confused about core training...

cookiemonster

Hello

So my thinking is

1. There are many studies showing a link between core conditioning and injury prevention from ballet dancers to rugby players (go google it - there's enough that its easy to find). Do you dispute this?

2. In cyclists core work is a common (perhaps the pre-eminent) treatment for psoas, piriformis, itb and related issues to avoid re-occurrence (after the acute problem has been resolved). Again, do you dispute this? Do you disagree with physios that base a treatment on core work?

I'm then confused as to why you guys saying that core conditioning cannot, in cyclists, be used to avoid injury as in other activities?

jon

huuregeil

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

there is no good evidence to support "prehab".

Maybe this hasn't been shown in cycling, but it has in other sports. E.g., again, off the top of my head:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15742602

Are there actually any negative results for "prehab" & cycling? I'm genuinely interested and I haven't seen any study at all on this before. As I mentioned before, the resource required to do this properly (i.e. assess the results of an individualised program over time and with sufficient sample size) is highly restrictive. Jon's view above seems reasonable to me, and concurs with my own personal experience and e.g. observation of mates/club members. (And I strongly agree with Jon, that much of this depends on how you classify and define things, particularly with respect to what "fit" or "healthy" means).

Incidentally, Ric, I wonder what your take on Steve Hogg's position is, which seems to be, from reading his blog, that he's highly supporting of additional exercises, where appropriate, to support the fitting process by improving biomechanics?

And, as mentioned before, this guy has a long list of published work in this area:

http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~mcgill/

As before, not cycling, but "life" (including back pain prevention) and a range of other sports.

napoleond

Davey C wrote:

Before doing squats I couldn't bend my legs with a heavy weight on my shoulders and stand back up again. Having done squats I am able to do that now.

That's a playground-level come back...

As I have stated 4 times now, working on my core has enabled me to do my job better. See my example. It is something we are called upon to do often...

phreak

A lot of the responses in this thread have been playground level. Not sure why it hasn't been locked by the moderators.

ric/rstsport

huuregeil wrote:

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

there is no good evidence to support "prehab".

Maybe this hasn't been shown in cycling, but it has in other sports. E.g., again, off the top of my head:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15742602

Are there actually any negative results for "prehab" & cycling? I'm genuinely interested and I haven't seen any study at all on this before. As I mentioned before, the resource required to do this properly (i.e. assess the results of an individualised program over time and with sufficient sample size) is highly restrictive. Jon's view above seems reasonable to me, and concurs with my own personal experience and e.g. observation of mates/club members. (And I strongly agree with Jon, that much of this depends on how you classify and define things, particularly with respect to what "fit" or "healthy" means).

Incidentally, Ric, I wonder what your take on Steve Hogg's position is, which seems to be, from reading his blog, that he's highly supporting of additional exercises, where appropriate, to support the fitting process by improving biomechanics?

And, as mentioned before, this guy has a long list of published work in this area:

http://www.ahs.uwaterloo.ca/~mcgill/

As before, not cycling, but "life" (including back pain prevention) and a range of other sports.

it's like saying that weight training helps (endurance) running, so must help (endurance) cycling. they both use the legs right? It doesn't work like that.

Not that i really want to carry on with this discussion (as i have work to do, and i've been discussing this subject for the last decade), but the last time i looked into this i found data that showed such things as

1) stretching prior to exercise (that's a reasonable way to warm up or for part of your warm up, right?) - impaired performance, did more damage
2) weight and strength training as pre hab, also caused more injuries

So, having previously seen a stack of data on this and related issues (and not heard of anything new to suggest an alternative opinion - and believe me, people love sending me abuse on this -- "have you seen this article - it proves you wrong"), myu opinion is something like

If you want to be good/improve at endurance cycling (that's any cycling event lasting longer than 90-secs) and you can walk upstairs unaided then you have sufficient strength to cycle at an elite level (e.g. win the tour de france).

However, if you have some sort of condition/disability/injury/etc then you may need to do some sort of supplemental work. This should be advised by e.g. a physiotherapist

if you get back ache while riding your bike for several hours or some other similar condition it's probable that you have a poor set up or lack fitness (e.g. maybe you have only ever trained for 1 hr / day for the last year, but today you ride for 5 hours and get back ache) then you should change your set up or get fitter. Just like your legs adapt to the stresses placed upon them while cycling, so do the other muscles that may hurt.

Right, work to do. catch you all later
Ric

Matchstick Man

^ Now can we lock the thread?

P_Tucker

Davey C wrote:

Before doing squats I couldn't bend my legs with a heavy weight on my shoulders and stand back up again. Having done squats I am able to do that now.

