This month the theme is about improving weaknesses both on and off the bike. This is the time to address these weaknesses and take advantage of this window of opportunity so we may be balanced and ready for the race season. During the race season, as many of you dedicated athletes may know, we find ourselves spending a lot of time training our strengths to ensure we are programmed and feeling good about our preparation. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and in fact we must all be maximizing the specifics of BMX training leading up to the race event. The problem that I find in athletes is that we love to train the strengths all year round. This can be a disaster to future development and may actually limit your ability to further make significant gains in your respectable strengths and weaknesses as well.

 

Physical off the bike sample

    To increase your 1 rep max on the squat, you must do maximal strength work. But what if your adductors (inner thigh) or your hamstrings are weak? Have you ever thought that this might be the limiting factor of breaking your plateau of a 3 plate max on the squat, for example? The problem is, we get so focused in on the prime movers of the hip and knee flexors that the supporting stabilizing muscles are neglected thus creating the weakest link to your strength. So be sure to include as many supporting muscle exercises into your preparatory early phases of training. The balance can be 2 to 1 weakness to strength work in terms of frequency every week. Also, increase your weakness exercises to strength exercises during the session to a 3 to 1 ratio.

 

Force vs. Speed balance

    The limiting factor to power is either going to be force or speed. I am constantly adjusting my athletes training plans to ensure they continue to improve. For example, I will adjust a new athlete’s training if they’re really strong (can move a ton of weight forcefully) but lack speed of execution. The adjustments would be to flip it around and do a 3 to 1 ratio of speed vs. max force. You can address this with both weight load and exercise selection.

 

    Try creating a plan where you concurrently address both, emphasizing weaknesses while still fluffing up on your strengths. Try 2 to 1 light-weight speed work vs. maximal force for several weeks and test overall power on the bike. Analyze what could improve, for example. Then go back to addressing the balance of your force vs. speed. Some may not agree with this method of fast tracking as dedicated phases are the norm for sports with an actual off-season of 3-4 months or more. BMX is year round like most Olympic sports but when you don’t have 3 years to dedicate to specific yearly training programs broken down into 4 quarterly phases, and you need be fast and powerful now, you must constantly keep finding your limiting factor to power, address it, balance it, and the improvements will come.

 

Improving on the bike weaknesses.

    We all ride clips 95% of the time and the same thing occurs with stabilizing muscles such as hip adductors and abductors, calves and tibia lower leg muscles. Why not try some stand start sprints with flat pedals to develop the stabilizers. As for riding with flat pedals on the track, why not? Although I wouldn’t spend too much time doing gates with flat pedals, I would focus on riding the track overall. I would still frequent one session of doing gates with clips and everything else with flats for example.

 

    How about lactate tolerance (power endurance)? There are two ways to improve this. One is direct with interval work repetitive sprints/laps with very short rests) and the other is indirect with aerobic work (slow road riding). We all can improve this, however a good balance of a 2-1 or a 3-1 ratio is important to preserve the maximum power specifics of our sport. In other words, we don’t want to lose sense of it, we just want to shift the focus.

 

    So there you have it, some ideas on how to address your weaknesses without losing touch on the strengths. Besides, working on the weaknesses will only bring your strengths to the next level!

 

All the best with your training!

 

Greg Romero

BMX High Performance Coach