comfort and injury prevention. According to Kohli years of riding with a curved spine can lead to lower back problems. That's not good, I'm hoping we all can ride in comfort into our later years without having to endure any sort of pain. Also I would imagine maintiaining good posture would help comfort on longer rides. Two, Kohli also pointed out it would help with breathing. Breathing. Good breathing is important to the aerobic athlete for all to obvious reasons. A neutral posture on the bike makes perfect sense when it comes to breathing. It is going to simulate good/natural standing posture. If anything a bad posture is going to obstruct your airways if not lower your lungs tidal volume. Try standing and breathing but with an over exaggerated slouch. Do you feel the difference? Think of singers and how they stand. Now think of Simon Cowell criticizing you for bad cylcing posture. Why is Simon Cowell criticizing your posture? Because it looks horrid, which brings me to my third point, aesthetics. Yes, that's right, looking good. You buy the pro kit with the hip design and you make sure it fits just right. You buy the new Orbea with the sweet paint job and the beautiful carbon frame. You shave your legs to show off every bit of sinewy leg muscle and then you go slouch on the bike like an old lady. Doesn't make much sense, does it?

At this point you have determined that you have poor posture and it is relevant to your interests to change it. Your next question is what is the root of the problem causing the poor posture. According to Dave this can be one of two things: You either have a seat that is not working for you, causing pressure to the tender nether regions or your hamstrings are are tight and not allowing for you to properly bend forward. For me it was a combination of both. I was riding a broken seat that, when I leaned forward, caused uncomfortable pressure behind my man junk. Bought a new Fizik seat, that portion of the problem- solved. The other problem was that I'm not a very flexible person. To fix that I've started going to the gym again to work on core and stretching (besides better posture, studies have shown having flexible hamstrings will give you up to a 4% power gain because your quads are not fighting them on the down stroke). Also, Kohli raised my handle bars a centimeter so I could be in a more comfortable position less aggressive position. What!? Less aggressive?! I know to some competitive cyclists (and hipster fixy kids) this is comparable to castration. How will everybody know I'm fast if my bike doesn't look like its too uncomfortable to ride? People will know you're fast when you win races! Anyhow as far as looks go we've pretty much already determined that a neutral spine = looks fast.

So now you've removed the source/sources of your problem. This doesn't mean that your spine is going to automatically pop into a neutral position. You've picked up a bad habit and like most bad habits they are hard to break. Now you have work to do. Its probably best to start out by riding in from of that mirror again. Put yourself in to proper position, look into the mirror to double check the position and then remember how it feels to be in that position. Your hips should be rolled forward, you'll be bent a the waist, the sit bones in your buttocks should be resting on the seat. For me, a skinnier guy, I notice the tops of my thighs touch my belly during the upward motion of the peddle stroke. Some other things you should take note of in your form are: light hands on the bars, relaxed shoulders and unlocked elbows. But anyhow, it took some actual longer rides out by myself concentrating on nothing else but a nice natural spine. That was my base. I think right now my posture is pretty good when I'm out on training rides, but that doesn't mean much if it doesn't get carried over to actual racing scenarios. And that's where I'm at now, reminding myself to keep that curve out of my back during races, especially during my recoveries. It's kind of hard sometimes with everything that is going on, but I think some work, like most things in training, it will all pay off in the end.