We talk a lot about fitting your bike to your body, but there’s a lot you can do to keep your body healthy and help it fit in a more powerful position on the bike.
Episode Transcript
Trevor Connor 00:00
Trevor, hello and welcome to fast doc, your source for the science of endurance performance. I’m your host. Trevor Connor, here with Dr Andy Pruitt. We all want a position on our bikes that is both powerful and aerodynamic. Often, though, in the quest for that position, we end up with a setup that’s so aggressive we have to force our bodies to comply, that can lead to a lot of discomfort and ultimately injuries that will carry with us through the rest of our cycling careers. This is why a good fitter will set up your bike to fit your body where it’s at now, but a great fitter can take it a step further. Often, issues with our bodies prevent us from being able to sit in the most optimal position for performance. So these fitters will help you address the issues with your body so that in the future, you can be in a position that’s both more powerful and healthier. Things they help the athlete work on include addressing strength, range of motion imbalances, scars and adhesions. With us today to discuss his second step is long time fitter and cycling legend John Howard, owner of John Howard performance sports. He’ll talk with us about the issues that cyclists can address off the bike to make them more powerful on the bike. Some of this work can be done in the fit studio by a trained fitter using something called dynamic motion therapy, or myofacial release. We’ll also discuss how Howard uses a spin scan to assess a rider position and what strength and range of motion exercises he feels can help most cyclists. Finally, we’ll talk about why he feels rollers are still one of the best tools. Joining Howard, we’ll hear from another legend, Leonard Zinn, the owner of Zinn cycles and author of Zinn and the art of bicycle maintenance. We’ll also hear from the Tri doc himself, Dr Jack sankoff, who will talk with us about whether triathletes and time trials should or shouldn’t go for the most aggressively arrow position. So get ready for some smooth pedaling, and let’s make you fast. Well, John, welcome to the show. I’ve actually been really excited about this one because I have a history with you that I’m sure you don’t remember me.
John Howard 01:58
Yeah, you may have to fill me in Trevor,
Trevor Connor 01:59
you used to do some time trial training camps in San Diego. This is over 20 years ago, and I was just starting out, and I was really focused on the time trial, so I flew out to San Diego and did one of your camps, and it worked wonders for me. I was a cat four cyclists at the time, and not performing very well. I did your camp, took your advice. I still do an interval workout that you gave me, which I love. And that year, I won the New Jersey State Time Trial championships. I won my category in the New York State Time Trial championships, and then got top 10 at Canadian nationals in the time trial. I attribute 95% of that to you.
John Howard 02:46
Well, thank you, Trevor. I appreciate hearing that, and congratulations on those victories. That’s
Dr. Andy Pruitt 02:52
quite a backstory. That’s a good story. That’s better than mine, meeting him at the old red Zinger. So anyway, I
Trevor Connor 02:58
love it. I’m old enough that I talk to a current cyclist, and I mentioned old races, and they’re just like, Huh, you guys are like, going further back, telling me about races, I don’t know we’re dinosaurs, and that’s okay. So John from that camp that I did with you, what I remember the about you is you set the land speed record for cycling, and I remember seeing the pictures of you. You were behind this giant wind cover. What would you call it? It was behind.
John Howard 03:26
I call it fairing, attached to a pure race car which essentially bored a hole through the wind. That’s how it works. And Charlie Murphy did it in 1890 1899 Charlie broke it at 60 miles an hour behind the Long Island express train. When I jumped into it, only about a half a dozen men had attempted it. No women had ever attempted it, and I eventually, over a three year period, evolved with equipment. And the bicycle had to evolve. The car had to evolve. And we finally put it all together and went 152.2 miles an hour on the Bonneville solid flats. So it was one of the things that I recognized in the early part of my career when I saw Schwinn comic book on an old school bike shop with hardwood floors and a high metal ceiling, bikes stacked to the to the roof and on the Showcase counter was this Schwinn comic book of alpha attorney, a who was one of the best six day racers in history was a Frenchman immigrated to the United States and coerced when bicycle company into sponsoring him. So I saw that comic book as a 10 year old, and I said, That’s what I want to do. And my career took off. I was successful and won a lot of races. And. Yeah, and finally, had the resources to put the project together, and we succeeded in our mission. And it’s a long story how it happened, and there was a lot of personal visualization there that got that 152 number. I talk about this, I don’t know that now is the time to talk about it, but it’s, it’s was a fascinating venture, and fortunately, it ended well, and nobody went down, nobody got hurt. I trained a woman, Denise Mueller, that I mentioned earlier, to break that record, and she went 183 miles an hour. That record is now held by a female. And I think that is because it is a world record. Is significant. The
Dr. Andy Pruitt 05:46
size of that chain ring must be like a papaya place I was about
Trevor Connor 05:49
to bring that. I remember you telling us you had to be towed up to like, 50 miles an hour before you could even turn the cranks over. Well,
John Howard 05:55
it’s a 400 inch gear. And you, if you know the gear charts, you know what kind of gear that is. Denise had an even larger gear on her bike, so she needed, needed a pull from a little faster speed. It’s a double reduction gear. Andy, so you’ve got, if you had a single ring, you’d be scraping the salt with those little wheels. So it’s a reduction gear. And the one I had was absolutely dangerous. The one that Denise ended up with was a much safer design. But at those speeds, anything can go wrong. At any time. You can blow a tire, you can touch the bump bar on the inside too hard, and you go down, and you’re very likely not to get up. So all the Red Bull racers who are now pining to break Denise’s record need to understand that it absolutely is life threatening at this stage of the game. Well,
Dr. Andy Pruitt 06:56
I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, but that one I admire, what a great accomplishment. It’s just awesome.
