Railing Softer Corners
I do a lot of articles on corners. But, that is only because turns are where you win races. Sure, you could scrub the hell out of every jump, but in order to approach those jumps fast enough, you need to rail the corners. When you ride on your normal soil, you become comfortable with it. However, when the sun dries out the moisture in the dirt, that soil gets to be pretty tricky and turns into momentum killing sand. Sandy turns can either make you faster than everyone else or it can make you slower than everyone else.
One thing that is the most important aspect of a sand turn is momentum. Momentum is important in every corner, but sand literally sucks you down to a stop. A good thing to do is approach this type of corner like you would any other corner. You want a smooth arc-shape line throughout the turn. That way you don’t have to square the corner up and build your RPMs back up. