Our partner in podcasting, The Gravel Ride Podcast, sits down this week with Sarah Wallensteen from Dynamic Cyclist, to learn more about stretching and injury prevention. Dynamic Cyclists offers a comprehensive video based stretching program designed specifically for cyclists by cyclists. Each session is designed to be completed in under 20 minutes to easily fit into our lives.
Dynamic Cyclist Website (THEGRAVELRIDE for 15% off)
Automatic Transcription by The Gravel Ride (please excuse all errors)
[00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport
I’m your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don’t need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist.
This week on the show, we’re welcoming Sarah Wallenstein from dynamic cyclist, from British Columbia to talk to us about stretching and strength training and how important it is for us as gravel cyclist. Dynamic cyclist has been around for five years, providing a video based stretching and strength training program for cyclists.
It was developed specifically because the founders. Saw the need in their lives for stretching and strength training. To support their cycling endeavors. I had a super fun conversation with sarah and i can’t wait to get into it
Hey, Sarah, welcome to the show. Hi. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to dig into all things stretching. I feel like every winter period I start thinking about stretching and then forget about it in the summer period, but it’s super poignant for me every winter as I’m like, What can I do to really make sure I’m gonna have a fun and productive cycling season?
[00:01:31] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah, that’s funny how that works though. As soon as we’re back on our bike, we, uh, we let it go.
[00:01:37] Craig Dalton: and everybody else, everybody I’ve spoken to in terms of recovery, PT, performance, like they always say stretching or yoga, like it has to be part of your program and mm-hmm. , I’ve certainly been hung up on this as a, an aging.
Just of how to keep my performances high, and it is so often not about riding my bike more or, you know, doing intervals or anything like that. It’s just about creating a, a body that can, you know, just be, have the flexibility and have the resilience. To handle gravel cycling.
[00:02:17] Sarah Wallensteen: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:02:18] Craig Dalton: Yeah. We all start off by the show by learning a little bit more about you.
So Sarah, can you tell us where, where you’re located, um, and maybe just a little bit about your background as a cyclist and maybe something you’re excited for this cycling season.
[00:02:32] Sarah Wallensteen: Sure. Um, my name is Sarah Wallenstein and, um, I live in Cologna, bc so beautiful cycling here. Pretty much any kind. I have, you know, the classic road gravel mountain bike shed.
Um, I grew up cycling. It’s very much a part of my family’s culture. Um, my parents for their honeymoon rode across both islands in New Zealand. Um, my aunt and uncle toured most of Europe. Um, so it’s just, it’s something that has always been a part of our family. And then as we grew up kind of seeing that, uh, in the adults in our lives, it was just natural that we would also hop on bikes and go places, and um, uh, explore that way.
So it’s, yeah. Biking has always been such an important part of my.
[00:03:20] Craig Dalton: Amazing. And was it, um, when did gravel cycling come into your cycling worldview and what’s the gravel cycling near you like? Yeah,
[00:03:29] Sarah Wallensteen: it definitely, it came in last. Um, so I started off on road, um, and doing triathlon when I was, I did my first triathlon when I was 12.
And then I morphed into mountain biking cuz that was the fun adrenaline while I was a teenager and I raced, um, cross country, mountain biking all through high school. Uh, gravel has definitely been, it’s within the last couple years. I mean, it’s exploded in popularity within the last couple years. Um, and just as roads have become more and more busy, I still love my road bike, but I love the quiet that you can, can, you can get on gravel and just go.
you know, for six hours and not see anyone else. . I love, I love that part of it. Um, cause I also come from, I did some ultra running as well and I’ve loved that. Just getting lost in the woods and you can achieve that on a gravel. Um, and in the Okanagan we are so blessed. We have the K V R, which is just such a nice intro to grapple of riding.
Cause you can go, um, You can go for days and you’re just on railroad grade, uh, cuz it’s the old railroad, uh, track. So it’s no more than 2% incline . So it’s just an amazing way to explore our valley. So that’s the main, um, the main kind of route that I do a lot on my gravel riding on. Cuz it’s just, it’s e it’s easy, it’s beautiful.
