Members of the 2011 Cycling BC high performance downhill mountain bike team recently experienced an all new understanding of the phrase "hell on wheels" when they took part in the first ever testing session for downhill at the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence (PISE) in Victoria.
The team features several Sunshine Coast riders, including Forrest Riesco of Gibsons, Harrison Duxbury-Sleep of Gib-sons and Holly Feniak of Sechelt.
Wendy Pethick, the lab manager and physiologist for Canadian Sport Pacific at this high level training facility, led the on-bike testing sessions. She said she was impressed with the attitude shown by the athletes. Although completely unfamiliar with this form of testing, they put in great efforts and were not afraid of pushing themselves. The athletes were led through a series of sprint (reading peak power output and their maintenance capacity at a high cadence) and MAP (maximal aerobic power) testing. After establishing their baseline, they are able to compare their current status with averages for other Cycling BC athletes from different disciplines. At follow-up camps they will be able to register their improvement and mark areas to which they need to pay additional attention.
Following their testing, athletes were treated to hands-on sessions with the certified instructors of the PISE, teaching strength and conditioning, flexibility and the extremely important steps of regeneration and recovery. For many downhill riders the "we came, we rode, we crashed and/or we conquered, we went home" has been a way of life. For some riders new to this professional approach, it is quite a leap to realize that their sport is, at a high performance level, a sport like any other. To achieve at national and international levels, therefore, attention must be paid to warm up, cool down and taking care of the body through good nutrition, conditioning and recovery.
"I enjoyed being able to participate as part of the Cycling BC downhill team at such a high level testing centre," Forrest said. "The information I got from the tests will help me with my training and will push me to train harder this off season. I also learned some more information about strength training and recovery strategies. I will be applying the things that I learned over the weekend to my training and am looking forward to returning and improving on the tests soon."
Harrison said he learned a lot about dynamic warm ups, strength training and recovery and a better understanding of how to get a better result for January's test.
"This camp was a bit of a wake-up call to get it together. I can't wait to put what I have learned to practice," he said.
Holly said Victoria was just the beginning of Team B.C.'s fitness being nothing less than extraordinary.
"Just wait until February, as we will prove to anyone who has ever said downhill mountain biking isn't for the extremely physically fit that they are very wrong. The tests don't lie," she said.
- Submitted by Cycling BC
