Ok, so if you read Part 1 and its preceding post you’ll know I’m on a three step improvement plan to elevate my woeful off road riding levels after a pretty disastrous last outing on the MTB. So Part 1 was devoted to fixing my sadly neglected and slightly broken steed. With its braking performance restored and the gears responding to my right thumbs commands again the bike was sorted, and now it was time to focus on the other major obstacle to me rediscovering my off-road glory …..

Yes, you’ve probably guessed it… that other major obstacle is me. There’s two basic problems, the first is physical and the second is a kind of mental block. The physical bit is the one I’m going to talk about my pathetically nascent efforts to tackle here. As I said in my initial post my base fitness from a summer on the road isn’t that bad, yes as ever I’d like to be fitter and lighter around the middle but I’m far from being a couch potato. What is very clear however is that I’m not Mountain Biking fit. Mountain Biking it seems (or at least the sort of Mountain Biking I do) requires a very different set of muscles and much more explosive power than tootling around on the road bike for a few hours tends to give you.

That last jaunt on the MTB made me ache in all sorts of new and unpleasant places during the ride as my back, shoulders and hands all started to compete with the usual protests arising from my legs at this sustained and unusual punishment that I was putting them through. Still it could have been worse, oh wait … it most definitely was as the next morning as I found out to my cost when I tried to spring from my bed only to find various bits of my anatomy seemed to have had hot steel pokers inserted into them over night. Clearly something had to be done.

Now usually the remedy for this sort of ‘not being used to it’ issue is just to ride my MTB more till my body relearns how to cope and toughens up a bit to cope with the different demands of the dirt instead of the tarmac. The trouble is my perennially time poor state at the moment repeated thwarted chances to ride my Mountain Bike as life and other commitments just kept getting in my way. Setting off for a day on any decent trails means a full day struck from the diary due to the travelling back and to from where I live, and there aren’t that many full days that I’ve got spare. What I needed to do was give myself a physical kick start to get me into better biking shape so that when I do get a rare day free to shred the MTB I’m not wasting it by being too tired to do more than one semi-committed lap of the trail centre. I knew what I had to do but I just didn’t want to do it. I tried putting off the inevitable by looking at some body weight exercises online and trying them at home when there was nobody in to laugh at me flailing about on the floor like Grandad showing everyone his moves on the dance floor at the family wedding but I kept knocking things over and then finding every excuse under the sun not to bother with them. In the end I gave up and renewed my long dormant membership at my local Gym.

I’m not usually a man of strong emotions about this sort of thing, but I really do truly hate the gym. It’s not one of those love/hate things, it’s just hate. (or on a good day maybe merely strong dislike.) It’s nothing I can zero in on and crystalise into a specific thing I have about going to the gym that I hate, I’m just not a fan and never have been for as long as I can remember . Maybe it’s the music, maybe its the smell of stale sweat and the dislike of being stuck indoors. Maybe it’s knowing I’m going to struggle to walk the next day after doing any meaningful leg exercises. I’ve given up trying to figure it out, I just don’t like it, and because I don’t like it I’m really, really bad at it. Now don’t get me wrong, after a long time doing sports at various mediocre levels I’m pretty well versed on the theory behind the whole thing. I know what exercises to do, how many reps I need and a I have a fair grasp of the proper form I’m supposed to be following when I do them.I think the root of the problem I have with the gym is that I just get bored after about an hour max. I’ll set off with great intentions, I’ll have the exercises and reps I need to do fixed in my mind…… and about half way through the program I’ll inevitably nines times out of ten visits suddenly think ‘sod this’ and be heading back to the changing rooms before I know it.

Knowing all this I know that if returning to the hated gym is going to make any meaningful difference to my riding I’ve got to try a new approach to lifting weights this time. Firstly I’ve had a good long look and think about my physical weaknesses as a Mountain biker (there’s a few !) and following on from this bout of self analysis which of these issues I can address in the gym and improve in the quickest way possible before I get bored and give up like usual.

So, drum roll please………. the three areas I’m going to concentrate on are:

1/ Core strength - why? because I haven’t got any at the moment                                                        

2/ Flexibility – why? because I’m incredibly inflexible and haven’t been able to touch my toes for the last 30 years at least

3/ Explosive power – why? again because I currently haven’t got any.

I’m going to completely ignore the stuff I’m reasonably good at, no cardio because its boring to do in the gym and I’ll get that heart and lung hit from riding my bike thanks not being bored stupid on a cross trainer, and static strength because I’m already plenty heavy enough and don’t need to pack on any extra muscle mass to ride my bike faster.

Hopefully sticking to this mantra will stop me getting bored before I make some gains for once, but time will tell so I’ll report back when I know if its making a difference or not, but I have to say early results are not encouraging, in my defence that’s I part due to factors beyond my control, but more about that next time.