It’s fun. We. You know these amazing wood trestles that you get to go across in canyons and it’s stunning and it’s 10 minutes from my house, so can’t really beat
[00:05:02] Craig Dalton: it. Amazing. And given the prevalence of mountain bike trails, do you in that area as well, do you tend to. Kind of under bike and explore those trails on your gravel bike?
Or is it kind of more that rails to trail type riding that you like to enjoy? No,
[00:05:18] Sarah Wallensteen: I’ve definitely, I’ve definitely pushed my gravel bike on onto single track and trying to test out how that feels. Um, I am signed up for the BC Epic this year, and that does include some single track. So I’ve been wanting to kind of test my , tell us how that feels.
Um, And it just, it opens up where you can go too in exploring, you know, discontinued, uh, logging roads that are a lot rock, but, uh, can get you to some cool places.
[00:05:46] Craig Dalton: What is the
[00:05:47] Sarah Wallensteen: BC epic? Um, so it’s a thousand kilometer ride that takes you from merit to Furney. Uh, and it’s all, they have a breakdown of what it is, but I think it’s, it’s 80% gravel, 10% single track, and then 10% road.
Um, So you basically have however long it’s going to take you, and you start out as a group. It’s not a paid race, it’s just an event that you just start with a group of like-minded people and then. Spread out over the days to come . So I, it’s amazing.
[00:06:19] Craig Dalton: Is it, is it a bike packing style race where you have a grand depar and however you wanna handle it, you handle it?
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Super cool. Yeah. Is your vision that you’ll, you’ll, um, bike pack it in the context, like you’ll be camping every night or are you gonna credit card toward, is that even possible? Um,
[00:06:38] Sarah Wallensteen: you can, quite a few people especially, um, Last year it was, there was like a heat dome during the race time, which was really unfortunate.
Um, so a quite a few riders did get a couple hotels along the ridges to cool down, which is totally fair. Uh, I’m hoping it’ll be a lot cooler, uh, and I wanna do it all camping. Um, okay. There’s only two nights that you could possibly spend in a town. Yes. And
[00:07:04] Craig Dalton: do you have a vision for how long that’ll take you?
[00:07:08] Sarah Wallensteen: Days, um, yeah, I’m thinking seven days. I’d like to do it in a week. Uh, the course record. Is free in a bit, so very fast. But I like my sleeve way too much. So
[00:07:19] Craig Dalton: sleep , I hear you on that. Well, it sounds like we could do a whole episode on that endeavor cause that sounds super exciting and I, I hope you’ll keep me posted on how it goes cuz it’s will do.
Fascinated by that kind of thing. But we’re here to talk about dynamic cyclists. Yes. So why don’t, why don’t we start by what is dynamic cyclist? When was it founded? And we can go from.
[00:07:42] Sarah Wallensteen: Sure. Uh, dynamic Cyclist is, um, an online video-based program that provides stretching and strength training specifically designed for cyclists.
That’s the sales pitch. That’s what we are. Um, we started back in 2018 and it kind of came about in a random way. So myself and the two co-founders, um, they actually hired me on as a blog writer, um, for a site called I love bicycling.com. And I’d just come out of a newsroom I’d, I’d kind of tested the waters of journalism.
It wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I was looking for an out, so this writing job came up to ride about bikes and I, uh, jumped on that. And from there, the blog. , it was kind of hard cuz it’s like the end of when blogging could make money. So , they were just kind of paying me out of pocket and just, okay, we’ll eventually do something.
We’ll figure something out. Um, and we were just sitting around one day and just talking about cycling and what is missing in the cycling world. And it came down to both Lee and I, one of the co-founders were both cyclists and he said, I know I should be stretching. I never do, but what can we offer? In that world, can we create something that we ourselves want to use that will help us, therefore it will help other cyclists.
And that’s kind of how dynamic Cyclists was born. So I took that idea and built the website and worked with a physiotherapist and sports therapist to put together the programming and record the videos and we went from there. That’s
[00:09:20] Craig Dalton: super interesting. I mean, obviously like the best entrepreneurial stories.