John Howard 07:07
Well, I had two I had three objectives. One was to win the Iron Man Triathlon, which I did. That set up the sponsorship for some of the other projects, and the other was to break that speed record. And the third was to go further in 24 hours than any cyclist had ever gone before. And I finally got that one after four attempts, 539 miles on the Clearwater Speedway in Clearwater, Florida. That’s 22.9 miles an hour for 24 hours, that’s 11 minutes off the bike. I want
Trevor Connor 07:45
to know how many calories you burned. I was
John Howard 07:49
out totally on liquid diet the whole time,
Trevor Connor 07:52
but you have something new that you’ve done. You’ve written a book. Well, you’ve written multiple books, but you have a new book.
John Howard 07:57
The book I have now is a biographical novel, a clear difference between a biography and I felt that I could give major Taylor and his contemporaries a voice, because I had spent many, many, many hours, uh, interviewing his his daughter, Sydney Taylor Brown, who gave me, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story, I I really focused on what Sydney had to say about her father, and it wasn’t all pleasant, a lot of problems in that family, but Those stories are revealed in the black cyclone, the hero the world forgot. And I’m very proud of this book because it represents over 40 years of research. I’ve gone to many of the venues where Taylor actually raced and spent time in the Bibliotheque in Paris, the rum library, searching the microfiche labs to get as much information, and there’s a ton of information about Taylor’s experiences in in Australia. So all of this came together in the book, and I’m very proud of that book because of all those years that I dedicated to getting the research and getting it right and the story there’s, I’ve used the biographies. I’ve cultivated a group of, well, they’re gone now, but I had a group of people who actually knew Taylor. This was back in the 80s. Alf Laurier was long gone at this point, but I got another Alf, Alf Goulet who shared with me his his reflections on major Taylor, so I could start to picture what he talked like, how He visualized things and and his amazing Fauci. Faith, his belief in God Almighty, which was the deciding factor and gave him a power that he believed was was just the difference of winning and losing. And nobody talks about his religious beliefs, and I think it was fundamental in his success. Unfortunately, he died a pauper on the streets of Chicago, or actually in a hospital in Chicago, but it was a sad story, and all of that is reflected the later parts of major Taylor’s life are recorded in this book. And yes, there are moments of fiction, but there’s also every bit of the known facts about major Taylor are there. So what I did was give a dialog, and I think that makes a big difference. And where can our listeners find this book? Oh, it’s available, certainly on Amazon. Barnes and Noble. It’s available on hardback, soft cover, ebook and now audible. Pick your medicine there if you want more information. Our website is probably the best place to go, and that is major Taylor story.com and
Trevor Connor 11:22
for our younger listeners, what is major Taylor famous for? He
John Howard 11:25
was the first African American sports hero in history, first recognized sports hero in history. He broke the color line in cycling 50 years before Jackie Robinson did it in baseball, when cycling was bigger than baseball, and I think that pretty much sums it up. 1899 he won the world championship. 1898 the national championship. He didn’t win a lot of titles because there were a lot of cyclists out there who may have made the final that didn’t want to see him win. They were convinced that he was not good for the gate and that they needed to push him out, and they tried to kill him several times, actually, one almost successful, but he managed, and he harbored no ill feelings toward his fellow man, and I think that’s an amazing part of it that it did. He wasn’t jaded, even after his long career. He believed so strongly in the power of the human spirit that he brought about, in his own way, a sort of awareness of civil rights way before it was popular. A couple of his his friends, Booker T Washington, who, you know, founded the Tuskegee Institute for Higher Learning for African Americans, and WB Dubois, who started the NAACP crisis magazine. So these were his his partners. After he retired, he believed that that was, it was very important for especially younger black athletes to pursue their dreams. And he he wholeheartedly pushed cycling, you know, right up until the end of his life.
Trevor Connor 13:20
Thanks John for telling us about that. It is a fascinating story. I’m really glad you took the time to write about it, but I do think it’s time we get to the topic on hand. So basically, I’m going to give the introduction here, but we have done several episodes in the past talking about the value of bike fit and really diving into some of the details of bike fit. But sometimes during those episodes, we mention that having a body that is functioning well is a big factor. So if you have strength issues, if you have range of motion issues, if you have leg length discrepancy issues, if you have injuries, those can all affect the bike fit and Andy, as you point out, ultimately, we’re trying to make you comfortable with where your body’s at, but if you could have the athlete do some work, address some of those injuries, address some of those strength and range of motion issues, they could be put in an even more optimal bike fit. And we’d never really had that conversation. And John, when you said you wanted to come on the show, you said that’s something that you focused a lot on, too. So that’s really where we want to dive into is, what are the things that we can do for the athletes body, so that ultimately they can be in an even better position? And Andy, I know your first question is going to be, what’s a better position?
Dr. Andy Pruitt 14:36
Who judges better? But So John, I’m sure you know, at least I assume you know some of my background, and I did the first medical bike fit on Connor carpenter back in 19, I’m gonna say 76 or seven. My intro to bike fitting was purely medical resolving people’s pain via bike fit, if I could equipment changes, etc. And actually, we in. Invented a few surgeries based on knee injuries that were occurring based on new equipment, like the black look cleat, et cetera. And then as people became more comfortable, they also became faster. So then as I started to mature and work with some of the Pro Tour teams, they didn’t come to me with injuries. They came purely wanting to go faster. So there was this blend of somebody comes in for a bike fit, and they’ve got issues. You can modify the bicycle to make them comfortable that day, right? So my philosophy has always been, and I want, I want to know your response to this is that the bike needs to look like them as they change, the bike that needs to change to continue looking like them, right? So I would make the bike look like them that day, send them off to therapy or whatever. Address the changes. Many times we had to change the bike, but not always. Does that equate to your experience? Some or not
John Howard 15:57
absolutely, the number of changes are a reflection of how, of course, how dial that person is. But sometimes, in in many, many cases, I find that cyclists are instinctively aware of of what it takes to go fast. And way before bike fitting, we figured it out on our own, what we needed to do, and how those changes manifested themselves in terms of pure straight line performance. So, yeah, I totally agree. Andy, that’s essentially what you want to look like the bike or you the bike was.
