- So I fancy myself a hobby cyclist,
it's by no mean my primary form of training,
but I'm by no means a novice,
and there are a lot of really great overlaps
between cycling and rowing,
and rowing makes for a great cross training for cycling.
So let's explore that today.
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So cycling's an incredibly popular sport
and for good reason.
You can pretty much take a bike anywhere,
up a mountain, both on a road or on a trail,
and you can cover quite a bit of ground.
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when you are actually cycling,
which makes for a very entertaining workout.
They're also wonderfully simple machines.
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And you can get a great workout getting
to cover distance which, in my opinion,
is a really strong plus for the sport of cycling.
So what are the issues of cycling?
Mostly is that it's monostructural in nature,
meaning that you produce the same movement
over and over and over,
and you're just constantly repeating.
There in both lies both the benefit
and the detriment to the sport.
Number one, you get to focus on one movement
and you can refine it, refine it, refine it,
down, down, down, down, down until you
get really good at the thing.
The downside of that, however, is that your body
becomes imbalanced to deviate towards
and really iron into just that movement pattern,
which creates a host of issues because the body
was made to really do all sorts of different things.
So this specialty, while making it a great study,
is also what can lead to some problems in the body.
And it's the same with rowing because
rowing is a monostructural movement,
you just repeat the same thing over and over and over.
So take a look at my body after years and years
of rowing and a back injury, check out this scoliosis.
That happened because every single stroke
I was rotating around and my body became
really defined to handle that exact movement pattern,
forward, rotate, load, drive, release, forward, rotate,
so on and so forth,
and that caused a serious amount of imbalance
which lead to problems later on down the line.
Now asterisk on that, neither rowing nor crossfit
were the cause of my back injury,
just wanna make that clear for the record.
So as a coach, I'm always looking for opportunities
with an athlete, like a monostructural athlete,
to be able to create some kind
of balance and cross training.
I know that that's like playing buzzword bingo
when we say cross training, but really to create
some kind of balance for their body that helps
to offset the constant nature of this
so that you can create a more healthy body
to perform better at the sport.
It's not to detract and it's not to change the training,
it's to offer an alternative that helps to build
the systems that don't get built by repeating this
over and over and over in whatever the movement
or the exercise may be, in this instance, cycling,
and that's where the rower comes in.
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So two of the most common injuries that cyclists experience
are knee pain and back pain.
Why?
Well on the knee pain side, it's generally from the athlete
either being too far forward, too far back on the seat,
but what happens is, that causes them to be overly
quad dominant in the pedal stroke.
When the quads get too tight, these insert at the knee.
And as the saying goes,
the rats never chew where they get in,
so when the quad starts to tighten up from overuse,
it's not in the middle of the quad where you feel the issue,
it's often in the hip or the knee,
and that knee pain becomes exacerbated
by overuse and continued cycling.
So that's one issue.
Issue number two is back pain.
And that happens because when we're on the bike,
we tend to spend a lot of time with our spine
in this position as opposed to the natural S curve
that the back likes to see.
This would be, the person's facing that way.
There we go.
That is the natural S curve that our back likes to carry.
The problem with this position is that over prolonged time,
and without complimentary work,
all of the muscles that bring us here get tighter,
all of the muscles that allow us to round
get weaker and longer, and therefore as time goes on,
this posture becomes harder to maintain,
and that causes problems because
we no longer have support of the spine,
and this is where rowing can come in and help.
Rowing steps in on a couple different bases.
Number one, it's also low impact just like the bike.
So if you're looking for training that is complimentary
that is not going to increase impact on the joints,
a la running or perhaps, I don't know, heavy strength work,
which I am an advocate for as well, however,
the point being, rowing is a low impact sport
which is in line with or in kind with cycling.
Number two is that rowing does a very nice job
of especially complimenting this postural issue
that we may find when we are on the bike
because it forces you to think about maintaining
a neutral spine, which means that these guys, my erectors,
have to be working to put me into position.
And so when those erectors are working,
they're balancing my system because I'm having
to sit upright, brace, and swing.
And so that is a huge balancing effect.
Now finally when we get to the legs,
because of my horizontal approach,
and as well because of the angle of the foot stretchers
being at about 45 degrees,
it necessitates that there is heel contact
as well as a little bit more hamstring and glute engagement
than we may naturally find on the bike.
It's a little bit easier to deviate
into the quads on the bike,
and when we're on the machine,
if we understand our mechanics,
and we've locked the mechanics into place,
then it's going to be much easier for us to understand
how to drive the heel down, engage the whole posterior chain
from my gastroc all the way up to the back side of my head,
ensuring that posture is there, ensuring that glutes,
hamstrings are working in conjunction with quads,
but it does a really nice job
of rounding the whole thing out.
