The Hinge: The Most Essential Mountain Bike Skill | Keeper of the Shred | The Pro's Closet

huh welcome everybody i'm lima cormack from lee  likes bikes and i'm here with my friend nicole   rubinstein from racers nutrition we're here  to show you uh the most important mountain   bike skill there is we'll call it a hinge it's the  most important motor skill a human being can have   we're meant to hinge most of us in this hemisphere  the western hemisphere are knee and low back   dominant and as a lot of you middle-aged men know  knees and low backs have a tendency to wear out   putting bikes on the side for right now  learning what we're about to teach you   is going to allow you to move furniture do  yard work have a great life without a bad back   it's also going to make you a freaking shredder  here's your bicycle there are many others like it   but this one is yours without it you're nothing  and so on this part of your bike down here is   called the bottom bracket here's the deal you can  see longitudinally the bottom bracket's a little   bit behind the middle of the bike okay if you're  an alpine skier you'll recognize that that's the   position your bindings go on your skis this is  job one whenever we ride the net force the normal   force mostly your body weight should always be  in your feet we're talking a hundred percent   of your weight on your feet that means zero  percent on the saddle and how much on the hands   zero's the answer 100 of your weight in  your feet no weight on the saddle at all   all the weights in the feet no connection with  the hands when all your weights in the feet   this is super important for a bike like this  your weight distributes about 60 rear wheel   40 front wheel somewhere in there and  this is critical when all your weights   in your feet you can not be flung over the  handlebars onto your face it's not possible   okay being thrown over the handlebars is caused by  two things being too far forward you'll get beaten   up and you'll flop over the bars what's worse  though right is you're a normal human being you're   generally gonna be too far back aren't you yeah  especially if you're scared when you're too far   back you get beaten up and then you get catapulted  over the bars that's where this collarbone   happened your instinct will be to be too far  forward or too far back those bolts result and   over the handlebars we want to teach you all to  be right in the middle of the bike in a hinge when   you're in a hinge in the middle of the bike you're  safe period now we're going to get into hinging here's your bicycle here's you job one you stand  on your feet done when your bike is going through   bumps you might have noticed that your bike does  crazy things doesn't it so one of the things your   bike does is as you go through bumps your bike  changes angle you're going through a trough the   bars come towards you you will go across a crest  the bars go away from you my unkept fingernail   will be the handlebar this is fun right the bars  are constrained to an arc around your feet can you   see this so in order to control the angle of the  bike and stay in the middle of the bike we need   our shoulders close to the bar so we have range  of motion that goes to hinging the other cool   thing your bike does just like a ski or snowboard  with in moguls is your bike moves up and down with   bumps okay so check it out your arms control  the angle of the bike up and down and side to   side for cornering your legs just like on skis or  snowboard control the vertical component of bumps   and also your loading and unloading the more range  of motion you have with your arms and your legs   the more control you have of your  bike so here we go into the hinge zone   let's start with a little biomechanics most  of us i'm going to give you the side view   we move in a squat pattern in a squat you drop  your butt down and your knees have to come   forward so just do this right now wherever you  are just stand with your knees forward and you're   going to feel your quads almost immediately these  muscles are action attack crush the world muscles   they're not hold your body statically muscles  the muscles back here are made for static holding   so we're going to shift from quad knee dominance  to hip glute dominance when you ride your bike   the bikes can go up and down and do this thing you  need range of motion in order to ride in control   if you get on your bike like a dummy and you're  tight you don't have said range of motion   you will not have control at worst you get hurt  at best you're out of control and you start to   create these trauma cycles in your brain that mean  like oh bumps equals stress equal lean back equal   ultimately over the bars here are the rules for  a square stance hinge pivot the knee over the   middle foot watch my knee let's say we're going  to do a deadlift watch the knee friends core's on   butt goes straight back my torso folds to level  this is this is the position this is the ready   position for a human being it's not here this  is the i'm ready for my quads to burn position   butt's back shoulders are down what part of your  body do you feel this in hamstrings hamstrings and   booty right this is not just for show friends  it's for go right so this is a square hinge so   so we have our low hinge your knee will be right  over the middle of your foot this is the low hinge   okay and then we have available to us a high  hinge and by the way if you're a gym person   this is the start for a standard deadlift the low  hinge the high hinge is the start for a romanian   dead lift a straight leg a little day lift or  a ro or a good morning it's the same movement   right so to hinge is to have our  torso level we have low we have high   the bigger the range of motion between your low  and high the more leg suspension you have period   as you come up most of you people look do this in  the mirror you're going to come up and you really   want to straighten your legs but your hamstrings  are going to come tight and they're going to pull   you out of your hinge the farther your shoulders  are from the handlebars the more you're a hunk   of meat hurtling to an uncertain fate the more  your projectile we want to keep our shoulders   close to the bar so we have control so once this  is clear and a motorcross stance then we're going   to matriculate to a bike stance and you're going  to notice how awkward this is so feet roughly six   inches apart now we're going to we're going to  go for the same thing so here's my hinge in a   bike stance remember how i said in a low hinge how  your knees should be over the middle of the base   check it out now this is my base and my knees are  right over the bottom bracket and so i have this   isosceles triangle of awesomeness down here i have  the same angles between both femurs and both hips   so i'm rotting with both asses most of us this  hamstring is too tight so this hip gets pulled   forward and down and then what you end up with is  one leg behind the other most cross country cycle   cross roadie type people this is how they ride and  you're going to notice i feel stress in my in this   quad and so all you people who are used to having  that back leg just murder you the pain on the   downhill it's probably from this crookedness we're  going to get to the point where we have a triangle   of awesome your knees are going to almost share a  pivot and you watch really high level downhill bmx   enduro riders when they're in the low hinge you'll  see this triangle of awesomeness the shorter your   cranks get the easier this is we all get to a  point in our low hinge where we hit our thighs   bonk there are moments when you're going to say  absorb a big shape a big rock go off a crazy drop   like absorb a huge rock well we're going to  go to the crazy low hinge so we have our high   hinge we have our low hinge now i'm hitting my  thigh and then we have the the crazy low hinge   right and so we don't live down here but  this is part of our world and so how much   suspension travel do i have with my legs  now like probably almost way more thank you   so i've got a beautiful bike with 160 millimeters  of reactive suspension i've got a beautiful body   with let's say 24 inches of pre-active  suspension i highly recommend going through   a sequence like we just did every time you ride  your bicycle ideally you do in the parking lot   ideally or if you live somewhere around here the  front range of colorado you might climb for a half   hour which loosens you up you do your stretch at  the top before the downhill but never never never   dive into a downhill unless your hinge is active  period when you get to some crazy like downhill   moment a big rock garden a big jump a drop a  crazy corner we need that hinge to be spot on   subconscious boom every single time if it's not  available every single time you're in danger so   for whatever kind of crazy rotting you get into  if you feel a hinge in your posterior back in here   and you have completely weightless hands you're  set up for success every other skill that we do   is built off either being in a hinge or  driving out of a hinge that's the start you

Channel: The Pro's Closet

Views: 118,507

Keywords: mtb skills, hinge mtb, hinging on mtb, otb mtb

Id: c2DUQeeAgNQ

Length: 9min 31sec (571 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 07 2022