Dr. Andy Pruitt 16:38
So I think that self selection I always talk about, as an athlete, I’ve kind of found my way. I’m speaking generic, found my way into position, and I self selected some things. And patient would say, Well, I ride with a really low saddle, and that’s what I’ve self selected. Well, maybe you self selected that because your bike doesn’t fit, maybe it’s the wrong size. So I think self selection can be a good thing, and it’s also a compensation which gets people into trouble and they end up on your table or on my table.
John Howard 17:13
Yeah, I agree, totally. It’s it’s important to the practitioner needs to give people a better understanding of what is supposed to happen, what you want to look like, and what you’re trying to accomplish, and all those neuromuscular pathways that have to be opened up in many cases to help advance the performance equation are part and parcel to the process 100%
Dr. Andy Pruitt 17:45
so you talk about dynamic motion therapy, and I’m more familiar with active release therapy. How are they different?
John Howard 17:53
Yeah, Ernie Farrell and I believe it was MIKE LEAHY who came up with the A R T Concept. It is similar. I will say that there are some subtle differences. Ernie probably would would say that they’re more significant than that. But from my perspective, having done DMT for some time and on the clients that I work with, I find that they The similarities are there. So if you understand one, you’ll certainly understand the other. And the purpose of fitting a person on a bike, it becomes a real necessity, I think, to have that hands on body work to open those channels up and, if possible, eliminate any leg length discrepancies. You know, I’ve, I have been personally diagnosed with a quarter of an inch of leg variants, right femur being longer than the left. But after being worked on, which I had just a few days ago, really excellent chiropractor brought me back into alignment, and she swore there was no difference in leg length. So it’s a moot point, but I think there’s a functionality to all of this, and you got to figure that out. You got to make sure that in the end, you actually do have more power, more wattage,
Trevor Connor 19:18
before we move on. You sent me information on this, but a lot of our listeners probably haven’t heard of dynamic motion therapy. So can you just tell us what that is and what the benefits are?
John Howard 19:28
Oh, sure. Well, it starts with palpitation. I guess you could say the whole idea is to put the body on the table and look for issues, and they’re fairly common. Probably one of the most common is tight external hip rotators. And I’ll notice that immediately you bring the foot down slightly, and you notice that there’s stagnation in there, and then that manifests itself with a knee split. Aid. What we’re trying to accomplish is we’re trying to get that force vector as linear as possible. That’s my understanding of the process. And in order to do that, you got to work on bodies. You’ve got to figure things out. And once you start that process, you know, it can go on for quite a while, but the main thing is, get the body on the table, try to figure out where those idiosyncrasies are and correct them. And once that’s done, you will see a significant improvement in performance,
Dr. Andy Pruitt 20:40
I agree. And so Dr Leahy is actually an old colleague of mine as well, so I’m way familiar with the AR T which is active release therapy, and they’re very similar. And I think for our listeners, you can find both kinds of practitioners scattered about the athletic world. My understanding and what’s been done to me is releasing scar or tension or shortening to allow that linear fashion. And so when John’s talking about linear I’m visualizing the knee and the power stroke over the second toe performing in a linear fashion, not in some kind of looped fashion, secondary some tightness in the hip rotators. Are you seeing the same thing? John, absolutely,
John Howard 21:27
you hit the point perfectly. Andy, good.
Dr. Andy Pruitt 21:31
So a RT, DMT. It can be very painful, but it can lead to a significant improvement in your linear function on a bicycle or as a runner.
Trevor Connor 21:42
I have a visual here. I have an old training buddy who, when we were off the bike and he was just walking, he looked completely normal, but you got him on the bike and his left leg, the knee would splay out, and he had his ankle twisted internally so badly, like I’d ride behind him and go, do you need medical attention? Just looked painful. So is this the sort of thing that we’re talking about, where you would want to get him inside, do the evaluation on him and figure out why is he twisting so much when he’s on the bike, and try to get him back into a straighter position?
John Howard 22:18
Yes, absolutely. One of the things that Ernie and I used to do is, in the San Diego areas, sit at a outdoor coffee shop, and we would watch cyclists on Saturday morning ride by as is after we did our our workout. And it was, it was really revealing to see just how many people pedal like that with that, that loop fashion rotation, which is just totally counterproductive for what we’re trying to accomplish. So, yeah, I mean, it’s part and parcel, as they say, to performance loss, not performance gain. So you want to definitely fix that. Fix those problems before proceeding. That’s That’s my my thought on it, and anytime like I did, I’m going to give you another example. I did a fit on a recreational cyclist A while back, and I had finally had a chance to actually ride with him recently. Actually, that would have been two days ago, and I noticed right away he’s back doing the same thing that he did before, the Fit coconut heel up against the crank arm. Actually wore a groove on his Dura Ace cranks on one side only. So I pointed it out. I said, Look, Ken, we got to fix this. I got to fix that cleat. I’m not going to be satisfied till we do this. So I whipped out my tools and and got it straightened out. But that’s real important point here Trevor is that it is only a portion of what we want to do. We’ve got to give him some exercises to address the issues that have been created over time. This was, this is a recreational cyclist in his 70s. So anyway, what is important, irrespective of age, is to figure out what these issues are and address them. And as soon as I saw him from behind, I realized, wow, he’s doing the same thing he was, irrespective of my quality of my fit. It didn’t bode well for me as a practitioner, looking at that and being satisfied with it. I had to fix it,
Dr. Andy Pruitt 24:33
but the responsibility relies on them. I always use the brushing and flossing. You know, I’m your dentist. I cleaned your teeth for you, but you have to go home and brush and floss. So you worked on him, you got him straightened out, and he gradually, habitually, went back to where he was physically
John Howard 24:51
well, that’s because he had failed to do the exercises that he says, Oh, I don’t remember what they were. And so I had to go back and. And show him how to release those those rotators and the specific stretch or stretches that it takes to do that, because one without the other is going to be short lived. You’ve got to have both components there, both we call it fit, f, i, t, t, e, fitness training, technique, equipment. That’s the next step of my process, which I call power fit, is the body fit. And the body fit is an really important part of the whole equation, because it addresses the actual, as I say, idiosyncrasy of movement there another
Trevor Connor 25:41
very experienced bike fitter is Leonard Zinn. Here’s an interview we did with him, talking about all the things that can go wrong when cyclists don’t do the off the bike work to ensure they’re healthy on the bike.