So let's take a look at two different workouts
that we can program for cyclists.
One would be intentionally programed
for more of a road cyclist,
the other would be for a mountain biker.
Let's lay out what those workouts would look like,
you can give 'em a try and give us feedback
and see what you think.
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So this is a road cycling workout.
I took this directly from the Concept 2 website
and it's intended to mimic hill climbs
with a longer duration, if you will.
Now are we going to see much longer climbs
than eight minutes on a bike, absolutely,
but this is a really great way of mimicking
some hill climbs with bursts on the hill
and getting and reaching some plateaus while,
again, having to take off on another climb
or another ascent.
So the way that this is going to start,
you'll have a five minute light spin up as needed,
that could be on the bike, if you wish,
but I would suggest that it be on the machine
so that you can get comfortable with the movement
and prime the pump, if you will, for that day's workout.
Then the workout is gonna be eight minutes
at moderate intensity effort with bursts
of 20 strokes at the four and seven minute mark,
that's basically round one,
think of it as a three round workout,
or three climbs with two plateaus.
A 20 stroke burst being you are ratcheting up
the intensity for 20 strokes and then bringing
it back down to moderate intensity.
Now a note, it's very easy, those of you
that have cycled before will know this as well,
it's very easy after bursts to just bog down
and get really slow in order to recover.
What a real challenging effort, however,
is that when you come off of a burst
of 20 strokes, 10 strokes, whatever it may be,
to come back to moderate intensity immediately,
not dropping back down because that negates
the purpose of that burst.
That burst is there to teach you how to throttle up
and still be able to maintain a relative level
of intensity in the middle of a workout.
Now you're gonna have a two minute easy spin after that
where you're still moving but it's just light,
imagine this is your plateau,
this is where everybody's collecting themselves,
getting ready to jonky on the next climb.
Next you're gonna have seven minutes, again,
moderate intensity, 20 stroke burst,
this time at the two, the four, and the six minute marks,
so you're gonna get three bursts this time.
Notice that intensity's ratcheting up a little bit more
each time, getting a little bit closer to the peak.
You're gonna follow that with another two minutes easy,
and then finally six minutes, same intensity,
but this time 10 stroke burst on the minute,
every minute, for that entire six minutes.
This should be a serious burn.
Now the point being, this is an excellent workout
for road cyclists in the off season,
especially those of you, I mean you could interrupt this
a number of different ways depending on the needs,
if you're a sprinter or a climber,
whatever you want it, but this is a great idea of how
you can structure a workout as needed for road cycling.
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And now onto the mountain biking.
Now this was a design of my own,
but what I had in mind here was more
of an aggressive climbing with very short breaks in between
and what I'm imagining here is like some kind of trail
that has a decent climb ahead of it
where you get short plateaus,
or maybe you get to ride a little bit of a downhill,
pick right back up, followed by some serious sprints,
meaning this is where you're having to really dig in,
move through the track, and get your bike moving.
But here's what the workout is.
Just a five to ten minute spin up,
again, something simple, just to get you moving
and grease the groove for what you're gonna be doing.
Then in the workout, you're looking at a three by five
minute row at a high intensity but low stroke rate.
Now what I mean by that is I want you to push
as hard as you can into that machine.
What I'm imagining here is a low gear
where you are in the saddle grinding up the hill.
You're not up out of the saddle trying to churn through it,
you know what's ahead and you're really trying
to just stay calm and stay in the saddle.
Followed with one minute of rest or one minute of easy,
I don't really want it to be off,
I want you to be just nice and easy light spinning.
You're gonna do that three times,
that should get you nice and tired.
Your legs should be pretty smoked
if you stay at a low stroke rate,
and I'm talking, let's call it 22 or under,
you're gonna feel this, followed immediately into
six by 20 seconds on and a minute forty of easy,
easy spin if you will.
But that 20 seconds on is everything you've got.
Take the stroke rate up, crush it on the pressure,
this is going to be your finisher here,
and again, this is where I'm imagining like the sprint
on the bike where you're having to get up
out of the saddle and you're really having to work,
and move, and play with your bike
to get it moving on the track.
This is the kind of workout that I would see
for a mountain biker who is trying to emulate
their training the way that they're gonna handle
a course and the racing conditions that they might find.
So for cyclists, those of you who have been looking
for some kind of new training, different training,
something to compliment what you're doing,
maybe you should think about giving the rower a try
because I think there's some really legitimate opportunities
to strengthen your training and your performance.
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