MOUNTAIN BIKE ORIENTEERING
MTBO Training & Specificity Kay Haarsma
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RAIN smart not harder or longer. Your body is wonderfully adaptive. It responds to the training quality and quantity, or lack of, that you invest in it. The training year would be very boring and quite unproductive if a rider did exactly the same training each week. In fact studies have demonstrated that the body acclimatises physiologically to a specific training diet after about 6 weeks, and thus adjustments then need to be made. Generally a training year is “periodised” or broken down into different blocks. These can be varied but they usually involve: Base, Pre-Competition, Competition and Recovery periods. These blocks are often broken down into micro-periods. So the three months of base training would have two or three slightly different training plans. Jan B
Feb PC
Mar April May June July Aug Sept C C R+B PC C C+R C Trials WOC
Oct R
Nov B
Dec B
The above model is a bit stylised and simplified to show the two main peaks (major competition periods). In reality a MTBO rider will also have other major events that they will aim to do well in too. Luckily a cyclist can recover quickly, so can compete often in a year. B = (base) - the emphasis will be on endurance with high volume (many kilometres) and little intensity. PC = (pre-competition) - there will be a greater emphasis on quality / intensive training with intervals, sprints, hills etc. There may be some races here but there is no resting up for them. Some map reading sessions need to be incorporated too. C = (competition) - ideally with weekly races (MTBO / other) and other quality training sessions. Importantly, adequate recovery should be planned, as should tapering (training reduction) leading into major competitions. R = (recovery) - the rider needs a rest from structured training to rejuvenate. They maintain their fitness level by doing other forms of exercise or some easy riding. There are six “training principles” that need to be incorporated in training plans to achieve optimal performance. These are: Individuality; Overload; Reversibility; Variability; Recovery and Specificity. I will look at specificity below.
Training Specificity Most MTBO and even traditional mountain bike cross country riders tend to spend 75%+ of their training time on road bikes for the majority of the year. This is because they can train at a higher intensity and with greater consistency than single track riding allows. Also, just pure technical mountain biking, if done day after day, is very draining on the muscular system and will cause undue fatigue. However, when the major competitions come closer the rider must ensure that they are specific with their training, rather than just clocking up kilometres / hours. This is much harder for the MTBO rider than the foot orienteer as there are far fewer MTBO races available.
34 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER JUNE 2009
MTBO REQUIREMENTS and application of SPECIFICITY Physical fitness - ride at or near threshold (very hard) for the whole race, with occasional micro breaks or slowing down for control punching and map reading. Race time is known, as is the steepness of the terrain. The best preparation for racing is to race. If you do all your training at a comfortable speed then the body won’t magically adapt to race speed when required. If you can’t do actual MTBO races every week then either simulate them, or preferably do criterium type races. These are at a high intensity and have the added value of requiring surges at the frequent corners on the course, which replicates the power demands of accelerating away from controls. Ensure that you practice races at the differing winning times. Be they 25 minutes for the Sprint, 50min for the Middle Distance or 90 / 110 minutes for the Long Distance. Do more of the one that you find the most difficult. Physical skills – MTBO races are off-road so in the competitive season you must do more sessions on the dirt. Intervals and even tempo training can be done on faster tracks. If you aren’t so good technically then a greater amount of specific single track riding is needed. Whether the riding surfaces at the race venue are sandy, rocky or root /log strewn, or have lots of single track, can usually be ascertained beforehand and you can seek to train more in the relevant terrain. However the major factor with most MTBO races are that you are riding on unknown tracks, so you must have the riding smarts to adjust quickly to what you see ahead. Imitate this by regularly riding fast on unfamiliar tracks. Navigation – quick map reading and route choice decisions whilst riding is the specific demand. Map memory and visualisation techniques are more advantageous and crucial than in Foot-O, as you can’t go roughly on compass. You must make the correct choices on which tracks to take. Mistakes are costly, as you can’t cut through to the correct track. Rider thoughts may be “after about 800 metres turn left onto small dotty track in the second gully, then almost immediately right onto steep uphill single track and turn right again when it hits the major road near the knoll after about 400 metres.” If you have to stop or slow down at every change of direction you will be considerably slower than the rider who can memorise the lot. Map reading is the area neglected terribly by many riders. No matter how fast you ride, if your map reading is poor you won’t succeed. This doesn’t need to be done all year round but must be highlighted in the pre-competition and competitive phases. Race practice or simulation is ideal. Otherwise be creative by riding around on street maps of areas as this at least trains your eyes and memory. Also just ride trails while doing route choices on maps of other areas. Decide on your route choice hurriedly (as you would do in a race) and then look again at all options and see if you chose correctly.