Leonard Zinn 25:54
Well, I mean, I just left a fit this morning that I did at noon where fit was great, as long as he didn’t just slouch back. You know that there was a lot of coaching involved, like, Look, dude, you’re really to take advantage of this. You need to think about moving your belly button toward the top tube and rotating your pelvis forward. When you do that, you’re going to breathe easier. You’re going to have more access to your quads, be more over the work, and you’re not going to put as much strain on your low back, which is why you came in here in the first place. And it allows you to bend your arms a little bit rather than being stretched out, because you’re so rolled back. And then also, one that’s really common is where people are so rolled forward in their shoulders from driving and sitting at their computers and all those things that just cannot repeat enough how you need to do other things to pull your wings back and stretch your pecs and be able to it’s going to improve the fit on the bike. And one of the biggest things that I see is people believing that a bike has to hurt, and that they’ve then done so many years of their bike hurting that now their things are so screwed up that it’s like just recently, there was a guy in that 80 year old guy coming to get fit, and he’s super ripped for an 80 year old guy, and he rides seven days a week during the season and does big loops, but he’s tolerated saddle sore so long that his whole taint area is nothing but scar tissue, and scar tissue is so delicate that it just tears constantly and just ripped open saddle sores all the time. And that’s a bike fit thing. You know, there’s things that you can do like but also saddle height seats too high. Then you’re sliding back and forth across the in his case, he was kind of wind blown, you know, where the left knee is out and the right knee is in.
Chris Case 27:56
He’s he’s found a position that is a little bit more comfortable shifting. But then
Leonard Zinn 28:01
that turned out to also have to do with one leg was shorter than the other, so that when he’d reach for that side, then he’d slide again because of that, and then his saddle was too wide. He had super, super narrow sit bones. So two things were happening. One was driving him forward, so he’s sitting on just the nose of the saddle, but the other is that every time he’d pedal down, it would force him to the side, so he’d just be just the abrasion back and forth. How
Chris Case 28:27
does he How do you get to be 80 years old and not make a change for and
Leonard Zinn 28:31
you know who said to come to me the wound clinic at Boulder County, that’s how he’s a wound clinic patient. And fortunately, there were nurses there who were bike riders who said you should go see Leonard in and get a bike fit.
Trevor Connor 28:48
So in the articles that you sent me, you mentioned a few things that you focus on with the body, so you had range of motion strength and making sure all muscles are firing, addressing scar tissues and adhesion and then any sort of length discrepancies. Are there anything else, or is that the list that you really focus on?
John Howard 29:05
Well, the specifics of the exercises. And I will say that every every year of advancement of a cyclist diary, or whatever you want to call it, I I have a lot of miles on mine, but I think it’s it behooves them to focus on the stretching and the strength training, as opposed to riding the bike. And you guys in places like Colorado are almost lucky, in a sense, that you’re off the bike for a period of time, and that’s the perfect time to address these, these problems out here, everybody, because of our wonderful weather, like today, it’s 70 degrees and balmy, we all want to go out and ride our bikes and that that can be counterproductive, because it quite often takes you in the wrong direction. You need to address some of these maladies that are causing the muscles to misfire. Boy, you have just give me a look. Well, with all of the indoor training we have now, there’s no reason to take any time off. I mean, in Colorado, we typically do ride year round, except for a snowstorm or two. But with this new, you know, with Zwift and all these new and actually, it started with computator. Didn’t it the ability to train indoors any time I saw an epidemic of overuse injuries from Zwift. I called it the Zwift disease. They’re so addicted to the high intensity and the racing and those and then they’ll barely take a day off, and it’s so symmetrical, they’re not having to balance their bike, they’re not off the saddle there. So I’d love to have you address how you feel about this epidemic of indoor riding. Well, I don’t do much of it when I ride indoors. Are usually on my Lanai, out out in the back, it’s on rollers, and the reason I like rollers is for the symmetry that goes along with them, and I have a very clear understanding of how to pedal correctly when there’s no friction or minimal friction. So I’m a huge believer in an antique set of kreitler rollers to offset all of the electronic gadgetry out there, because to me, it’s important to get symmetrical and stay that way.
Trevor Connor 31:35
I have noticed that that when you were on a trainer, spending most of your time on the trainer, locked in position, you do lose a little bit of that balance, a little bit of that muscle firing pattern. I actually did my first ride outside yesterday because it was, what, 60 degrees in about three, four weeks, and just noticed when I was out riding them, like, Yeah, I kind of have to relearn how to ride the bike here. Like, this is not smooth,
Dr. Andy Pruitt 31:58
yeah, I wanted John’s take on the indoor craze at the moment? And his take was, I don’t think I should do it. I want to ride my rollers, and I absolutely appreciate that. That’s awesome. I want to change gears for a second. I know in your articles and in some of your website, stuff you talk about using the spin scan, and there’s not many spin scans being used anymore. I know how I used to use it clinically, so if I can describe to the to the listeners, so a spin scan is being taken off of an electronic dynamometer, off the back wheel and through a computer program onto a screen, and it’ll show you left and right with some algorithmic guesses, some swag, some scientific, wild ass guesses into into creating this pattern on the screen. The typical cyclist, the pattern would look like a peanut or a figure eight. And the perfect world, if we’re applying power all the way through the pedal stroke, it would be a circle. So those are the two extremes, the figure eight and the circle. So John, how do you use the spin scan, initially as a test, and then do you use it therapeutically? Do you use it as about feedback loop? How do you use it?
