5 Beginner Moves For Improving Your Mobility On And Off The Bike
Get mobile, boost your performance on the trails and recover faster with these mobility moves…
Good mobility means we can move through our full range of motion with control. In order to do this we need to have good flexibility, strength, body awareness and coordination-just to name a few!As mountain bikers we need good mobility specifically for better positioning on the bike, which in turn affects our power, efficiency, longevity and decreases our risk of injury.Want to know more about this? Check out Why Mobility is Important for Mountain Bikers? These beginner mobility moves will target movement patterns that are fundamental to riding, using techniques that incorporate not only our muscles but our tendons, ligaments and joints, all with the aim of improving our range of motion and control.Now, mobility work takes time; just think about how mobile you used to be as a kid and how long it’s taken you to become less mobile over the years. This is not an overnight fix and you might find some of these positions challenging, but keep at it and you’ll start to see the benefits on and off the bike. If you’re just starting out I’d recommend implementing these exercises at least 3 times a week, with the aim of building up to 5-7 times per week. The more often you practise mobility, the less time you’ll need to spend on it. It’s kind of use it or lose it, so once you’ve reached your goals then make sure you maintain it by doing a little bit everyday, if possible. It’s also important that you work to your current level, don’t force yourself into the positions that you are seeing in the demo videos. Remember, all of our bodies are different and anatomically we might not be able to get fully in certain positions due to the structure of our skeleton- go at your own pace and focus on your optimal mobility.- Time To Get Mobile -
Here are a few basic exercises to help increase our mobility, based on the most common mobility-based issues that mountain bikers experience. Half Kneeling Calf Stretch
Time: Hold for 30 seconds (if this is too challenging start with 10 seconds on each side, then with each session aim to increase the hold by 5 seconds)
Repeat: 3 - 5 times each side
Tip- think about pressing down hard on the accelerator pedal in a car whilst contracting the muscles in your lower leg. Leaning the torso forward will load more weight into the joint, allowing use to get further into the stretch. Use the hand as extra resistance if you feel you need it, don’t force it though. - Why? -
To improve our dorsiflexion.Dorsiflexion is the ability to lift your toes toward your shins. Naturally, when we’re riding our foot is dorsiflexed, this gives us a stable platform to enable us to move on the bike. If we have poor ankle mobility, this generally puts our center of gravity too far back and can really place stress on the joints further up the body; hip and knee injuries are especially common in people with limited ankle mobility. This is obviously not good for mountain bikers! You might not think that ankle mobility plays a huge part in our riding, but our entire riding position from the ankle up can be improved by focusing on increasing our dorsiflexion. - How This Exercise Helps -
By flexing our ankle through our current range of motion in dorsiflexion, then adding some resistance (i.e. our body weight) at the end of the range of motion we will begin to increase our mobility; this in turn will allow for better positioning on the bike, better overall control and reduce the risk of injury.2. Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch With Side Bend
Time: Hold stretch for 10 - 30 seconds (the aim is to be able to hold the stretch for 30 seconds, if this is too challenging start at 10 and aim to increase the hole by 5 seconds every session)
Repeat: 3 - 5 reps on each side
Tip - Squeeze the glute that's on the same side as the knee on the ground and tilt the pelvis before you push the hips forward. You should feel a stretch through the front of the hip without having to dump all of your weight forwards.- Why? -
To improve our hip extension. When we ride we hold our body in a hip hinge position; whilst this movement pattern is essential for riding, holding this position for a long time causes our hip flexors (the muscles at the front of the hips which help bring our knees to our chest) to become super tight. Tight muscles are more prone to injury; the more we cycle, the tighter our hips get and the less ROM we have in this joint. Having limited ROM in our hip flexors can also restrict our downwards pedal stroke, causing a loss of power. It’s a vicious cycle and something that's relatively simple to prevent. - How This Exercise Helps -
This traditional lower body stretch will help to stretch and lengthen the hip flexors. The fact that our hip flexors are actually found in our spine, glutes and legs is often overlooked; so, reaching the arms overhead and adding a side bend allows us to target all of our hip flexors, working through their full ROM. Having mobile hip flexors will keep us injury free and allow us to put more power into our pedalling.3. 90/90
Time: 30 seconds each side, if this is too challenging then hold for as long as you can before moving to the other side. Just try and increase the time slightly the next time you do this. This is intense
Repeat: 3 - 5 reps each side
