Week 6: Identifying the Challenge

The big question of this task is how will i change a life?

Through the course of 6 weeks, Campbell and I will be creating a lifestyle intervention program for our close friend Blake.

To me, I have a personal interest of mountain biking. I enjoy going mountain biking over the weekend to a close by destination called Bunya. It includes a number of trails for all levels of riders.

Research found so far:

Mountain Biking changed my life: https://www.rei.com/blog/cycle/mountain-biking-changed-my-life

6 Ways Mountain Biking Has Improved My Life: https://www.singletracks.com/blog/uncategorized/6-ways-mountain-biking-has-improved-my-life/ 

8 ways to build MTB fitness this winter: https://www.redbull.com/au-en/mountain-biking-winter-fitness

Week 7: The Client

Our Client is going to be one of our friends Blake.

Blake generally rides his bike near his house on the road or on the path. He likes achieving goals that are of his standard and doing the best he can. Blake wants a change to his life so that he is motivated to go mountain biking riding. Blake’s main goals are to get better physically at mountain biking and be able to do more technical trails, hence why Campbell and I chose him as our client.

Our obvious idea is to have mountain biking as our main focus. Our inquiry question is:

Can we decrease the amount of time it takes to do a trail each week?

Interventions that we could introduce to our client could be riding with him to push him into keeping up with Campbell and I or have one in front and behind. Also, we could use action cameras to review to see if he could have used a better line in the trail to decrease his time.

The most thought provoking thing we have discovered so far is the use of Strava. Strava is an app on your phone that tracks your time of not only the trail, but segments of the trail. Therefore, this will also help Campbell and I on what parts of the trail our client should improve on.

Our plan from here is to consult with Blake to get his point of view on what we have so far and see if he has any other suggestions.

Week 8-9: Gathering the Information

So, we have decided that our key inquiry question is ‘Can we decrease the amount of time it takes our client to do a trail each week?

Our sub questions:

1. How long does it take our client to do the trail prior to the intervention program?
2. What type of fitness can we implement into our client’s training to ride faster?
3. How can we deconstruct the trail into parts to figure out better strategies of turning corners, going over roots/rocks etc?
4. How are we going to track our client on the trail to be able to see where he needs to improve?

We have chosen the topic of physical health in terms of mountain biking because Campbell and I do mountain biking as a hobby and love the challenge of fitness involved, making it a fun way to be able to help change someone’s life. Furthermore, Blake, our client, is wanting to try the sport of mountain biking, therefore it will be a good challenge for him.

For this intervention to work, I need to know a rough idea of Blake’s current fitness levels to be able to create a starting/introduction program to begin with. I also need to know the weather conditions for each day of the intervention to prevent an unfair test. The trail also has to be of our client’s standard so that there will be room for progress.

I need to be able to liaise with our client so that he feels comfortable in the trail that he is doing. This means warning him about any dangerous spots on the trail. I also need to ensure that all 3 of us are available on the intervention days. Furthermore, I need to make sure that our client has the right safety gear and survival gear in case something goes mechanically wrong with his bike.

The resources that we need are:

• Functional mountain bikes (already have)
• Cameras for documentation and reviewing
• Water
• Helmets (Possibly shin and elbow pads)

I am feeling quite excited about this project so far because I can’t wait to introduce Blake to something new that he might enjoy. I am also excited to look into detail for improvements when looking at camera footage.

Answers to sub questions:

1. How long does it take our client to do the trail prior to the intervention program?

This will be something to be done on the first day. We will time how long it takes for Blake to do the trail before training.

2. What type of fitness can we implement into our client’s training to ride faster?

For Blake to ride faster, we will need to focus on cardio, endurance and technical skills. Other trainable skills include aerobic fitness, strength, balance and agility. All of these components will help Blake become a better rider.

3. How can we deconstruct the trail into parts to figure out better strategies of turning corners, going over roots/rocks etc?

A good strategy to deconstruct the trail is Strava. Strava is a cycling app that has all of the trail put into a database and it not only tells you the time of a trail, it also splits the trail into 2-3 segments. This will be an effective strategy to compare Blake to either Campbell or myself so that we can see that there is potential to go faster.

4. How are we going to track our client on the trail to be able to see where he needs to improve?

The best way to be able to track our client on the trail is probably through action cameras. We can probably set them up throughout the trail so that we can record the corners and technical sections. This will link well with Strava because we can combine the footage with time and get an accurate estimate of how fast Blake is going. We can also have a camera attached to Blake’s helmet so that we can see what he is seeing.

Key responsibilities from now:

At them moment, Campbell and I will have to organize a date that we are all available: probably sometime on the weekends. We will also need to organize enough cameras so that we can get enough footage to make it easier to review. Another thing is that we will need to check that Blake’s bike is safe enough and in a good enough condition to be able to withstand the rocky and bumpy conditions.

Week 10 – Creating the Intervention – things to consider

The overall plan or goal is that we want to see an improvement in Blake’s fitness towards mountain biking. Through a use of uphill calf/quadriceps fitness, we should start to see an improvement on the speed that Blake is going as well as the agility and endurance that Blake is producing. Other factors, such as diet and focusing on other parts of the body to exercise, will play a minor role in this intervention program.

A rough idea of the 6 week intervention program will be as follows:

Week 1 – Knowing the trail: We will be walking Blake through the trail so that he knows his way around it. After Blake is comfortable doing the trail, we will time him so that we can get something to work with.

Week 2 – Riding up hills: Here we will start with a light stretch to warm up, and then into riding up hills. We will teach him the techniques of going up hill (leaning forward, bum off the seat) to get maximum ease and practice this. This will focus on the quads and calves.

Week 3 – Endurance: This will be an intense week for Blake as it will require us to keep riding with minimal breaks. This week we will cover a larger amount of kilometers to see if Blake is able to maintain his effort and heart rate as well as keeping his legs going. The calf and quadriceps workout will play a vital role for this week.

Week 4 – Sprints/Agility: This week will be a time trialing event of different lengths of sprinting. The breaks will be longer allowing a longer recovery time so that Blake uses all of his energy in the sprints. The sprints will be of different lengths to compare the times and see if he has maintained the same speed the whole way.

Week 5 – Assessing the trail: After an analysis of Blake going on the trail (Strava and camera footage), we will revisit the trail one more time before the final test to practice certain corners or technical sections by taking the right line. After doing this, we will do a run through of the trail from start to finish without timing it to be ready for next week.

Week 6 – The test: We will start with a brief warm up to get everything warm. We will then time Blake doing the trail and hopefully see improvements through the components that we trained him. We obviously want to see a decrease in the time as well as that is our main goal. This will then determine whether Campbell and I have changed someone’s life.