John Howard 33:19
Well, I pointed out earlier, I’d use it at the very beginning to get a power test. And the reason I like a power test of two minutes is you warm the athlete up, you get them to push themselves harder, because they’re on display now. So they’ll they’ll push themselves fairly hard into a higher zone, and in doing that, that’s a true replication of what spin scan is designed to do. It tells you, you know, is it a circle? More than likely, not, not even close. It’s more of a figure eight, as you say. So we want that. We want to try to get them as as close in terms of torque and power even even torque, even power both left side and right side. And so I’ll look at at things like that and print that out. And from that’ll be a part of their collective file. And you know, it goes right along with the actual mechanical adjustments made to the bike. It’ll give me a real clear picture of what is going on with this particular rider, what we want to fix, what is it that’s really problematic? And sure enough, at that point, I’ll, I’ll put them on the table. And what I just saw on spinscan is really clear once you get them on the table, and you, you know, you open up that so as and those, those that. External hip rotators, all, all of them, and immediately that pattern changes. Now I’ll do the mechanical adjustments after I’ve put them on the table, but end result is we do a second test at the end of all of this, which sometimes can take three hours or more, and then we compare. We just do a comparison left side versus right side, and there’s going to be an improvement. That improvement is reflected in just how far off the cyclist was before they came in. It’s a source of pride for me to say, Oh, look at this. We just got you 10% or 12% more power. But more importantly, you have some exercises that you can now use to solidify these changes,
Dr. Andy Pruitt 35:54
and you brought them back at some future time to see if the spin scan improved. Yes, yes, yeah, bringing them back sometimes can be a really good thing, because you can the spin scan is like an x ray. It means you took it one day, you took it two hours later, which may or may not be 100% accurate, and whether or not it’s going to stick or not. So you bring them back in a month or after extra three or 400 miles, then I’d like to see how that spin scan has stuck. Right? It has it as the improvement stayed. Do you think that’s valid or not
John Howard 36:30
from a from a clinical perspective? Absolutely, that’s the way to do it. Now, you know there’s, there’s also the extra cost of doing that, and you have to look at it as a business. But for those who really want to test themselves and figure things out and do the right thing and maybe get a little bit of tweaking on the on the actual exercise, again, I think it’s a real must. And these are the fits that that I’m I’m most proud of, because we’ve seen some, some large improvements in overall performance. And I think the fitting process is certainly a represents a good piece of that puzzle. You
Trevor Connor 37:13
bet, when you see that figure eight, is it a different issue every time, or are there issues that you see that are fairly consistent? Well,
John Howard 37:20
if you got, if you have somebody who is called square pedaling, which you see a lot of people who don’t ride rollers, don’t always pedal smoothly, and you want a minimum amount of effort going into the circle on that crank, and that means you have more power to work with if there’s less physical friction that’s going on there. So you want to be able to look at the spin scan and say, Ah, Liz, this is good, but we can make it better. You know, I’ve had cyclists. I’ll give you another example. Steve Haig, Olympic gold medalist in Los Angeles, in the pursuit, had the most perfect pedal stroke I’ve ever seen. So Steve was pushing huge wattage and in his prime, and he was doing that with a minimum amount of movement. I mean, well, I’m not putting that in the correct terminology, the minimum amount of wasted energy. His pedal stroke was so fluid that just watching him pedal was, to me, very exciting, because it was the closest thing to perfection. I’ve seen another person that I trained, and she broke the World Bicycle speed record was Denise Mueller, who could comfortably push 200 revolutions per minute on rollers, and she was all fast twitch, fast twitch muscle fiber, that is, and she, too had an almost lightning quick explosive power, and a lot of that came about by watching and perfecting it. And she was really, really good about diagnosing her own issues. So you know, some people have a natural feel for this. Others don’t, and you need to work with with all and that’s why I say I get get on a set of rollers, because that’ll smooth out that pedal stroke. You’ll work on coordination, balance and and those are all really important issues for riding a bike. Some people would say, add a fixed gear to that too. Oh, yeah, we do fix gear. Yeah, sure, yeah. We ride. Well, we’ve got San Diego velodrome, so we’re on the track constantly. Is
Dr. Andy Pruitt 39:49
this still the same old velodrome? It’s the flattest velodrome I’ve ever ridden. It’s been resurfaced. I don’t recall precisely how far, what the distance. So that track is but it’s one of the flatter tracks. It’s in Balboa Park, right? Balboa Park, exactly. Man, that was a long time ago, done some racing anyway. So great question for you, and this is, I think, be educational for our listeners. You talked about the pedaling square. So if they’re coming to cycling from a quadricep centric sport, they’re going to be way stronger on the down stroke and relatively weaker on the backstroke. For them to pedal a circle and produce a good spin scan, it’s going to be really hard. Do you try to have them develop? And this is a purely a question I have for you is, do you have them develop the hamstring strength and coordination on the bike or off the bike, or both,
John Howard 40:45
both. Yeah, I like one of my favorite exercises is on a pulley machine, lower pulley where we’re going to do it’s complicated to try to explain it, but you’re essentially doing a pull and turn around and go the other direction. So you’re working hip flexors and hamstrings in separate sets, of course, but that’s one of my favorite strength exercises. And yeah, you definitely want to build some hamstring strength, and a good way to do that is with that front pulley machine. And as far as the bike goes, Yeah, I mean, you can sense that this hamstring is working harder at different points on the stroke and different types of climbing. For example, you can feel your hamstrings working more efficiently. But I think off the bike is the best way to strengthen those hamstrings. I don’t, I don’t do the conventional method. I use a whole different approach to it and the way we line things up again, forward, very, very linear vectors, very important, in my view. But
Dr. Andy Pruitt 41:55
you have to have the support musculature to hold that linear vector. Yeah, no, I cracked the whip on that one, yep, the gluten needs, et cetera that help hold things in place and the adductors, yeah. So great.
Trevor Connor 42:07
What are some other common exercises that you tend to give to athletes?
