A brief history of Chris in Sport
Golf: I played golf from 12 to my early 20s. I played to a high standard on a handicap of 0 and had the opportunity to play in America for a time. However, in the late 80s to late 90s there was not a lot sports’ science/strength and conditioning education, programming and knowledge about athletic preparation available to the general public and, unless you were on an Olympic programme, a professional sports person, or studying human movement and athletic preparation at degree level, the information to train safely and effectively was hard to come by.
My idol, at that time, Nick Faldo, was a big advocate of fitness to improve his ability to play the game of golf and so I also tried to train to improve my fitness. However, Nick Faldo being a major competition winner, was of the means to invest in an educated programme that focused on improving all aspects of his fitness. I, on the other hand, had access to a local bodybuilding gym and the resource of the great outdoors.
This meant that with my lack of knowledge and experience, I quickly trained massive imbalances through focusing on what most teenage boys focus on; arms, shoulders, chest and back. With this imbalance came sciatica or, for a teenage boy, crippling back pain which at one point left me bed bound for 3 months - if only I’d had the knowledge I have now, back then.
However, the main reason I stopped playing golf was not the physical aspect of the sport, but the psychological. I like to take human movement to the Nth degree and want to understand every aspect of human movement the the how and why we move the way we do - and so, standing over a little white ball that’s not going to go anywhere or do anything unless you do something to it (Newton’s laws), and depending on what you do depends on where the little white ball goes, was, let’s say, frustrating. Exacerbated by the fact that I didn’t have the knowledge to understand why we move the way we do, I found myself overthinking every little aspect of the movement and getting stuck over the ball and not being able to move.
Motorbike racing: My next sporting adventure went in the direction of motorbike racing. In my early to mid-20s, I raced in a steel frame class with a Honda CBR 600cc. I raced with the Auto 66 club around the North East, and with the Derby Phoenix Motorcycle club at national race tracks around the UK.
This got me away from overthinking everything, because with motorbike racing, you don’t have time to think, you just have to react to what is in-front of you - whether that is a back wheel, a corner or a rider spinning around on their back like an upturned turtle. At this point, I was still suffering with back pain which meant there were plenty of times I had to be lifted on and off the bike.
To help with my fitness, I started cycling around the local hills - this helped me improve my aerobic fitness and keep my weight down. With the lack of impact from running it seemed to ease the back pain, but I still didn’t have the knowledge to deal with the main issue of the imbalances. However, I did start to work more on my core torso strength, endurance and hip mobility/flexibility as this helped me hugely with my position on the bike and, still being very strong in my upper body, meant I didn’t have to deal with something called arm pump that a lot of riders were suffering with. I had a bit of success with leading the championship with the Auto 66 club, but with a broken gear selector, and unable to get a new one for months, meant I missed too much of the season to stay in the lead of the championship. I love the sport of racing; the speed, the adrenaline, the working out how to go faster than the racer in front or faster than yourself, the whole helmet on brain out, seeing where you stand when the dust settles and dealing with the consequences after, massively appeals to me. But, as I was getting older, I didn’t bounce quite as well. Even though I’ve never broken anything (touching wood), landing a 120mph step of the bike with thoughts of - I still got this with the throttle pinned - makes you think of self-preservation when the helmet comes off and you put your brain back in.
Cycling: Next, to try and bring things down to a more sensible speed, came cycling. As I had done a fair bit of cycling to keep in shape for motorbiking, I wasn’t too bad at it - or so I thought - until I was racing in a town criterium going up a steep hill and a load of riders came past me like I was stood still - and at which point me realising my arms were bigger their legs - probably through my early years of working out at a bodybuilding gym. At my first 10 mile Time Trial one of the racers had looked at me and said “you would do well to use your arms to pedal” - I tried my best to put a look of humour on my face as I realised I wasn’t quite built for the discipline of bicycle racing.
Sprint track cycling: Still having a desire for speed and close action racing, led me to track cycling and, more importantly, sprint track cycling. At the time, I was also starting my degree for sports science, through which I finally learnt how to properly train and prepare myself - and there were many years of bad technique, bad movement patterns, and big imbalances to correct before even starting to think about moving forward with my strength, speed and power for the sport of sprint track cycling. My thirst for knowledge of human movement has always been at the forefront of my mind when competing in my chosen sports; and I could now begin to fill that thirst for knowledge.
Sprint track cycling is still a reactive sport in which you don’t have time to think, but all the training involved meant it would satisfy my desire to understand how and why we move the way we do. When you look at the pedalling action it’s not very complex: dorsiflexion and plantar flexion in the ankle, flexion and extension in the knee and hip and everything else should stay still. The main focus is the need for strength to resist excessive movement in the massive transfer of power through the legs.
Whilst studying for my degree, I undertook research of EMG muscle activation of the postural chain whilst sprinting in a horizontal torso position. I saw significantly higher activation in the arms, upper back and external obliques in the horizontal torso position when comparing it to an up-right torso position. Meaning the hips, upper back and arms must deal with a massive amount of force to keep everything still to ensure there is no loss of power through the chain from the hands to the feet.
Whilst I am still currently training for sprint track cycling as a Masters athlete, to be competitive at a world championship level requires a lot of time and dedication to even finish in the top 10 and due to completing my Masters in sports science I could not commit to the time needed to be competitive.
Powerlifting: I now compete in powerlifting events and the strength and speed training I do for sprint cycling, means it has a good cross over for powerlifting - the importance for any speed or strength-based athlete to be able to exert force as fast as possible to produce power is key to their sporting performance. As a rule of thumb, professional level athletes should be able to squat 2/2.5 times their body weight, deadlift 2.5/3 times their body weight and press 1/1.5 times their body weight. When you understand the forces involved in sports just for an athlete to accelerate, stop and change direction with just their own body weight, you can understand why an athlete has to be able to move the weight required in training.