MTB 101 - Skills »
Balance training for better bike skills
Ed. note: In this writeup, semi-regular contributor Adrian Howard gives us the lowdown on balance, how it influences your riding, and how you can work on balance training to improve your bike-handling skills.
I want to give you a little more insight into the key elements that influence an individual’s ability to balance, something that is an ‘under trained’ and misunderstood area of performance. And it’s also something that’s very relevant for the mountain biker.
Balance is the ability to maintain your centre of gravity over a base of support. If this base of support grows it should be easier to balance and, if the base of support decreases, balance becomes more difficult. This is a very basic definition of balance and as we explore the elements of balance you will understand why.
The original model of balance suggested that balance was purely a reflex-based system, which meant that if you lost you balance your body would react and you would regain your balance. If you were unable to regain balance you would fall. This model required little input from the individual, as automatic reactions were taking care of keeping you upright. Recent research has shown that balance is not, in fact, a reflex-based system and is instead an extremely complex interaction involving many of the body’s systems.
Equilibrium and righting reactions
Equilibrium reactions are reactions that your body uses to maintain its centre of gravity over its base of support. Righting reactions are reactions your body uses to maintain alignment of your body segments so that you can more easily keep your balance.
Example: Equilibrium and righting reactions come into play when you position your head, your hips, or your feet on your bike to keep yourself in an optimal position on a rocky downhill. There are three systems which allow you to do this optimally….
1. Vision
Vision is the first component of balance. There are a number of reflex reactions that orientate the eyes with the horizon. If your vision is optimal, then your ability to maintain the position of your head relative to your body and external space should be easy. If your vision is restricted then these reactions become difficult, as you have no way of visually knowing where you are in space and where the trail goes in front of you.
2. Proprioceptive sense
Proprioceptive input is input from the body’s muscles and the joints of the body that provide information about where your limbs and body are in space. Every time you move, tiny receptors in the muscles and joints send information back to the brain, a process that allows you to position your body in a particular manner. Proprioceptive sense is used to a greater extent when vision becomes obstructed.
Example: In situations when your goggles or glasses are partly covered with mud or when you go from bright sunshine into a section of trail that is relatively dark your body must rely on input from its joints and muscles to work out where you are in space.
3. Vestibular input
Deep inside your ears you have little fluid-filled canals and these canals have tiny hairs lining them. When you move your head, the hairs are stimulated as the fluid flows past them. These canals make up the vestibular system and this system is king when it comes to balance. The vestibular system helps you work out where you are in space when conflicting information arrives for processing at your brain from your eyes and your proprioceptive senses.
Example: The best example I can think of is sitting in a vehicle at some traffic lights with a truck positioned on either side of you. When the trucks move your vision tells your brain that you are moving, and your proprioceptive system tells your brain that you are sitting still. So which is it? Your vestibular system has the job of working out where you are in space by monitoring feedback from the tiny hairs in the inner ear. If there is no movement in the fluid then you should be able to maintain your balance even with conflicting information coming from the other two senses.
Balance on the bike
As you can imagine most people are vision dominant, which means that they rely heavily on their vision to keep themselves upright. It also means that the moment they are placed in a situation where vision is reduced, their ability to perform is reduced.
If you are an elite-level downhill or cross country racer and you enter a dark section of forest what do you do? Do you jump off you bike and wait until your eyes adjust or stay on the bike and hold your line, hoping not to fall off? Or do you use your proprioceptive and vestibular systems to tell you where you are in space? The obvious answer is to use the latter two systems.
So how do you train these systems to improve your performance? The solution is really quite simple: take out the systems you do not want to train and progressively challenge the system you want to train.
Vision training
Take a pen, hold it in front of you, and move it left to right while keeping your head still. Follow the pen with your eyes. Do this for 30 seconds, repeat three times.
Next, hold the pen still and move your head from left to right, keeping your eyes fixed on the pen. The faster you move your head the harder it will be to maintain focus. This occurs because your vision and vestibular systems are inextricably linked. As you move your head fluid in the canals of the inner ear flows about. The quicker the fluid moves the harder it is to focus. Do this rotation of the head for 30 seconds, repeat two more time. Be sure to stop if you feel dizzy.
Finally, take the pen, hold it in front of you, and move it to the left and back to the right. While moving the pen, turn your head in the direction opposite to the direction the pen is moving and try to maintain your gaze on the pen. The movement of the head stimulates the fluid in the canals and makes it more difficult to focus with the eyes, therefore training your vision. You can also do this drill while riding your bike by an object in the distance.
Proprioceptive training
If you want to train your ability to shift your weight around on your bike to improve your turning and cornering skills, you will need to be good at using your proprioceptive system.
A basic drill is to stand with one leg in front of the other, with the heel of one foot touching the toes of the other. Close your eyes and shift your hips from left to right while trying to maintain your balance for 30 to 60 seconds. After you’ve finished, switch positions with your legs and do the other side.
While you’re doing this, notice that you can feel your feet gripping the ground. This is how your body gains the proprioceptive feedback about your position in space. For another example of the proprioceptive feedback in action, saddle up on your bike and try to sit or stand on the pedals of the bike. Once you’ve got that down, close your eyes and try to keep your balance… pretty tough hey!
Vestibular training
For the vestibular system, you need to remove vision and remove or reduce your proprioceptive feedback. You can do this by standing on an unstable surface of some kind — foam pillow or duradisc in the gym will work.
Using an unstable surface reduces proprioceptive input and forces you to use your vestibular system, especially if your eyes are closed. You will see that to shift the hips left to right is far more difficult than it is when your eyes are open, and you will want to open your eyes to right yourself. If this is the case, you are like most people and visually dominant.
Summary
For those of you who ride and race at a high level you should work on each component of balance in your normal training routine, as each component will definitely improve your riding performance. There are many ways to challenge your balance and I have touched on only a couple here. You can adapt and change these exercises to help you improve your bike skills as you see fit.
Good luck and enjoy your ride…if you have any questions, post them up in the comment section and I’ll do what I can to answer them.
1. Posted by Ashwin | 6:59 am, 14 June 2006
Sweet article. Thanks.