I bet that got your attention didn't it? Well, its true and here's why: your nervous system will only allow you to exhibit the amount of power that your joint stability allows. So they should actually be called "stability meters."
While the cycling world, rooted deep in tradition, has yet to draw a definitive correlation between gym work and generating more power in the saddle, the only place to create joint stability and structural integrity is off the bike. There's a reason for this, and you'll get it in Part II.
Can you cheat the system through sprint workouts, intervals, etc? Yes to an extent, but if you want to fast track laying down more power, optimize your neuromuscular coordination (the way your muscles work together to move your bones) and you will drive your power, I mean stability output, through the roof.
This is why you aren't measuring watts on a power meter, you're measuring joint integrity. Another way to look at this is by asking what an activity's perceived threat to your skeletal system? The higher the perceived threat from a lack of joint stability, muscle imbalances, etc the less power your nervous system will allow your body to produce.
“You can’t fire a canon from a canoe,” says Dan Hellman, Physical Therapist, C.H.E.K Faculty member. "Your core and the canon your arms and legs and thus that you can’t have powerful arms and legs if you don’t have a powerful core."Developing strong arms and legs without creating a stable movement base only increases your chance of injury, and generally will not enhances performance. I see this quite a bit with riders who have knee and back pain turning themselves inside out to get faster on the bikes when a more productive strategy may be to take the appropriate corrective measures to alleviate their pain prior to clipping in.
This is one of the principles of Z Health that Jason Agrella has introduced to the studio that will be rolled out more in the not too distant future, so stay tuned on that. Long story short, this technique dropped :40 off my time up Blandor Way to Olive Tree Rd in only four days.
The following variables were put into play to make sure the odds were stacked against me as much as possible:
- Four days in a row of 3-4 hours of sleep.
- Rode the climb on a Monday after crushing myself with weights on Friday, consecutive race pace 20 mile 2500' MTB rides on Saturday and Sunday.
- Dehydration
- Feeling like I was coming down with a cold
- Basically, I purposely tried to have a negative outcome.
The good news is that cycling is a single plane activity that is very prone to deactivating the glutes, causing the above mentioned muscular misalignment as your legs move in a fixed range of motion.
In his article ”Pointing Out Gluteal Atrophy,” John Izzo states in regard to cycling and glute function that “the seated position also exacerbates the inactivity of the gluteals while riding and reinforces the degeneration of this muscle.”
And running is bad for you? Real quick, its not. Its the way someone runs that is bad for them. Ok, off the soap box, on with the article.
Awesome, right? Not really, because if the glutes are supposed to extend the hip to drive power, and they don't function correctly, the hamstrings and hip flexors become overactive and movement compensations will take place and injuries will occur.
You see this with riders who can big ring Old La Honda Rd (3.25 miles, avg 6%, 1700') but can't balance on a single leg. Strong legs on the bike? Without a doubt. Functionally strong in a real world setting which is actually more important? Hardly. The point? If you can't move correctly off the bike, then how you do on it is irrelevant if you can't perform basic human movement correctly.
"If muscle length is altered as a result of a postural misalignment, then tension development will be reduced and the muscle will be unable to generate proper force," Mike Clarke DPT, MS, PES, CES and Scott Lucett MS, PES, CES, NASM-CPT (NASM Essentials of Corrective ExerciseTraining).
Insert functional training: a cyclists best friend. In part two, I will get into what functional training is and why we need it.