Tip- Have the shoulders inline with the front leg and the torso as upright as possible to start; then when you feel you want a little more lean over the front leg, hinging from the hips- we’re trying to avoid rounding the back here. The aim is to have both knees on the ground, and to actively try to press them down into the floor. If you’ve got tight hips and can’t maintain an upright position, try and refrain from leaning to the side in order to put your hand to the floor to support you. Instead, place some books or a yoga block down to rest your hand on. This will allow you to keep your torso upright whilst supporting yourself.- Why -
To improve internal and external rotation of the hipsOur hips can rotate internally (towards the body) and externally (away from the body). This internal and external rotation, among other things, aids in our movement when flexing and extending the leg. If we don’t have sufficient rotational mobility in our hips then this can inhibit our pedalling. This is because our knees are essentially prisoners of our hips and ankles; if our hips have poor mobility then our knees are forced to compensate. Depending on where our hips are getting stuck, the knees either move inwards towards the top tube, or they stick out and away from our body. The optimal riding position is for the knee to move in line with the ankle, straight up and straight down, so riding with them caved in or bowed out puts an enormous amount of pressure on our knees which leads to pain and injury. Plus, not being in an optimal riding position means we are limiting the amount we can move our bike underneath us. - How This Exercise Helps -
We don’t really want to force ourselves to ride in the ‘correct’ way; some people's hips might naturally lack internal rotation due to the natural angle of the pelvis, so don’t beat yourself up if your knees aren’t perfectly aligned with your ankles. Remember, what’s important is that we offer the body as much ROM as we can give it, this exercise helps us to open up the hips in both internal and external rotation and slowly get you to your individual optimal riding position. The goal is to improve alignment of the knee - not perfection!4. Wall Angel
Reps: 8 - 10
Repeat: 3 times
Tip- keeping your back and head pressed against the wall, avoid arching your back or lifting your head from the wall. If you can’t reach all the way overhead and maintain good form, then only reach as far as you can. The closer your hands get together at the top, the more mobility you have, it's harder than it looks!- Why -
To open up the chest, reduce rounded shoulders and activate under used postural muscles.Poor positioning on the bike, whether this is from lack of strength in the body or incorrect bike fit, puts our shoulders in a rounded forwards position. Whilst the shoulder is usually one of the most mobile joints in the body, over time our shoulders become ‘stuck’ in this position because the body starts to adopt this movement pattern as the norm (especially when a lot of us adopt this position in our daily lives). On the bike this can cause a fair bit of neck pain, as our head is forced into a strained flexed position in order to look at the trail ahead, all because our shoulders are rounded forward. - How This Exercise Helps -
This is more of a corrective exercise as most of us will have poor posture from poor mobility in our shoulders. In time, this will open up the shoulders reducing the amount they round forwards, we’ll notice on the bike that we’re no longer straining to look at the trail and have less tension in the neck during, and after, a ride.5. Quadruped Rotation
Reps: 10- 15 on each side
Repeat: 3 times
Tip- keep your hips still to avoid twisting through your lower back. Suck in your stomach, squeezing your belly button towards your spine, exhaling as you reach down and inhaling as you reach up.- Why -
To improve thoracic mobility and become ‘unstuck’ in our upper back. A lot of us adopt a riding position that includes a flexed thoracic spine (a rounded upper back) which, similarly to the shoulders, is the result of a lack of strength, bad posture and poor bike fitness. This results in our body finding compensations elsewhere in order to find the extra range of movement that we are now lacking in the upper back. This can lead to an array of issues, including lower back pain, and it can even inhibit our ability to take a deep breath whilst we're riding - not good for an endurance sport!. In order to stop reinforcing bad movement patterns of the upper back, we need to move the T-spine through its full ROM, incorporating extension and rotational movements in order to improve our posture.- How This Exercise Helps -
This exercise brings some much needed movement to the T-spine to release that stuck, hunched feeling we can have on the bike. This in turn offers some relief for the lower back and other areas that are affected by our poor posture. If we mobilise the spine and reinforce good movement patterns, along with adding some strengthening exercises for our postural muscles, slowly we’ll be able to avoid this position on the bike. A Final Word
I hope you found this useful. Just remember that everything is connected, and this is a really good reason we need to work with the body as a whole, rather than just focusing on our main movers. The body is incredible at adapting to the things we throw at it and, thanks to this fact, it’s only a matter of time before your poor form catches up with you (if it hasn’t already!). Mobility is a crucial element for your performance on the bike, but it will also allow you to be fully functional, healthy and pain free off the bike as well- so it’s definitely worth it.If you found these exercises beneficial then check out our MTB specific strength & mobility programmes to see some real mobility gains and boost your performance on the bike!