Brilliant

huuregeil

Ric,

No abuse (!)- I have sympathy with your position (especially regarding ECP, where I agree absolutely) but I think the situation with injury risk is rather more nuanced that you state. Particularly:

1. People with "some sort of condition" represents a far bigger pool than many might assume, and the medical and even the physio profession is not good at picking this up. (It generally needs a physio with an extremely strong sports background to have a good idea about these kind of issues and to be able to pick these up).

2. "Just like your legs adapt to the stresses placed upon them while cycling, so do the other muscles that may hurt." This is a bad analogy because it's not the muscles that typically get injured, its other soft tissue structures (cartilidge, discs, etc.) - these may not adapt, and the training stresses may not be appropriate (in other words, it's quite possible that an appropriate training stress results in overloaded soft tissue structures, thus adaptation never takes place because of injury). As per the research by McGill above, which is incidentally extremely enlightening. Bottom line is that humans are humans, and get injured in similar ways - the only difference with cycling is that the loads are different, but the incidence of e.g. back and knee issues among cyclists suggest that it's worth paying attention to how other humans react to different training strategies and build resiliance, and of course apply it to the specific set of circumstances a particular cyclist finds himself in. Which goes back to people "with some sort of condition" being closer to the "norm", normal not being normal at all!

3. "Core training" as I see it, is an approach to understanding your own bio-mechanical limitations, not a prescriptive approach. From an athletic point of view, I think every sportsperson should strive to understand their own bodies better. (In other words, the boundaries between the medical profession and the athlete needs to blur, because the athlete needs to be aware of how his/her body responds.)

4. Stretching is (generally - with a couple of very sport-specific exceptions) an entirely stupid form of warm up, and this has been common knowledge for quite a while! ;-)

Regards,

NJK

huuregeil wrote:

Ric,

No abuse (!)- I have sympathy with your position (especially regarding ECP, where I agree absolutely) but I think the situation with injury risk is rather more nuanced that you state. Particularly:

1. People with "some sort of condition" represents a far bigger pool than many might assume, and the medical and even the physio profession is not good at picking this up. (It generally needs a physio with an extremely strong sports background to have a good idea about these kind of issues and to be able to pick these up).

2. "Just like your legs adapt to the stresses placed upon them while cycling, so do the other muscles that may hurt." This is a bad analogy because it's not the muscles that typically get injured, its other soft tissue structures (cartilidge, discs, etc.) - these may not adapt, and the training stresses may not be appropriate (in other words, it's quite possible that an appropriate training stress results in overloaded soft tissue structures, thus adaptation never takes place because of injury). As per the research by McGill above, which is incidentally extremely enlightening. Bottom line is that humans are humans, and get injured in similar ways - the only difference with cycling is that the loads are different, but the incidence of e.g. back and knee issues among cyclists suggest that it's worth paying attention to how other humans react to different training strategies and build resiliance, and of course apply it to the specific set of circumstances a particular cyclist finds himself in. Which goes back to people "with some sort of condition" being closer to the "norm", normal not being normal at all!

3. "Core training" as I see it, is an approach to understanding your own bio-mechanical limitations, not a prescriptive approach. From an athletic point of view, I think every sportsperson should strive to understand their own bodies better. (In other words, the boundaries between the medical profession and the athlete needs to blur, because the athlete needs to be aware of how his/her body responds.)

4. Stretching is (generally - with a couple of very sport-specific exceptions) an entirely stupid form of warm up, and this has been common knowledge for quite a while! ;-)

Regards,

Quite surprised this has thread has gone on for this long...

Firstly Cycling is very different to most every other sport and with a correct bike fit and training programme unless you fall off there are very few injuries.

Most injuries that are not through falling off are because of bad bike fit and bad habits in day to day life.

Also dynamic stretching for almost any other sport other than cycling is essential.

slowsider

Ric/RSTSport wrote:

it's like saying that weight training helps (endurance) running, so must help (endurance) cycling. they both use the legs right? It doesn't work like that.

So how does it work then? Genuinely.

Here's one that suggests it does.
http://brage.bibsys.no/nih/bitstream/UR ... 202011.pdf

t.m.h.n.e.t

The problem with studies is,you can find one to pretty much prove anything you like.

slowsider

And 83% of statistics are made-up on the spot.

mattshrops

Totally anecdotal about training specificity. Recovering from an accident cycling became my exercise of choice. Took me quite a long time but eventually i got to 50 miles. Most non cyclists eyes would pop out at that. At that same time i was unable to stand for 8 hours(at work) without being so tired and in such pain that i needed to sleep most of the next day.
My conclusion- cycling makes you good at cycling-therefore to get better at cycling try cycling.

If anyone wants a stronger core, whether for everyday life or whatever -cool you go for it.