Sunday, February 5, 2012

Mountain Biking as Training

Training should be fun. Other than riding your four-wheeler, I feel that the second best training method is pedaling up a mountain and flying down the other side. When I mountain bike, I wear my Garmin GPS watch with a heart rate monitor (which I also wear at some of the races) and in a two hour bike ride through the mountains, I burn as many calories as a 2 hour race. It is a great cardio workout, and it also works some of the same muscles that racing does.

I am lucky enough to live near the edge of the Jefferson and George Washington National Forests, where there is tons of mountain biking. Pandapas Pond is a recreation area a few minutes drive from my house (or 10 minute bike ride) with miles of trails up and down the mountains. Whenever the weather is decent, and it is not dark, I go there to ride for training. It provides a break from the treadmill running I normally do.

For those of you who do not live right next to a National Forest, look online for local parks or state parks. You'd be surprised what's around you if you just look. Most places allow biking on trails.

Mountain biking has a two sided aspect of training that many workout methods do not. Sure, it's a good workout, and I'm always really tired at the end of a good ride. But I've also gotten the trail-reading, quick-decision-making aspect of racing that I can't get from a treadmill. As you can see from the video, you can get going pretty fast down the mountain and pretty wore out pedaling up. You have to be able to continue making good decisions even when you're completely wore out.

Mountain Biking 2-1

We're still working on the angle for the camera, so bear with us. I'm sure I'll have more mountain biking videos with more info about bikes, where to ride, etc. if you are interested. Follow the blog and subscribe if you like it. Leave me comments below, on Facebook, or email me at HurricaneHoyland@gmail.com.
Posted by at

2 comments:

  1. AnonymousFebruary 5, 2012 at 11:59 PM

    i like the video that was cool to watch. i just have a work out question. i am just a local rider but how much cardio should i be putting in at the gym? right now i am doing about 35 minutes a workout. is that not enough?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hurricane HoylandFebruary 6, 2012 at 8:05 AM

    That's a hard question to answer, because it all depends on what kind of shape you're in and what your goals are for racing. If you want to keep improving, just make sure at the end of your workout, you are really tired. If 35 minutes does that for you, then you are doing enough. If not, increase the time or intensity. Training is all about trying to get your body to do more, so once a workout gets easy, make it harder. Just be sure not to go too far and injure yourself.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)