Top Fitness Tips for Mountain Biking

Mountain biking is all exciting and fun until the ups and roughs of the trail have you gasping for breath – all due to poor health maintenance and the lack of mountain-biker-sort fitness that you need. The lack keeps you a safe distance away from all the actual fun. It keeps you from pursuing your passion to its full.

Truly, for a passionate mountain biker, that's a suffocating scenario. It's more like keeping yourself caged without reason when you have all the freedom to fly. Certainly, not a good deal. Is it?

Why keep yourself from reaching the heights of your potential? Or, more essentially, what can bring out your true biking potential?

Well, if you've got similar questions, we're probably on the same page. Lots can boost your mountain biking stamina, but for a push, let's start with these easy-to-practice fitness tips for mountain biking.

Tip#1 Focus on Consistency

With daily life chores, it is quite easy to put off mountain biking training for weekends. You can go for long rides and complete the week’s goal, right?

But, remember, consistency is the key to improvement and success in mountain biking. Commit to 4 ride sessions a week, and compare the results with the weekend strategy. You are likely to polish your skills more efficiently with consistency and commitment. Even more, mountain biking after a complete week can leave your body sore and painful!

Tip#2 Pay Attention to Your Diet

As a mountain biker, you need to pay good attention to what you eat and how much you eat. Both nature and frequency of food can have a significant impact on your stamina and fitness.

There's no set formula for nutrition intake. It depends on several factors, including:

• Body Composition Goals


• Health status


• Growth Adjustments


• Training Load


• Athlete needs

For that very reason, you ought to take a professional's help to get an idea of your body's standard demand for nutrition. But here's a generic guide that applies to all:

• You should increase your intake of nutrient-dense carbohydrates like vegetables, fruits, and wholegrain bread if you plan on back to back intense training sessions.


• If weight loss fuels your interest in mountain biking, try easy and short biking sessions early in the morning before breakfast. It will make good use of current fat stores. Additionally, you can time your training sessions such that you're able to take your regular meals. Thus, reducing the need for snacks.


• Keep refueling your energy if you have breaks ranging from 30 minutes - 8 hours between training sessions or races. You can gobble up carb-rich snacks.


• Whether you take protein through supplements or natural resources like lean meat and poultry, it's best to spread out the consumption of overall intake. Avoid taking heavy doses of protein in one go as it can have adverse health effects.

Tip#3 Allow yourself complete recovery

Being a mountain biker, you’re likely to be exerting immense stress on your body and pushing it to its limits. While this is a requirement to master mountain biking skills and not a choice, you must also understand that rest is of utmost importance.

Depending on the rides per week, you need to give your body a rest day. Let’s suppose if you take up to 4 rides per week, you will have to avoid mountain biking for one complete day.

It may be difficult initially, but you’ll have to control the burning passion to race through the steeping lands. You see, without a balance between physical exertion and recovery, your health will deteriorate in the long run.

To keep the rest day endurable, you can perform light workouts, stretching, and yoga. Or, to boost your recovery process, you can practice an effective myofascial release technique called foam rolling.

In it, you’ll have to put all the weight on a muscle and release the soreness using a foam roller. There are several benefits of foam rolling, which includes removal of lactic acid, loosening of tightened muscles, and relieving of the imbalances.

Tip#4 Add strength training to your routine

Another crucial factor for improving mountain biking fitness is strength. To avoid damaging bones and muscles, you must train your body to meet the demands of the time through strength training.

Perhaps, you’ll understand better with the example of strength training’s most cherished benefit, which is an increase in bone density. During the training, your body learns to mold according to meet the required function efficiently. Hence, when stress gets exerted on the bones, the body temporarily increases the bone density as well as tissue.

It means lesser body damage and fatigue after an intense mountain biking session. Also, adding compound movements in your strength training can improve muscular functions. These compound movements can be as simple as squats or push-ups.

As a result, strength training will augment your overall health, make your performance powerful, and prevent injuries.

Tip#5 Invest in a quality mountain bike

What most beginners and seasonal bikers don't understand is that to ride like the wind, you need a bike engineered to flow. You need a bike that divides the pain of the rough trail between you and itself, instead of hauling it all on your already strained muscles. Thus, doubling the number of efforts needed to keep your body fit and perform better at biking.

On the contrary, if you spend on premium quality bikes, even the most basic one will guarantee:

• Smooth ride


• Responsive brakes


• Safety


• Excellent traction


• Steady Control


• Robust Frame

Note that this doesn't mean you've to empty your pockets for a good ride. Getting yourself one of the best mountain bikes under 2500 dollars will do great too. Any of these will provide the features mentioned above for sure.

And technically speaking, cheaper alternatives are not even pocket-friendly. They may save you some money at the initial purchase, but they'll have you spending a few hundreds now and then on repair and maintenance. It's just a marketing thing. So, you better calculate and spend your hard-earned money wisely.

Conclusion

Whether mountain biking is a hobby or a career way for you, remember fitness remains a crucial factor to excel at the sport. You must monitor your fitness conditions if you want to unlock your full potential and experience maximum thrill.

Above, we have mentioned the top 5 fitness tips that can be your ultimate guideline to become a better mountain biker. Conclusively, these revolve around consistency, nutrition, allowing yourself recovery, strength training, and investment in quality bikes. Happy Mountain Biking!