Question For The Brainy People Out There.

[Matt Vandart]

Right hear are my thoughts:

If muscles only grow when exerted with greater than normal intensity, then surely one must reach a plateau in terms of gap distance, sidehops etc, I am talking static moves if you do no other training than riding your bicycle.

Feel free to discuss or not.

[liam n]

Right hear are my thoughts:

If muscles only grow when exerted with greater than normal intensity, then surely one must reach a plateau in terms of gap distance, sidehops etc, I am talking static moves if you do no other training than riding your bicycle.

Feel free to discuss or not.

im 15 and i used to be chubby and not very strong,i do no other form of muscle train except riding mototrials bike and trials bike. I started trials 1 year ago im now skinnier and i have muscles

i cant sidehop ver high and my gaps are 5-6 ft ish but i have grown in muscular ability

[Simpson]

Right hear are my thoughts:

If muscles only grow when exerted with greater than normal intensity, then surely one must reach a plateau in terms of gap distance, sidehops etc, I am talking static moves if you do no other training than riding your bicycle.

Feel free to discuss or not.

Doesn't really work like that, top riders will go to the gym to get more explosive - but fact is one of the most important things about riding trials is technique - which everyone can work on.

[PaRtZ]

And with explosive power is not just brute force!

I saw a program with Bruce Lee (So it must be true...) which said people with larger biceps are worse at punching than people with larger triceps. So to punch better, martial artists work on their triceps. Its the same with bouldering, I try to work on my triceps so I can dyno (kinda jump) higher.

[Matt Vandart]

That'll be because your use your triceps to punch not your biceps though.

What I am saying all things being equal (technique etc) do you think you reach a plateau in terms of distance if all you do to train your muscles is trials?

One must reach a limit whereby you are no longer overloading your muscles.

I understand quite a bit about how it all works except for fast twitch and the other type of muscle fiber, anyone care to elaborate?

[Simpson]

Well a good ratio of bicep to tricep is 3:1 anyway, triceps are what make your arms look big.

You will hit a mental barrier before you hit a physical one, aka in like 1995 the first flair was done, now people do flairs for fun all the time. Its a mental progression thing.

[terry_harris]

put it this way i used to train at the gym to try and get bigger. and for how hard you have to train and lift for your muscles to grow i doubt

you'll do that just by riding trials. sure you'll get toined but not big. and its not just about using your muscles its about your diet aswell

for e.g when i was training i was eating 8 meals aday and training 4 days a week at 3 hours a session then swimming after every session.

[chris4stars]

That'll be because your use your triceps to punch not your biceps though.

What I am saying all things being equal (technique etc) do you think you reach a plateau in terms of distance if all you do to train your muscles is trials?

One must reach a limit whereby you are no longer overloading your muscles.

I understand quite a bit about how it all works except for fast twitch and the other type of muscle fiber, anyone care to elaborate?

yes, there will be a plateau

take any movement down to its very basics with technique not being a factor...you are looking at the individual contraction of various muscles

looking at say the bicep muscle individually....you are contracting the muscle, trying to essentially lift a set weight from A to B in as quick a time as possible.

to do this most effectively, you need a decent core strength of the muscle (ie the ability and ease of the muscle to lift that weight) coupled with the 'fast twitch fibres' (ie the speed at which they contract to lift the weight).

how many fast twitch fibres a person has (from what i know) are very much decided on your genetics....there will be a maximum theoretical speed that your muscle can potentially contract (after training), and no matter how much additional training of any sort, you wont increase that.

to properly train a muscle though, like you said it needs to be exerted - this actually results in tiny little tears of the muscle fibre, allowing the body to bridge the tears, fixing the muscle and obviously increasing its mass. when you reach a point where the action (ie the gap) is not exerting the muscle, but just utilising it to its full potential...you will cease to see any physical gains.

to reach that point purely through trials though will be a long long process!

for example....if the 'gapping' action requires a force equivalent to lifting 10kg with your bicep, the ease of this will come about far quicker if you train to lift 20kg...the 10kg will only be using the muscle to 50% of its potential and feel (compared to if you didnt train to lift 20kg) half the weight.

to get the muscle to that sort of condition just using only 10kg weights would take signifigantly longer, and involve long, drawn out, elaborate exercises

you need to balance up though whether the gains will benefit you....will being able to lift 20kg rather than just 10kg benefit you if the exercise you are performing involves lifting a 200g weight?

if you could lift 20kg...thats using the muscle to 1% of its potential

if you could lift 10kg...thats using the muscle to 2% of its potential (only 1% difference compared to 50% above?! - barely noticeable, this will be very close to the 'plateau')

Edited November 4, 2010 by chris4stars

[Matt Vandart]

Aweesome, that is the sort of answer I was looking for, thanks Chris.

Anyone else?

[JD™]

The short answer, because the long answer would hurt my head to type, is yes. If you had absolutely 'perfect' technique, then you'd get further/higher progressively until the weight of the bike has given you all the resistance training that it can and your muscles have developed as far as they can with those particular movement - again assuming 'perfect' technique.

As an aside, when I was competing I used to strap wrist weights round my frame while training to make the bike heavier. Come comp day and you take those weights off - hey presto, a much lighter bike and great performance. I put a lot of that down to, obviously, my muscles being used to the extra weight during training. Because of this, when in a comp my muscles were only being used to maybe 80% of training for the same moves, meaning I had something in reserve for the bigger stuff.

[Matt Vandart]

Thanks JD, not a bad plan that.