For the first instalment of our Spoke magazine articles, we’re going to look at some general concepts behind body position for when the trail points downhill (the fun bit). I’m going to write these articles to cover a bit more depths and address some of the nuances to riding.

What we’ll focus on is creating a more stable, centred & mobile rider through better rider positioning. This will improve the rider’s control to more successfully tackle trickier sections and, over time, build confidence. I’ll also do my bit in the never-ending battle of trying to defeat an arch nemesis - the antiquated theory of leaning back for going downhill.

Context is key, so to be clear let’s aim this at the type of terrain you’ll come across on your average blue trail - particularly sections that may become rougher or steeper, where many riders have an instinctual habit to lean back.

Body Position Basics

Let’s look at the concepts behind our position on the bike, and what we’re trying to achieve here:

Stability. AKA, your ability to resist forces from the trail. A lower centre of mass and wider position will improve our stability on the bike.
Mobility for control and balance. Mobility helps us to balance and manage instability. It’s fundamental to allowing the bike to move freely underneath us. Our bodies need to be free to move so we can interact with the bike and control it how we want to. Cornering body movements are good examples of this - rotating hips, bending elbows, dropping shoulders - none of these are possible without some mobility.
Centred fore/aft. This is the big one. Having our mass in the middle of the bike creates even pressure on the front and rear wheels. This will produce predictable grip, effective braking and better connection to the business end of the bike - the front. Becoming aware of what truly centred feels like is an essential component to later refining, or adjusting, your fore/aft position on the bike.

Finding the balance of all these things, at exactly the right times, is the goal. But is there such a thing as too much of any of these? Well, yes.

Imagine trying to be so stable that you only hold a low, wide position on the bike with a lot of muscle tension. You’ll likely get knocked around and fatigue very quickly.

Conversely, ride loose like a noodle - you’ll notice you need the structure to your body that a stable riding position will bring.

You can be too centred as well - what if we need to find more grip on the front or rear of the bike by putting more weight there? (spoiler - this has never been an observed issue in my work…).

This is a good segue into highlighting the fact that mountain bike coaching shouldn’t be absolute or prescriptive - we aren’t trying to memorise a rulebook here. There are always variable factors at play (sometimes seemingly hundreds) and the nature of our sport is dynamic. The rigidity of a rulebook approach lacks perspective and quickly loses relevance.

Instead, I introduce new skills as tools. These tools have pros and cons, not rights and wrongs. Some are more correct; others are less correct. It takes a bit of time to figure a new tool out at first, but the more you use it the better you’ll get at using it at the right time and with the right amount. This approach empowers riders with a newfound depth of knowledge about that tool, which they can use to make better decisions on any type of trail.

My Observations

Most commonly, I see riders in a rearward biased position, hesitant of being truly connected to the front end of the bike.

With this rear weight bias, riders need to expend a lot of energy to hold themselves there and not fall off the back of the bike - loads of tension through the quads, hands and arms reduces mobility as they are under so much strain (particularly in smaller joints like wrists & ankles). This produces a stiff, defensive rider, with compromised control over the front of the bike.

The front of the bike very much wears the pants in the front/rear relationship.

For example, direction control inputs often go through the handlebars first and more powerful braking is done at the front. Backing off from the front often happens in (annoyingly) counter intuitive moments, when you really need that front wheel connection - steeps and corners. It’s not a coincidence that fear is often involved here.

Becoming friends with the front of the bike is essential to getting better at riding downhill, and becoming more central on the bike more often is a key step in achieving better control.

Neutral vs. Ready Positions

So, what position should we be in? Most, if not all my coaching work involves some sort of body position chat. So, let’s start with the very basics.

Enter the ‘neutral’ and ‘ready’ positions. These are ubiquitous in MTB coaching and give a broad framework for vertically adjusting our position on the bike to find more stability and mobility when we need it - all while staying centred and connected to the front of the bike. There’s lots of ways we can move on the bike, but this gives you the best bang-for-buck for achieving those outcomes.

While they’re simple to visualise and implement for newer riders, I rarely see experienced riders dedicating themselves to truly honing their position on the bike by focusing on perfecting the basics like these. A building is only as good as it’s foundation, so I encourage you to devote some time here. It’ll produce much better results than that shiny equipment upgrade, I promise.

I’m going to focus more on the ‘why’ than the ‘how’ as I want to add depth to the content.

For the ‘how’, biomechanical reference points are your friend. Picking body parts to focus your awareness on are great because you know where they are (hopefully), so look out for these.