John Howard 42:12
Dead lifts, very helpful, done correctly. Very, very difficult thing to do it correctly, you need a trainer to avoid damaging the knees. And another one. I think all these are old standbys, walking lunges, again, correctly, a and eat, a trainer there to oversee the process, because it’s very easy to do damage to the knee. So, yeah, keeping that foot way out front, and try to stay as straight as possible, minimizing the amount of weight until you got it down and you can body weight alone is enough, I believe, initially and as we age again, I’m going to make this point very clear. It’s critical that you do this as you begin the process of aging, which, of course, we’re all doing. So for my master’s cyclists, I highly recommend getting in the gym at least two to three times per week, or having your own gym, which is what I do me too. So
Dr. Andy Pruitt 43:20
are you a high rep low weight guy or a high weight, low rep guy?
John Howard 43:26
I’m a no injury guy. So yeah, it depends on the it’s the muscular structure of the athlete. If we’ve got somebody with really, really strong, you know, younger athlete with stronger knees that haven’t atrophied yet. A good VMO, I would say, start putting some more weight down. But for people who are in their 70s, like I am, I would start with just with body weight, and keep the keep the reps higher and avoid doing heavy, heavy anything for until you really have managed to ingrain the process thoroughly before pushing any kind of heavy weights. Yeah, I hear this all the time. It’s because they’re not being watched. I got my knee blown out. Oh gosh, you don’t want that, so I monitor the folks that I work with closely. So
Dr. Andy Pruitt 44:25
if you’re doing the lightweight and high reps, what do you consider high rep? I used to work with a lot of juniors, and they had way too much energy, and one of the things they used to have to do with them is on the leg press machine. We did body weight plus 20 pounds, which was basically them and their bike, and we would do up to a minute non stop on the leg press machine. They said, Oh, this is just too easy. Well, at the end of that minute, they were hurting Bucha, and as mountain bike juniors, they were damn happy they’d done that minute on that leg press machine. So I. Don’t know, I kind of invented that body weight plus plus 20 in a minute, but it sure was effective on those young guys.
John Howard 45:06
Well, I think that’s a great plan. Andy, I applaud that. It sounds perfectly logical and hard, it
Trevor Connor 45:13
is hard. You gave that one to me. I still do it. So I do, at one point want to come back to rollers, because I have some questions there. But before we do that, let’s talk about the range of motion side. What are some of the typical range of motion issues you see when you’re fitting people on bikes?
John Howard 45:30
I’d say almost all of it comes right in those hips, if someone is pedaling with their knees out, first thing you want to look at is those external rotators, because that’s where the culprit is, and I think that that’s a huge part of it right there, because that linear vector is lost if, if there’s any splay both inward and outward, but generally it’s outward. I see people crabbing a lot where, let’s say the left left knee is scraping the top tube, and the and the right knee is, you know, six inches out. They’re just not aware of of what’s going on. And the first thing I try to do is make them aware that those knees need to be a certain distance from the top tube and not splayed. And of course, that becomes a muscular issue, and that needs to be addressed through proper exercise, but as long as they’re aware of it, they can start to correct it. So
Dr. Andy Pruitt 46:29
one of the benefits this is for the listeners, one of the benefits of lifelong cycling is that the time trial position is the exception. Never in a typical bike fit on a novice or even intermediate cyclist are the hip range of motion, knee range of motion, or ankle range emotions ever at their extreme, if the bites fit correctly. So cycling should be a sport for life, because it doesn’t stress those joints. When we put ourselves in a more aggressive forward torso flexion. It closes the hip. So then if you’ve got an impingement in the joint or a muscular imbalance, that’s going to splay that knee in or out. To me, that’s one of the red flags about range of motion, is that maybe we’re too aggressive somewhere in the bike that for them at that moment. Does that make sense? Sure.
John Howard 47:19
Does I see it all the time, especially with triathletes that I work with from time to time, they can’t stay arrow because the position that their fitter has put them in is too extreme. You know, this is, this is one of my pet peeves, so much so that I try to get manufacturers to have a couple of different STEM layer. Of course, a lot of the manufacturers have too a variety of bikes now, and that’s a good thing, because those of us who are over our prime, shall we say, probably are not going to be as comfortable, but these young cyclists are going to eventually do damage if they persist in going into those extreme positions. I firmly believe that. So I’m a I’m a huge believer in moderation, because if your heart rate starts accelerating in an arrow position, excessively, you’re not. I mean, you’re going to be out of that position in no time. So what’s the point? Why? And when you come up, you come up into a wall of air. So from an aerodynamic standpoint, it’s a disaster. So you want moderation. It certainly works for me, and I know it works for a lot of master cyclists to find a position a little higher, because I can stay lower and flatter by being in a slightly higher position. And I think that’s a key point right there. It’s been
Dr. Andy Pruitt 48:58
proven in the wind tunnel, and it’s been proven on the track that being low is not nearly as important as we once thought it was.
Trevor Connor 49:05
If you have a rounded back, that’s worse than being a little bit higher with a flat back. This is a good spot to hear from the Tri doc himself just sank off on how to balance being aero with being comfortable.
Jeff Sankoff 49:18
So the biggest thing with triathlon is aerodynamics, because you’re allowed to be in arrow bars in triathlon, and because that reduces your resistance, it’s basically free speed. The more arrow you can be, the faster you’re going to be for the same power output. And so getting an athlete fitted in an aero position becomes really important. The problem is that not all athletes have the range of motion in their shoulders, their hips, and especially in their neck, to be able to assume the most optimal position. That is in conflict with the fact that all of these athletes have watched their favorite pros do. Be in these incredibly aerodynamic positions. And so they all think they know what position they want to be in, and they will do whatever they can to set their bike up in that way. As I have tried to explain to them, the most aerodynamic position is not what looks the most aero, but rather is the position that you are most comfortable in and able to hold for the longest period of time, and so nowadays, there are so many different ways of adjusting the front end of these bikes to adopt more of a praying mantis type of position, which really takes a lot of stress off the shoulders and neck and allows you to have a little bit more of a relaxed hip angle. You can move the seat forward or back. So there’s a ton of adjustability that can be done with these newer triathlon bikes that allows even the least flexible, least aerodynamically potential person assume a much more aero position than they could 10 years ago. So there’s a lot of possibilities.
