Kieran Reilly is a professional BMX Freestyle athlete, an Olympic silver medallist, World Champion and the first person to ever land a triple flair – three full back flips combined with a 180-degree rotation.
Originally from Gateshead he is now based in Northamptonshire to be close to Adrenaline Alley Indoor Skate Park. We met him at his home to discover how he trains and learn about the level of fitness required to be elite on the BMX – and as his CrossFit performances make clear, that fitness is seriously impressive.
We started by asking what people commonly get wrong about BMX. It is undoubtedly a sport that requires a huge amount of skill and bravery – but do riders really need to be fit to reach an elite level? Kieran was quick to acknowledge that you can reach a high level just by spending lots of time on the bike. But the very best? They’re all eating clean and training extremely hard to squeeze out the marginal gains that allow them to compete at the top.
In a 60 second run, there is no room for filler. The explosive power needed to perform banger trick after banger trick demands serious anaerobic endurance.
To develop his fitness Kieran found a CrossFit gym and found that he got the same endorphins and highs after a brutal workout as he did on the bike. He quickly noticed a direct correlation between that training and his results improving, and he was hooked.
Since then he has competed in the Open and completed ‘Fran’ in 2:18, a highly respectable time that underlines how far his fitness has come.
In BMX Freestyle, riders get two 60-second runs and scores often drop in the second as endurance fades. Kieran’s increased fitness has turned his second runs into a strength and helped him to the very top of his sport.
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