‘Neutral’ / Default Position

Heels dropped with slight bend in the knee. Pedal is almost in the middle of the shoe, not under your ball (flat pedals).
Legs are supporting the majority of the rider's mass. Stand up!
Hips over feet, rider's centre of mass centred between front & rear of the bike.
Chin over stem.
Upper body is relaxed & mobile with light consistent pressure through the palms.

Riders rarely spend enough time refining this position, or they’re reluctant to use it on the trail.

It’s energy efficient as it uses our bone structure to support our mass and requires very little effort to hold. Technically, the tallness of this position means you’re less stable (higher Centre of Mass - COM), with less mobility (you’re at the top of your arms/legs’ ‘travel’), but don’t underestimate its utility and value on the trail.

If you’re doing it right, you should feel like you could unwrap all of your fingers from the bars and have little effect on the pressure going through your palms onto your grips. There should be little change to the rest of your position too, and no change to the amount of muscle tension or effort to hold yourself upright. This is a great litmus test for how centred you really are (do it in a safe place!).

We want our legs to be supporting our mass. There’s a reason we don’t walk on our hands - our arms aren’t designed to carry our weight for extended periods. Drop those heels to create a straighter, stronger leg to effectively support yourself.

Getting used to truly supporting yourself with your legs is a game-changer for becoming stronger, more adjustable and powerful on the bike. It’s important for acquiring more advanced skills like actively creating and releasing pressure through the bike (pumping). You can also free up more of your upper body for direction control movements and managing impacts from the terrain.

Many top riders will primarily drive the bike with their lower body, so developing this biomechanical pathway is a good step to focus on. For flat pedal riders it’s often compromised by standing on the ball of their foot too much - this isn’t a strong base of support, so get the pedal more centralised under your foot for descending (you’ll engage more of your bigger muscles).

‘Ready’ / Attack Position - Getting Lower

Hips high, chest low.
Elbows come up and out to a naturally stronger position - not too tucked, not too forward.
Chin remains over the stem to keep mass centred.
Knee flexes a little more, heels remain dropped, same foot position.
The rider is still supporting their weight with their legs.

Getting lower can help find more stability & mobility in our position. We’re more mobile as we can move our limbs and body in multiple directions - up, down, side to side, twisting, fore, aft, etc. This opens the door to improving our bike-body separation and deliberately disconnecting ourselves from the bike - thus putting more advanced skills like leaning the bike and body rotation on the menu. We’re more stable as we’ve lowered our COM.

The key here is not sinking down at the hips and ending up perched over the rear axle. This happens with overly bent knees, and you end up crouching behind the handlebars. This loses our connection to the front wheel as we’ve taken too much weight away from it.

Only bend the knees as much as you need to - remember, we want the strength a straighter leg gives us for supporting our mass. Focus on hinging at the hips in a bowing movement to bring your chest closer to the bike first, then bend the knees if needed. You may need to fractionally shift the hips rearward (emphasis on fractionally) so you don’t end up way too forward - remember to keep your chin over the stem to stay centred and connected to the front wheel.

Tall or low? I felt better getting lower, especially at speed.

Adjusting Between Positions

So, we can get ourselves lower and centred to find more stability and mobility in our position. But when do you get lower, how much do you move when you adjust, and how often should you be adjusting?

The when aspect depends on a few factors - the terrain and efficiency, to name only two.

Terrain: Certain features or trail types will demand more stability or mobility from our position. Lots of support, flat and smooth? Stay taller. Little support, rough or steep? Get lower.
Efficiency: Getting lower on the bike will put more load through our muscles, so we can stay there for longer - a tired rider isn’t going to be stable, or mobile.

The how much aspect is a little more complex and becomes more important at higher levels of riding. A bug bear of mine is when newer riders get the impression that there are only ‘two positions to mountain biking’ and draw absolute conclusions from there - i.e “it’s downhill, so I must get low and hold it here”. It’s not that simple, particularly at higher levels. As mentioned, a rigid ‘rulebook’ approach lacks adaptability and any sort of meaningful context, so you’ll quickly reach its limits.

Instead, treat it like this. Once you’ve consolidated your ability to hold a position and can smoothly transition between positions, start to think of the neutral and ready positions on a scale of 1 to 10 - Neutral (10) being tallest, ready (1) being lowest. You now have 8 other positions on that same scale to apply to different situations.