Much very similar to that. Right. It was just like, what is missing from the world? And I think many cyclists can own up to the fact that we’ve been aware of cycling our, or sorry, stretching our entire lives. Mm-hmm. , but not doing enough of it. Mm-hmm. . I also find it interesting that you, you know, you started from a content perspective because I’ve been aware of the brand for many years, and it’s always been sort of in that context of like, you’re, you’ve been putting good content in front of me.
Clearly, like as I mentioned earlier, I think about stretching hardcore every winter and click through and you know, obviously you were chasing me around the internet with your ads for forever, and I’m, I’m glad I finally clicked through and in fact, I’ll mention this and we’ll come back to it. It couldn’t be easier because you offer seven day free trials.
So if you’re curious what it’s all about, just jump in and try it. Mm-hmm. . But to put a point, a fine point on. What is the type of programming you offer specifically? It’s a video, right?
[00:10:25] Sarah Wallensteen: Yes. Yeah, we, we designed it with ourselves in mind, which sounds weird, but as cyclists, you know, I’ve tried yoga and no offense, yoga is amazing and works for so many people, but I would get bored, and I think a lot of cyclists are the same.
We’re a certain type of people that have to be on the move. Right? So doing an hour long class just isn’t appealing. I’m gonna go once and then I’m not gonna go again. , what we were aiming to do and what the website is, is trying to keep that video, that routine to 15 to 20 minutes tops. Um, , it’s bite size.
That’s, that’s doable. You know, it’s funny, human nature, anything above 20 minutes and we’re like, ah, I don’t have 20 minutes. But , you do. I promise. You do. Um, and we wanted it to just be you. Click play, you follow along. You don’t have to think about it. You know, you’re targeting the right areas for you as a cyclist.
and then you’re done. Then you can, you know, get on with your day, hop on your bike, whatever else you
[00:11:27] Craig Dalton: wanna do. Yeah. Yeah. I think those two points landed very well with me. Just this a, this idea that yes, yoga would be a great thing, and if I had a yoga routine, That would be amazing, but it is an hour long and I struggle with finding enough workout time for my cycling passion, let alone adding something like that in and 20 minutes is available to me.
Mm-hmm. , hopefully it’s available to all of us. You can, I, I’ve found a little time, like if my son’s watching tv, I just have it up on my phone and I do stretches where normally I might just be cuddling with him and watching a show that has no interest to an adult. Right.
[00:12:05] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah. . Um, yeah, no, that’s perfect.
[00:12:09] Craig Dalton: And the, what type of equipment is typically involved? Like what do I have to have in my home in order to successfully complete the program? Yeah,
[00:12:18] Sarah Wallensteen: we’ve tried to keep it as minimal as possible or things you can use that are around the house. The list has grown over the years as we’ve added more content, cuz you know, the more we add, the more we’re trying to find new ways, new exciting ways to stretch your hamstrings.
You know, get creative. Uh, but for the stretching program, all you’ll. Is just a mat or a space to do it. Um, blocks you can use books, um, a strap, use a belt, it works. Um, and then a broomstick, believe it or not, we use it as like a pole that you can do some upper mobility stuff with. Um, and that’s all you need.
To get started and then a foam roller, if you wanna include the, we do include some foam rolling and, uh, release stuff,
[00:13:00] Craig Dalton: so, yep. Yeah. Yeah. I think when I, when I think about starting the program each night, I’m thinking about foam roller block and a strap. Like those are my, those are my, those are the main days.
Yeah. I do like, and I have done a little bit of broom work and it is interesting how it adds, um, just a little something, uh, additional to your twisting.
[00:13:21] Sarah Wallensteen: Activities. Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:13:23] Craig Dalton: Yeah. So it, it’s, it’s such an interesting concept and we talk about stretching, but why is stretching important for cyclists?
[00:13:33] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah. This is, this is the big thing. It’s, it’s important for cyclists of course, but it really is important for everyone. But why cyclists specifically? Um, when you think about when you’re on the bike and the pedaling motion, you’re taking your muscles through a linear range of motion for one. So you’re moving in one direction.
You’re not going out to either side. and you’re also never taking the hip, the knee, or the ankle joint to its fullest range of motion. So we’re never straightening out those joints. There’s always a little bend, which can c just put a lot of pressure on those muscles and those joints cuz they’re not fully extending.
