I'm about to slaughter a huge sacred cow, and I do not expect for everyone to be happy about it. However, just remember that it is alright to be honestly mistaken. However, when presented with the truth you can either stop being mistaken or stop being honest...
For many years MTB riders have began their off season with an aerobic base period where they will spend 4-6 weeks riding easy and moderately easy miles on their bikes. The theory behind this strategy is based in Western Linear Periodization, or the idea of working on aerobic fitness, muscle strength and muscle power in distinct periods usually lasting 4-6 weeks apiece. While revolutionary when introduced, this concept has proven to be inconsistent in the real world and other periodization models have been introduced that are far more effective and consistent at delivering results.
With that said, I want to focus on the use of the aerobic base period. The reasoning for the aerobic base period is that if you build your aerobic fitness up then it will help your general fitness and stamina in the rest of your training periods. While this may seem logical at first, a closer look at how exactly the body reacts to this aerobic exercise coupled with new understandings of the human body suggest that this may be a misplaced effort.
Your body responds very specifically to how you train it lift heavy weights and you get stronger, for example. Your bodys response to aerobic training has two main drawbacks for us as DH/ 4X racers.
First, you will loose muscle mass and the muscle that you have will become weaker and less powerful. Aerobic exercised by nature is catabolic and it burns muscle as well as fat. Any lose of muscle mass is a step backwards for us as this muscle mass is what we need to power our efforts. On top of this, science has shown that when exposed to low intensity, endurance based activities some of your precious fast twitch muscle fibers (the ones we need the most) will shift and start to act like slow twitch muscle fibers. Aerobics will effectively rob you of some of your most important asset on the DH/ 4X course strong, powerful muscles.
Second, your body will adapt by becoming more metabolically efficient at aerobic exercise, mainly by becoming more efficient at burning fat for fuel. DH/ 4X racing is not aerobic by nature, it is anaerobic by nature. This means that we do not want to be efficient at burning fat for fuel; we want to be efficient at replenishing ATP, burning glycogen (muscle sugar) and clearing out the metabolic byproducts of this process, also known as anaerobic endurance. This is our limiting factor as DH/ 4X athletes, not our ability to use fat for fuel. Strengthening your aerobic metabolism will not help strengthen our anaerobic metabolism, making time spent in this effort misguided.
So, in essence, aerobic base training will make you a weaker, slower, less metabolically efficient athlete hardly a step in the right direction to start off season training. The reason that athletes swear by this is because even aerobic base training will keep them in better shape than those that do nothing for that same time period. It also keeps them from jumping into hard core MTB specific work too soon, avoiding the burnout riders that get too intense too soon experience. So, aerobic base training is better than nothing but hardly the best that we can do as MTB athletes when looking at everything science and logic has to say about the subject.
We MUST realize that we are unique athletes and stop looking to other sports for our training strategies. Road riding and antiquated training concepts have very little to offer us and the sooner that we realize this, the sooner we can take our sport to the next level.
Your time would be better spent re-establishing body control (bodyweight emphasis workouts), working on mobility, and starting to work on or maintaining general anaerobic strength/ power endurance as these are all things that we must have as DH/ 4X athletes. Using low intensity, aerobic activities as a form of active recovery is fine, just keep the intensity very low (60% of estimated max heart rate) and the time short (20-30 min.) a few times per week. When used this way we can still get the benefits of aerobic training while minimizing the negative impact it can have.
Note: Intervals are not aerobic base training. Aerobic base training is reeling off countless miles at a low intensity (usually at or below 70% of max heart rate) for long periods of time (45-60+ minutes). Intervals are different and are not aerobic by nature and in fact have a very important place in out training programs.
For many years MTB riders have began their off season with an aerobic base period where they will spend 4-6 weeks riding easy and moderately easy miles on their bikes. The theory behind this strategy is based in Western Linear Periodization, or the idea of working on aerobic fitness, muscle strength and muscle power in distinct periods usually lasting 4-6 weeks apiece. While revolutionary when introduced, this concept has proven to be inconsistent in the real world and other periodization models have been introduced that are far more effective and consistent at delivering results.
With that said, I want to focus on the use of the aerobic base period. The reasoning for the aerobic base period is that if you build your aerobic fitness up then it will help your general fitness and stamina in the rest of your training periods. While this may seem logical at first, a closer look at how exactly the body reacts to this aerobic exercise coupled with new understandings of the human body suggest that this may be a misplaced effort.
Your body responds very specifically to how you train it lift heavy weights and you get stronger, for example. Your bodys response to aerobic training has two main drawbacks for us as DH/ 4X racers.
First, you will loose muscle mass and the muscle that you have will become weaker and less powerful. Aerobic exercised by nature is catabolic and it burns muscle as well as fat. Any lose of muscle mass is a step backwards for us as this muscle mass is what we need to power our efforts. On top of this, science has shown that when exposed to low intensity, endurance based activities some of your precious fast twitch muscle fibers (the ones we need the most) will shift and start to act like slow twitch muscle fibers. Aerobics will effectively rob you of some of your most important asset on the DH/ 4X course strong, powerful muscles.
Second, your body will adapt by becoming more metabolically efficient at aerobic exercise, mainly by becoming more efficient at burning fat for fuel. DH/ 4X racing is not aerobic by nature, it is anaerobic by nature. This means that we do not want to be efficient at burning fat for fuel; we want to be efficient at replenishing ATP, burning glycogen (muscle sugar) and clearing out the metabolic byproducts of this process, also known as anaerobic endurance. This is our limiting factor as DH/ 4X athletes, not our ability to use fat for fuel. Strengthening your aerobic metabolism will not help strengthen our anaerobic metabolism, making time spent in this effort misguided.
So, in essence, aerobic base training will make you a weaker, slower, less metabolically efficient athlete hardly a step in the right direction to start off season training. The reason that athletes swear by this is because even aerobic base training will keep them in better shape than those that do nothing for that same time period. It also keeps them from jumping into hard core MTB specific work too soon, avoiding the burnout riders that get too intense too soon experience. So, aerobic base training is better than nothing but hardly the best that we can do as MTB athletes when looking at everything science and logic has to say about the subject.
We MUST realize that we are unique athletes and stop looking to other sports for our training strategies. Road riding and antiquated training concepts have very little to offer us and the sooner that we realize this, the sooner we can take our sport to the next level.
Your time would be better spent re-establishing body control (bodyweight emphasis workouts), working on mobility, and starting to work on or maintaining general anaerobic strength/ power endurance as these are all things that we must have as DH/ 4X athletes. Using low intensity, aerobic activities as a form of active recovery is fine, just keep the intensity very low (60% of estimated max heart rate) and the time short (20-30 min.) a few times per week. When used this way we can still get the benefits of aerobic training while minimizing the negative impact it can have.
Note: Intervals are not aerobic base training. Aerobic base training is reeling off countless miles at a low intensity (usually at or below 70% of max heart rate) for long periods of time (45-60+ minutes). Intervals are different and are not aerobic by nature and in fact have a very important place in out training programs.
- That's all I can say for you slack!