Choosing how much you move depends on how much extra stability and mobility (getting lower) you need. This comes down to accurately responding to what’s in front of you on the trail and avoiding static and robotic riding - don’t be idle. For example - big impacts through a nasty rock garden? Get lower. Lots of little high frequency bumps? Maybe you can save a bit of energy by not getting quite as low.

But why do pro riders look like they aren’t doing anything at all? Because they have refined their movements to the point that they have exactly the right amount of movement at the right time, every time. It takes time and practice to get there, and this is where the rabbit holes can appear, hopefully you get the gist.

The how often aspect mainly comes down to that concept of efficiency - too much is wasteful, too little is robotic. From my experience, I’d encourage you to start moving more and use this as a tactic to interact more intentionally with the trail to bring more fluidity to your riding.

The bottom line - our position should be a constant continuum of dynamic movement, because that’s exactly what a mountain bike trail is.

Examples - Back Seat vs. Driving Seat

To demonstrate these positions, here’s two ways of riding a section on a grade 4 Queenstown trail. The gradient steepens on entry, the surface is a web of roots and cobble stones with a one-foot-high rock ledge obstacle that immediately spits you into a right hand berm.

It’s a classic example of a place where rider’s positions can crumble into the back seat. We want to start using more of a ‘ready’ position to stay centred and connected to the front wheel, as well as more stability and mobility throughout.

‘Lean back when it goes downhill so you don’t go over the handlebars’. Lord, give me strength. In the early 90’s this was perhaps sound advice - tiny bikes with straight seat posts meant this was necessary. Not the case anymore. Stop it. I mean it.

Getting back on the bike will straighten your arms and put all your weight over the back wheel, eliminating your connection to the front of the bike. This will:

Lock out your arms so steering and leaning the bike is more difficult.
Take weight off the front wheel so steering traction is worse.
A lighter front wheel will make for a less effective front brake.
No mobility so now you can’t absorb bumps.

You can see from the pictures above, that I ride very defensively through the section. I don’t have any mobility to absorb the bumps and I arrive at the corner with very little connection to the front wheel (where I need it most).

I most certainly could not ride at pace like this or start to expect any performance from my riding.

Now we’re talking.

I have mobility in my position to deal with the bumps and arrive at the corner with plenty of control through the front of the bike. I can use my arms to place the front wheel down over the rock ledge quickly so I can regain front wheel traction. I’m also ideally positioned to press with my legs through the berm and generate some exit speed.

I could start generating some pace here and feel good about it, because I’m more stable and have more mobility (or ways to move) on offer. It takes a lot of time to get comfortable with being in a position like this. If this is new to you, you will feel like you’re forward on the bike, but all we’re doing is bringing you to centre.

It feels counter-intuitive to get lower and closer to the ‘scary’ bits, but it produces infinitely more control than shifting yourself back and away.

Don’t get back, get low!

Homework Assignments

Find an open space and see how it feels to try some of the positions in this article. Once you’re in a position, explore within it - for example, see how it feels to move your body fore/aft in the ready position and see how it affects different muscle groups. This will help to bring awareness of what centre feels like, as it requires the least amount of muscular effort to hold.

Once you’re comfy with this, take the positions to the trail and experiment with them. Here’s some things you can try:

Compare & contrast. Ride a familiar trail in only the neutral or ready position. See where they feel good, and where they feel bad - this is excellent experiential learning. For example, you might highlight that the ready feels good in corners, but energy zapping on long flat sections. Bingo.
Ride rigid vs. mobile. Don’t adjust at all (be static), then adjust constantly (be very dynamic). See which one feels better and be aware if there are any downsides - e.g constantly moving can be fatiguing.
Choose one simple thing to zone in on, like ‘chin over stem’. Focus all your awareness on this to drive your learning. It might sound easy but try it on a double black trail and get back to me.
Heavy feet, light hands. This is great for engaging the legs for support and relaxing the arms/shoulders in any position. Adjust your position on the bike so you achieve light consistent pressure through your palms - too far back and you’ll be gripping tightly with your fingers, too far forward and you’ll notice excessive palm pressure.

Enjoy!

These articles are designed to unpack some of the riding theory behind improving your skill set on the bike. If you’re keen to get out there and give them a go, be mindful to choose appropriate terrain (something easy for you, often an open field is a good place to start) and be prepared to feel some funky new sensations as you ride. Feedback is key, so get some footage to guide your journey. These articles are in no way ‘absolute’. Our sport is dynamic and ever changing, so there will always be exceptions to some of these general concepts.

Ride Skills - Body Position for Downhill Control