Um, so just what this can do, you’re also taking it through hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of repetitions on the bike, right? So it’s, of course cycling is so good for you and it’s amazing for your joints cuz it’s low impact. , but you are taking it through the exact same range of motion over and over.
Um, and we’re bent over, which doesn’t help us, uh, especially with our modern lifestyles, which we spend a lot of time at desks driving, sitting on the couch. And then it’s just more time spent with our hips crunched, our back, hunched. Um, so all that kind of accumulates to. Muscle imbalance or posture. Uh, we all know , you know, we all hunt forward, uh, slowly over time.
And it also just, it turns our quads into powerhouses and then our weak little hamstrings can’t handle it and they weaken and, uh, loosen and it can just throw off the whole pelvis. It’s essentially what happens. .
[00:15:10] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. It’s so true. I mean, if we just, if you’re out there listening and you think about how many hours in you eat in your week, you pedal a bike, and how many weeks in your life you’ve been a cyclist, we become very good at doing one thing and mm-hmm.
I always tell that to people like, you know, I feel like I’m a, a decent endurance athlete on a bike , but, but I am not a decent endurance athlete in many other things. Yeah. Because the rest of my body is, Not conditioned to do it. Mm-hmm. , and I’ve been making concerted effort to kind of diversify my, my personal sporting interests with just the sense that I’m not gonna be able to continue cycling if I don’t consider other muscle groups.
Mm-hmm. , you know, the, just general wellbeing of my body. I recently joined a gym, don’t you know, God forbid I finally did it, , but one of the offers they had was like a, a full 360 body. And the person who was interpreting for it for me was talking about my muscle mass and my fat and where they’re distributed.
And we were talking about like my inner thigh area. I think that’s the adductor. Mm-hmm. and how it was so underdeveloped compared to the rest of my leg muscles. Yeah, and to your point, as you were describing that pedal motion, like we’re doing one thing and it’s evolving a lot of muscle groups in our legs.
but not all the muscle groups in our legs
[00:16:35] Sarah Wallensteen: and yeah, sorry. Another thing that can happen, you just, you brought up the abductors and they’re the perfect example. Um, and a lot of endurance cyclists will understand this, that. You know when you’re at hour 4, 5, 6 on a bike and those powerhouse muscles are starting to fatigue, it’s those stabilizing ones that we don’t ask to do anything for us that start to be recruited like the abductors, and that’s when you can get insane cramping or.
Fatigue. Cause those just fatigued so quickly. Cause they’re not up to the task. You ask them to help and they’re just these weak little things I can’t do. can’t
[00:17:12] Craig Dalton: do it. So it’s so funny you say that because in the instances where I have had those vicious cramps, latent an event, it’s been the abductor.
Yeah. And it’s been a frigging disaster. . Yeah, .
[00:17:25] Sarah Wallensteen: The calves will do that to you too. .
[00:17:28] Craig Dalton: And the other thing we were exploring, as you know, this woman was sort of analyzing my, my issues was just how my muscles that, as you were saying, aren’t the strongest. late in the day when I’m riding are compensating mm-hmm.
and causing all kinds of problems in my back. And yeah. So we’ve just kind of brought together this, this idea that you need to stretch more and we do need to look at a more holistic, weightlifting routine mm-hmm. to strengthen these other areas.
[00:17:57] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah. As much as our, our core programming and where we started was with stretching, it’s almost, we had to ease ourselves into it.
And therefore our members, you know, it’s like, okay, you know, you need to stretch. You should. and then we just snuck strength training in there as well. Yeah. It’s equally as important and just as much of a foundation of our programming. Wait. We just have to kind of be a little quieter about it. Cuz when you ask people to stretch and strengthen, I don’t have time for that.
But we do have, uh, routines that combine them. Right. That combine the mobility work and the stability work. Yeah. To make that as easy
[00:18:31] Craig Dalton: as possible. And I’ve got a bone to pick with you because , I’m quite sure I’m doing AB and core work. Yes, yes,
[00:18:40] Sarah Wallensteen: you are . Um, the core is one of the most neglected things that’s like this.
Uh, they don’t understand the importance of, and I mean, low back pain is the number one thing that comes up for cyclists. Um, I don’t care what level you are. If you ride your bike for over an hour, your low back is going to start hurting. If your core is not strong, and all that is, is your core and your hamstrings and your.
are the supporters for your low back and your pelvis. And so if your core isn’t up to the job, your low back is just going to have the little wave in it. It’s gonna cave in and your low back will have pain on and off the bike. Um, , but you need a strong core. There’s no way to sugarcoat
[00:19:27] Craig Dalton: it. Yeah, . Yeah. Yeah.
And I think it’s, you know, it’s interesting as we age as athletes, you can kind of fake a lot of things in your twenties and maybe early thirties if you’re lucky. Mm-hmm. . But as you get into your forties and fifties and beyond, It, it starts to add up and that’s my, certainly my advice and takeaway to younger athletes is get a routine and build those strength systems earlier rather than later.
Mm-hmm. , it’s probably obvious if you’re a high performing professional cyclist that you need to do that, but even for amateur cyclists, like if you wanna be long into. Game of cycling. And cycling can be a sport that’ll be around your entire life. Yeah. But you still have to play a few other cards in order to make sure you’re, you’ve got the right platform to enjoy cycling.
[00:20:12] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah, absolutely. It’s been interesting over there the past five years that we’ve had dynamic cyclists, cuz our, our membership in the beginning was very much, you know, 50. , um, older athletes who, who wanna keep riding but are experiencing those pain points. So we’re, you know, ready to jump on a solution. But the longer we’ve been around, the more and more the 20 somethings, 30 somethings are getting in there cuz they’re seeing the value of that as well.
Of, okay, I wanna be doing this in 30 years. So what I have to do now to, to make sure that can happen. .
[00:20:48] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent. So you’ve got, uh, can you describe the program just a little bit? You’ve got the sort of basic strength, or sorry, the basic stretching program mm-hmm. , but you’ve also got some derivative programs to specific parts of the body or ailments.
[00:21:04] Sarah Wallensteen: Yes. Um, so yeah, as I said, the core of our programming is a daily stretching video. We have over two years of content in that you’ll have a, a new routine every day. Um, that are stretching and some mo we sneak some mobility and like dynamic exercises in there as well. You, you wanna be moving through the range of motion, not just doing static stretches.
So, um, that’s the core of the program. And then we have various different strength training programs. So we have like a beginner, intermediate, advanced and then a winter strength training program that was designed where you’re not as on your bike as much cuz it does fatigue. Powerhouse muscles you’re gonna be using on the bike that you may not need to work those while you’re riding as much.
Um, and then we do have our injury programming, which has become kind of our more popular programming. So we have a low back programming program, a knee, a hip. An ankle reset and foot, which, you know, a lot of people don’t understand. You know, like that seems kind of random, but it is very important to start at the base and work up.
Um, and what these programs do is they combine into 20 minutes the mobility, stretching work, and the strength training that you need to be doing to correct, um, the muscle imbalance that is likely causing pain in those areas. Yes, you’re gonna be do doing core strength in a hip program because it’s all connected.
So you’re, you’re working on stretching and strengthening those surrounding muscles around that joint to make sure, um, that it is balanced.
[00:22:35] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I went through the, the seven day introductory kind of trial period for the basic, uh, stretching mm-hmm. , and then went right into, I think I’m like 21 days into the low back.
Yeah. Uh, phase one
[00:22:50] Sarah Wallensteen: training, right? Yeah. . Yeah. The, the injury programs are, they’re gonna be at least six weeks. Um, just because that is what it takes to experience. , um, I promise you can do it. 20 minutes a day. Even if it takes you, you know, two months, three months to get through that one program, you’re still, uh, doing your body a huge service.
[00:23:12] Craig Dalton: That’s good to know. And I didn’t internalize that concept. Maybe I saw at some level that the first phase was six weeks. Mm-hmm. , but that’s what your. Research or experience has shown that it takes six weeks to kind of get a little bit of impact in that area. Yeah,
[00:23:25] Sarah Wallensteen: you will feel results right away. You’re, you’re gonna have faster recovery, you’re gonna just feel better.
Um, but to actually start to change, um, those structures and the way the muscles recover and the length of muscles takes four to six weeks. Yeah.
[00:23:40] Craig Dalton: And how about with the, uh, the basic stretching routine? I mean, you just mentioned, you know, you’ll start to feel some more elasticity potentially mm-hmm. in your areas, but is there a particular amount of time that you really want people to stay on the program for every year?
[00:23:57] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah, that’s an interesting question. I mean, ideally, , you continue on forever. not with dynamic cyclists, but you continue this mobility practice. Yeah, we have a ton of members who have been with us since the beginning and you know, they reach a point that they’re like, you know what? I’ve learned so much from you guys.
Loved it. and they move on cuz they’ve, they’ve made it so a part of their routine and their life. They know all the exercises they should be doing. They’re good to just put on music and do their own routine at this point. Yeah. And we’re totally happy with that. If, if you can learn from us to put together your own routines, your own injury prevention, that’s great.
Um,
[00:24:36] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Job well done at that point. Yeah. ,
[00:24:38] Sarah Wallensteen: we’ll pat ourselves on the back and wish you well. . .
[00:24:42] Craig Dalton: Yeah. When you think about cycling, what are the, and, and if you wanted to impart the listener with like three focal areas you think that they should spend most of their time thinking about and, and working on from a stretching, um, perspective, what would those.
That’s
[00:25:00] Sarah Wallensteen: an interesting question cuz it’s, you know, I, I would go to say like, hamstrings are the number one thing, um, but they’re kind of a different problem for everyone. They’re super tight, but they may not be, um, shortened as you think they might be. But it might be the overdevelopment of the, that’s pulling it so there’s no stretch there cuz it’s stretched to the point of its limit.
Um, So there’s a bunch of things that go into fixing that, but the hamstrings are more important. Of course, you should be stretching them, but you should be strengthening them. Those need to go hand in hand. That would be my number one. . Does the
[00:25:37] Craig Dalton: hamstring, does it connect to other, well, obviously it does, but where does it connect and what other parts of the body does?
Like poor hamstring maintenance, uh, attributes, problems to,
[00:25:49] Sarah Wallensteen: yeah. The poor hamstring, mainten. is a large cause of the low back pain as well. Um, cuz it connects to the pelvis at the top. Um, and then as well it comes around and the quads and the hamstrings were so connected. So like what is happening with one, uh, is gonna affect the other.
Yeah. Um, but that’s where a lot of both knee and hip pain comes from is hamstring and then what it does as it like goes down the chain. Got
[00:26:15] Craig Dalton: it. Yeah. Okay, so that’s first is our hamstring area. Hamstring. What, what would you put.
[00:26:21] Sarah Wallensteen: Uh, we’ve already talked about it, but I would say low back and core, um, are the next biggest things.
Just cuz that is gonna be the thing that, um, we’ve found injury-wise. It’s, there’s some things like knee pain, you’ll get off the bike and you’ll be walking and it goes away and it may hurt just when you’re on your bike. Low back pain sticks around. It’ll hurt when you go to pick up your groceries or whatever.
Yeah. So it’s just one of the most important things you should hop on as soon as you feel that little tweak , you know, before it gets any. .
[00:26:51] Craig Dalton: And you mentioned earlier the sort of the, the importance of core strength. Mm-hmm. when you perhaps are, are fatigued on the bike because without core strength, other, other areas of your back may be taking the brunt of mm-hmm.
holding you in the, in the correct position. So core strength. And so core strengthening is one element of that. How do you access and what type of stretching do you recommend for the.
[00:27:20] Sarah Wallensteen: Um, the most important stretching, uh, is like twists that you can do in the spine. Um, cause we don’t, we don’t actually ask a lot from our back, especially on the bike.
You know, we’re in one position holding, so anything that we can work on, you know, the thoracic spine and how important that is to just have that range of motion, um, will impact the low back as well. . Um, and as , it may sound weird, but the quads are so important to stretch, rule release. Um, just break up that tension cuz cyclists are known for our overdeveloped quads.
That’s the, that’s the main thing. So, um, that’s one
[00:28:03] Craig Dalton: of the most important areas. Yeah. That and the it band and the IT band’s con contributions to low back have been something mm-hmm. That I’ve definitely acknowledged in my own body. Mm-hmm. Yeah, so that was two, and I’m not gonna command you to get me a third , but if you have a third, let’s
[00:28:20] Sarah Wallensteen: hear it.
Um, yeah, the hip flexor, we actually just released a intensive hip program. Um, our new injury programming includes, uh, an informational piece cuz we want people to understand why they’re doing these things and why it’s important. So we brought in. Dr. Ben, we like to call him, um, to just, he’s really good at explaining the joint and why these injuries happen.
Um, and the hip is so important because it’s number one, just the biggest joint in the body, most complex, most, you know, elements going in there. Um, and it’s also one that, as I mentioned before, in the way that most of our, most of us live our lives. is just crunched all the time at a 90 degree angle. You know, um, standing desks and stuff like that help, but.
our hips are notoriously tight and weak. I mean, you try to go into a pigeon pose, you go to a yoga class, you know that your hips are tight, , you know that, that, that doesn’t feel good. Um, and again, that can impact you on the bike. If that hip flexor muscle, which again gets recruited as the quads fatigue, if it’s not up to it, you’re going to, uh, start feeling it in other areas.
So has to both again, be stretched and strengthened.
[00:29:40] Craig Dalton: Yeah. A hundred percent. And I’m a hundred percent guilty of that and have felt that on many occasions. Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that, you know, a lot of times we learn how to stretch and we learn the basic stretch, and one of the neat things about the program that I’ve observed was positioning your feet at different angles while you’re doing stretches.
Mm-hmm. , you know, if you’re doing like sort of a, a bent overstretch, for lack of a better definition of what I’m talking about. Yeah. It was super interesting to. to really feel how probably limiting my approach had been previously. Mm-hmm. without doing the different feet positions to access different parts of that muscle.
Yeah. And
[00:30:23] Sarah Wallensteen: that’s something that has come up the longer we’ve been doing this and also working with professionals who, who can pull from these amazing libraries in their brains of, you know, how to reach those harder to get muscles. And like for an example, I think we have like five different versions of a low lunge because you know, the basic one, but.
The position of your foot matters. What you’re doing, engaging your pelvis matters. You put a pole out in front that changes it entirely. So we’re always trying to introduce, um, you know, everyone knows how to do a lunge, but how can we make this, um, target different muscles? And it’s really interesting to feel when you add just a little variant and it hits a different place entire.
[00:31:07] Craig Dalton: Yeah. For me it was immediate. The body gave me that feedback. Mm-hmm. , and I was like, whoa. It, it made, made a ton of sense once I did it, but never thought about it prior to doing it. ,
[00:31:16] Sarah Wallensteen: why am I turning my toes
[00:31:18] Craig Dalton: in ? Yeah, . Exactly. I know you’ve got some other sort of minor parts of the, the offering in like training plans and I did just want to give you an opportunity to mention.
[00:31:29] Sarah Wallensteen: Sure. Um, because we have been around for five years at this point, we’ve been constantly working with our members, um, to offer them more value, more of what they want and need in their cycling journey. And so we worked with, um, one of Canada’s best, uh, triathletes, Jasper Blake, to put together four different training plans and integrate that with our stretching and strength programming to make that just all encompassing and as easy as possible.
We do integrate with training peaks on that level, but it is very basic inter integration cuz we’re not a tech company. So it is what it is. It exists on training peaks. You can use that in your training peaks. Yeah. Um, we have the training plans, we do have some skills courses as well for it’s very beginner cyclist stuff, you know, like how to clip in for the first time, had a corner.
Um, and then we do have. Um, you know, yoga, Pilates roll and release section. Just learning how to roll out the different parts of your body and why. . Um, and I think that’s,
[00:32:34] Craig Dalton: that. Is it ? Yeah. I was, I was impressed when I, when I got into my dashboard and saw mm-hmm. , all those different opportunities mm-hmm. to learn about stretching and strength training.