Trevor Connor 50:58
So I did say I wanted to go back to rollers, because you brought these up, and I think it’s an important thing. And I’m going to share a quick story here, because we all remember the days when every cyclist owned rollers. They were probably as popular as trainers, and I think that’s changed with the smart trainers and Zwift and these virtual environments where you can have a much more kind of fun experience on the trainer. And I can tell you personally, I used to ride on my rollers every single day and do work on the rollers. And about 10 years ago, I was coaching my nephew. I was telling him, You need to get on rollers. He was a kid. He couldn’t afford them, so I’m like, Here, take mine. I’ll give myself some new rollers. But at the same time, I had discovered the smart trainers and Zwift. And so I was enjoying that so much. I went, now get around to getting the rollers one day. Fast forward eight years. So two years ago, I finally go out and buy a set of rollers, and I can barely stay on them. And I used to be one of those people who could, like, take the jersey on and off while riding on the rollers. And I was certain these are awful rollers. So I reached out to my nephew. I’m like, I need my rollers back. Those were smooth. And I got them back from him. Got on my old rollers, and it was the same thing. I could barely stay on them. And it was just kind of an eye opener of how much you can lose and the benefits of them. So I’m interested in what both of you think, John, it really sounds like you find a real big value in the rollers, and assuming that, what sort of work do you think cyclists should be doing on rollers? One
John Howard 52:27
or two workouts per week is not excessive? I think it’s important to do that. Just the beauty of being able to put your bike on there and go, you don’t have to clip in anything. It’s just so simple. You know, when it’s chilly out in the mornings, we’ll go out and ride rollers for for 10 or 15 minutes to warm up. And after doing that, of course, you don’t have to wear as many layers, but I’ve got my kreightlers all polished right in the middle. That means lots of miles. I probably have 30,000 miles on those things over time, and to me, it’s a fundamental part of what I do. And believe me, I’m not anywhere near as serious as I used to be. My mileage would be a reflection of that, but the rollers that’s been a mainstay in my training. I think I’m a better bike handler because of that. All on road and off road. Well, let’s get
Dr. Andy Pruitt 53:29
to the neurophysiology of that right. There’s a neuromuscular firing pattern that is required to stay on Roaders without falling off. And that neuromuscular firing pattern is learned, and Trevor is now relearning it, right? But it’s crucial to a smooth pedal stroke. It is. I mean, that’s so the freedom is nice and all that, but there is a neuromuscular functionality to riding rollers and fixed gear. And that’s, to me, that’s the key to life.
John Howard 54:01
You want to hear a little bit of a side story about rollers. They were invented, pretty much by Charlie Murphy, who broke the bicycle and speed record in 1899 Murphy perfected these big drum rollers, and he and Marshall major Taylor in a vaudeville act used to race each other during the winter months on rollers. That was the first application of rollers. And they would have, I’m sure you’ve probably seen the indicators so that cyclists can race each other. And there’s a, you know, a clock, a big clock that has different colors coordinated, and it’s hard to describe what happens next, but you can race each other. There are several of these things that still exist, and that’s what they used to do. They used to race each other, and it was a very popular vaudeville act. Keith sorry Orpheum. And that’s, of course, in my book, The Black cyclone, a little plug there. But yeah, that’s a short history of of how they started, and that would have been probably close to 130 years ago. So that’s how long rollers have been around. Zwift has been around a lot less, but it also has some advantages, but I prefer my rollers. And
Trevor Connor 55:22
for anybody listening who hasn’t tried rollers, they are not the same as being out on the road. When you’re out on the road, you have inertia, which helps keep you a little smoother, helps keep balance. You don’t have that inertia on rollers, so you really have to work to stay upright and to stay smooth on the bike, neuromuscular
Dr. Andy Pruitt 55:40
training. That’s great, yep.
Trevor Connor 55:43
So the last element that I mentioned earlier, when I was reading off your list from your article, is scars, adhesions, issues within the muscle or tissue. How do you address those? And can they be addressed?
John Howard 55:58
Well, chiropractor will tell you, it’s bone massage therapist probably would, would lean more toward the actual physical structure that that has that scar tissue, but I tend to think you need both. And again, aging, it has its rewards, but you definitely have to understand that if you want to go fast and you want to get smooth on the bicycle you’re gonna need to be worked on. So I have my massage therapist, and I have my chiropractor, and the two together will address those scar tissue points in the body that you know, we all have them. I’ve had so many crashes in my career, and that career includes about 520,000 miles without any surgery, without any replacement parts, so after that kind of mileage, and there’s a lot of scar tissue, and It’s constantly being addressed, and what I see mostly in older cyclists, especially those that have gone down a few times, is that those that haven’t addressed this is a very weak in climbing. They do not go up hills well at all. And fortunately, I’m still a decent climber, not a fast climber, but I can get up the hills. I just applaud the idea of addressing the body from body work standpoint. If you don’t do that, you are going to be losing ground. I’m all about that. Isn’t this a good place for your DMT and your AR T Yeah, those muscle adhesions are a big part of it. And my part of it, when I put somebody on the on the table, is I’m just gonna, I’m gonna find the the points that are misbehaving. Put it that way, and it’s always pretty much comes back to so as and rotators, external or external rotators, so once we open those up. Now, of course, Dr Farrell does something totally different. He addresses the entire body. My focus is lower extremities, primarily because that’s what I’m trained to do, and I don’t get out of my comfort zone. I’ve had bike fitters tell me that it’s a sin to put your hands on a body. Well, you know, that’s probably more of a liability issue, but I don’t worry about it. I feel very comfortable in the work that I do, and I can make somebody faster by getting those adhesions and scar tissue addressed, and do it quickly so that they can move on.
Trevor Connor 58:42
And that’s just with using pressure, finding the where the adhesions and the scar tissue are, and, yeah,
John Howard 58:48
the muscle capsule, the you know, there, there’s attention to it, and you just kind of learn by feel. And that’s, that’s what I’ve done, and Ernie has taught me. Well, I’m probably not explaining it very well, but I wish you were here to explain it better. But my approach is just break it up and get it, get it taken care of, and that person, whoever that cyclist is, will recognize the difference in all likelihood right away.
