To make the plank even harder, you can do the decline variation. With your feet elevated, your upper body has to bear more weight.

Step 1: Get down on the floor like you are doing a regular plank. Your forearms are on the floor as usual, but this time your toes should be placed on a bench behind you (about 12-18″ tall.)

Tighten your abs and keep your body straight. Now hold this position.

Decline Plank video:

[video coming soon]

See more exercise guides in The Bodyweight Exercise Collection.

The ab vacuum is a great exercise because it works your core nicely, and it is very simple. You can think of it as a plank done standing up.

This is so simple it can be done while waiting in line at the grocery store! But it’s still effective!

Step 1: Stand up straight and tall with your shoulders back (i.e. not hunched over) and your arms at your sides.

Now flex your abs so they are flat and tight. You want to hold this pose for 30 seconds up to 5 minutes.

Take fairly deep breaths so you feel the pressure between your lungs/diaphragm and your abdominal wall. Your lungs should be pushing on your abs, but your abs should stay flat the whole time.

Ab Vacuum video:

[video coming soon]

See more exercise guides in The Bodyweight Exercise Collection.

The “One Leg Stand Up” is a quick, simple exercise that I started doing to improve my leg strength and stability while working up to a pistol squat.

If you are not yet ready for pistol squats, work on this move, and you’ll be much closer.

Step 1: You will start standing up. To start the exercise, squat down and roll onto your back with your feet in the air.

Step 2: Then roll back up (i.e. forward,) but stand up on one leg only. Your other leg can be bent or straight, as long as it isn’t touching the floor.

Then repeat the process, but stand up on your other leg.

One Leg Stand Up video:

[video coming soon]

See more exercise guides in The Bodyweight Exercise Collection.

Being a food manufacturer is tricky these days. These companies need to use the cheapest possible ingredients to maintain their profit margins, but what they put into the product goes under intense scrutiny by today’s health-conscious consumers.

Problem is, healthy ingredients are expensive. Taboo ingredients, such as partially hydrogenated oils and saturated fats, are cheap. So how does the manufacturer handle these tricky situations?

They pass the tricks onto the consumer, of course!

So every time we shop, we have to be vigilant about what we’re getting, because there’s always someone trying to pull one over on us. That’s why I compiled a list of tricks that most companies play on us:

Trick #1: “0 grams” of Unhealthy Ingredients

The trick: Foods are labeled as containing “0g trans fat” or “0g saturated fat” per serving.

Unfortunately, “0″ does not mean 0. It actually means “up to 0.5″ grams per serving. So if you consume two servings of some “0g trans fats” snacks, you could be ingesting up to 1g of trans fats. (And no one eats just one or two servings…)

Heck, even the words “fat free” on the label allow up to 0.5g fat per serving.

How to spot it: Foods that are actually healthy don’t need to bother claiming “0g trans fats.” So if you see a bag of chips with a big “0g trans fats” badge right on front, they are probably pulling this trick.

Worst offender: Frito Lay snacks, such as Cheetos. Frito Lay takes pride in the fact that they were the first major food company to remove trans fats from their snack chips, and I applaud them for taking the initiative, but it doesn’t mean their snacks are healthy.

What to do: Skip past the Nutrition Facts label and peruse the ingredients. If the ingredients list contains any type of hydrogenated oils, partially hydrogenated soybean oil for instance, then the product contains trans fats, no matter how big the “0g trans fats” badge is.

Note: This is a 10 page article. Click the page links below to continue reading!

If you’re hitting the mud in an XC mountain bike race, it’s bound to be tons of fun… but the mud can also slow you down and knock you out of the race if you’re not prepared.

Here are five tips to keep running smoothly in the mud:

1. Block the mud.

The first option that comes to mind is installing fenders on your bike, which will block mud from coating your entire body.

Unfortunately, fenders add weight to the bike, so you need to use them sparingly. To save weight for an XC race, just use a little front fender to keep mud off your face (and out of your eyes.) Typically, pro XC racers stick with a small downtube fender, if they use fenders at all.

Mud on your back is not really an issue (so you can skip the rear fender,) but you do need to be able to see…

2. Non-stick yourself.

Even with fenders blocking some mud, mud is still going to cling to virtually every surface of your bicycle. It will also cling to the fenders themselves.

What you can do is take Pam cooking spray (it prevents food from sticking to pans) and spray it on your frame, fenders, pedals, and tires. This will usually lessen the mud build-up.

It’s worth a shot, because less mud equals more riding. And if you encounter a hike-a-bike in the race (quite common on muddy days,) a bike not coated in 20 pounds of mud will be much lighter for you to carry.

3. Mud tires.

Tire choice is always a top priority, but even more so when there is very little traction to be had. If you have the time and money to carry a range of tires for all conditions, you definitely want some meaty tires in your arsenal.

You may also want some extra-skinny tires, too. See, there are two schools of thought when it comes to mud tires.

The first says you want the big, fat, meaty tires that will give you traction in thick mud, without getting bogged down. This is the “conventional wisdom” approach, but many experienced racers do not follow it.

The second says to choose skinny tires (~ 1.75,) especially in soupy mud, because they will slice through the mud and find something to grip beneath the slick surface. They also provide more clearance between the tire and fork, making it easier for mud to fall through instead of build up.

If you opt for a narrow tire, you may go with a Panaracer Fire Mud or Maxxis Medusa. Both are lightweight, narrow, 1.8″ tires with widely-spaced tall knobs.

There’s also a third school of thought, and it says that the traction you get in the mud is going to be so bad that selecting some specific mud tires won’t make a difference.

Basically the point is that, if it’s sooo sloppy you wouldn’t run your regular lightweight XC tire, you’d probably finish faster by running your bike through the worst sections than by installing mud-specific tires and trying to ride everything.

Bottom line: get some narrow mud tires if you expect to do lots of races in the mud, but don’t expect miracles.

4. Thick chain lube.

To keep those mud tires rolling, you need the chain to be moving, too. The best way to do that is to use a thick chain lube that stays put, even when wet and coated in mud.

My personal favorite is Dumonde Tech lube. Just look at the picture in my review and you’ll see how nice the chain looks despite the bike being coated in mud.

Another cool thing is that Dumonde Tech won’t wash off with plain water, so you could rinse your drivetrain in-race and the lube will still be there for the next lap.

5. Lock down your grips.

One bike part that should not be rotating is the grips. Many grips will rotate around the bar if they get wet enough (a condition known as “throttle grip,”) so you want to lock them down tight.

Two of my favorite grips, Oury and Ergon, are available with a built-in clamp that will lock the grip to the bar. That’s the best method for keeping grips in place.

If you don’t have lock-on grips and don’t want to spend extra money for them, you could try tying the grips to the bar using wire or cable ties and/or using a little spray adhesive when installing them.

Bonus tip! Practice in the mud.

If you think there’s a chance you’ll be doing a muddy mountain bike race (if you race enough, there’s a 100% chance you’ll end up racing in the mud,) you should go out and practice riding your bike in the mud.

Riding in the mud requires a lot of handling skill, and you can only get that skill from practicing in the mud. You are shortchanging yourself if you only ride on dry trails on sunny days, and you’re kidding yourself if you think just switching to mud tires will make it easy to ride in the mud.

Photo credit: Gregory White (mistagregory)