THE UPPER BACK & NECK

Where the head goes, the body follows. It’s a fundamental tenet that all mountain bike skills coaches agree on and the primary reason why they emphasise looking at the exit of a turn, not the apex, because that’s precisely where you want to go.

So controlling your head movement while riding, especially in rough terrain, is super-important. And given that the average adult head weighs 5kg without a helmet, we’re asking a lot of our pencil necks and upper backs to control it.

Even our riding position on the bike, body lent forward, head cranked up, tends to over develop the muscles on the back of the neck and upper back.