Trevor Connor 59:19
So getting ready for this episode, I did look into this a little bit, and interestingly, I found a lot of recent research in what’s called instrument assisted soft tissue mobilization, which is another term for something very similar. So one example that is actually used in foam rollers, though, in one of the studies I’ve read, they said, you know, foam rollers aren’t as effective as some of the other methods when you can actually work with somebody and they get you on a table. But what I found fascinating with these studies is what they showed is this sort of work really helps range of motion. I
John Howard 59:51
use rollers constantly. Small diameter rollers are part of what I do.
Dr. Andy Pruitt 59:58
So. My comment, I have two ones back to your any bike fitter who says that they don’t touch their athlete, nobody should ever pay for that bike fit. I love it. If you’re not getting a full physical examination, just put your clothes back on. Say. Thank you very much. See you later. A bike fit has to include a full athletic physical assessment. You don’t know that person’s body until you do that, and that’s where you’re going to use your DMT and all your other exam techniques. So any biker out there who’s just using their automated fit bike without touching the athlete, sorry, the second comment is whether it’s DMT, a RT foam rollers, and there’s companies out now with knobby foam rollers. Work is work. And if, as long as you’re concentrating on improving your range of motion, loosening up hip flexors, loosening up hip capsules, I don’t care how you do it. I don’t care if you sit on a vibrating ball. Work is work. Self Care is an incredibly important part of being an aging athlete. Yeah, couldn’t agree more. Andy, and, and I, I’ll add one more tool to that chest of of items. Then that would be the massage guns, the hyper volt, oh yeah, is the one I have and and that’s, that’s all an important part of the process. I drive my wife nuts. She’s got the volume on the TV cranked up. I’m over there. Those things are great. Yep, work is work, as long as you’re concentrating on improving yourself. I think that’s the key. All right,
Trevor Connor 1:01:38
it’s time for our question for the forum, please go to the forum at fast talk labs.com look for this question it should be right on the main forum page, and tell us what you think. The question is, have you had issues that affected your ability to fit correctly or put out full power on the bike? What did you do about them? So John, this is your first time on the show. We like to finish up our show with what we call our one minutes. This is where everybody has one minute to communicate the message that they think is most important for our listeners to hear from this particular episode. So I know I’m putting you on the spot a little bit. Feel free to take a couple minutes to think about it. But would love to hear what your one minute take home is. Okay?
John Howard 1:02:20
Yeah, I think about that.
Dr. Andy Pruitt 1:02:22
Yeah, you want me to go first? Let you think about
John Howard 1:02:24
Go ahead. All
Trevor Connor 1:02:26
right. So Andy, what’s your one minute? I’ve known
Dr. Andy Pruitt 1:02:28
and known of John for 40 plus years. Our athletic careers have been different but similar. Our professional careers have been different, but similar, and this has been really fun to share these experiences with John today, and the importance of physical examination and the importance of fit and a long lasting success of a cyclist, I think is a theme that we’ve both tried to weave throughout our lives. I just think the quality of fit, I think around the world is digressing instead of progressing. So hopefully people listening to this will pursue quality, medical grade bike fitting as we move forward, and we don’t lose these the next generation doesn’t lose the skills that John and I have worked so hard to build. So John will
Trevor Connor 1:03:26
let you keep thinking about it, and I will give my take home, which is kind of a combination of things, and similar to Andy’s, in that I was very excited to do this episode because you did have such a huge impact on the early part of my cycling career. I went to your camp right when I was getting serious, and that had huge impact in my ability to time trial. And it was my performance at nationals that got me into the National Center. So first of all, I just want to start with a giant thank you to you and the impact you had on me, the very positive impact. But continuing with that, remembering what you were teaching us, something I learned at that camp was the value of all these smaller things. It wasn’t just going ride really hard on the bike and you get fast, working with you at that camp was the first exposure I had to these things that you go I don’t understand how those have an impact on your performance, but they ultimately do. And I think to me, that was the big message of this episode of yeah, you can go out and do intervals, and keep killing yourself with intervals, but you want to get really strong, get on the rollers, do the foam roller, do all these things that help keep the body functional and able to put out its best power. And I think it was a great conversation in that respect. And with that, have you thought of your take home?
John Howard 1:04:44
Well, the success that I’ve had in cycling, the, you know, the Olympic teams, the three Olympic teams that 19 national championships, the the Iron Man success. I just want to be able to use that notarized. Society to help other people become more aware of the sport and the value of looking at it through a microscope. I mean, what Andy is saying about digression in the fitting process, I couldn’t agree more with that is absolutely the case, and body work is the key to all of our issues. And I just can’t say enough for the chiropractors and and massage therapists who address these issues, go see these people all day long. This is worthwhile, and they can help you. And by all means, when you get there, you’re going to notice that your body is performing at a much higher level after the therapy. And because of that, you need to just go back. Bodies are malleable, and they need to be taken care of, and the more you age, the more important that is. So by all means, take the time to understand and appreciate body work. Fantastic.
Trevor Connor 1:06:05
Thank you. Well, John, it was a pleasure having you on the show. Well,
John Howard 1:06:10
thank you, Trevor, Thank you, Andy, you’re very welcome.
Dr. Andy Pruitt 1:06:12
It’s been an honor.
Trevor Connor 1:06:14
That was another episode of fast talk. The thoughts and opinions expressed in fast talk are those of the individual subscribe to fast talk wherever prefer, to find your favorite podcast, be sure to leave us a rating and review. As always, we love your feedback. Tweet us at at fast talk labs, join the conversation at forums at fast talk labs.com or learn from our experts at fast talk labs.com we’re John Howard, Leonard Zinn, Dr Jeff sankoff and Dr Andy Pruitt. I’m Trevor Connor. Thanks for listening. You.