It was super cool. There’s like a lot there. It’s really easy to use. Everything’s seems to be pretty straightforward and mm-hmm. in terms of how it’s organized and I, I basically, I, I feel like I, I’ve accessed it from three different devices now. My, my personal computer, my phone, and my iPad. Yeah. I just log in and it sort of knows exactly where I left off and is ready to serve me up that video.
Mm-hmm. . , which I appreciate because I don’t have to spend a lot of time futzing around like mm-hmm. , I believe I have the 20 minutes. I don’t believe I have 22, so I wanna get right into it. ,
[00:33:17] Sarah Wallensteen: no, again, we, we were the first product testers and we had to be no more than two clicks . So, uh, we try to make it as easy as possible and, and we love hearing from our members as well and just what we can offer them.
And you know, like the ankle injury program that we have, um, that was requested by members. You know, like, this is an area that I’m having issues with. Can you put something together? And we did. And so we love, we love bringing our team, um, together to solve problems like
[00:33:46] Craig Dalton: that. . That’s great. That’s great.
Well, I, I appreciate everything you guys are doing. It’s been an interesting program for me. I mean, I think I, I clearly have not hit that six week mark yet, , so I need to keep doubling down on my efforts and make this part of my 2023 routine. Mm-hmm. , I also appreciate just hearing about the business story behind dynamic cyclist, and I, I love that entrepreneurial journey.
Hey, this is missing. We love cycling. This would be a great part of our lives. Let’s see if it would fit into the broader cycling community. So, mm-hmm. , kudos to you guys for just getting off the dime and creating something, and five years later, having this vast catalog of content that we’re now lucky enough to tap into.
[00:34:30] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah, it’s been a, it’s been an awesome journey and, uh, so much fun working with, you know, different sports therapists and physios and I’ve learned so much. I didn’t come into this as a physio. I came from, you know, the content side, like you said. And so it’s, uh, it’s been awesome.
[00:34:46] Craig Dalton: Super cool. What’s the best way for people to find out about dynamic cyclists?
[00:34:51] Sarah Wallensteen: Yeah, just, uh, Google Us or go to dynamic cyclist.com. Um, this Sunday, exciting news, we are launching our own custom app. Finally, uh, so you will be able to search dynamic cyclists on the app store, um, and purchase from there. Try. Tried the seven day trial. Um, and that’ll just make the whole, um, multi-use streaming.
You know, if you wanna cast your tv, it’s just gonna be a lot easier. And also one of the biggest features that our members have been asking for. Cause we do have a lot of bike packers, endurance cyclists. Is, uh, download, like offload, um, offline viewing feature, which the app now has. So you can preload, you know, a couple weeks of programming, do it on your phone, you know, on the side of the road, you know, make sure you go well off the side.
But, um, we wanted to, uh, give that to our members as
[00:35:42] Craig Dalton: well. Awesome. Super exciting. Yeah. Feels like one less click that I am now away from. Exactly. Getting the content. Yes. . Sarah, thanks so much for the overview. This was awesome. And I, you know, like I said, I encourage people to go check out dynamic cyclist.com and see if it’s a fit
[00:35:59] Sarah Wallensteen: for you.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And feel free to reach out to us on Instagram or Facebook. Uh, our team is always checking and we’d love to hear from you. Right on. Awesome.
[00:36:10] Craig Dalton: Big, thanks to Sarah for joining the show today. I hope you enjoyed that conversation and I hope even further that you’re embracing, stretching as part of your cycling routine. I know how important it is. So many people have told me I need to be doing more of it over the years. And I only wish I did it earlier. Personal experience with dynamic cyclist has been.
Pretty easy to find those time slots. The format’s quite easy and engaging to do. And I do see clear benefits in what I’m experiencing. If you’re interested in learning more head on over to dynamic cyclist. Sarah has shared a discount code with me, simply use the gravel ride and you’ll get 15% off any of their plans. They have that free trial. So head on over, give it a go. If it seems like a fit for you, feel free to enroll. If not. Just remember. Keep stretching.
Until next time here’s to finding some dirt under your wheels.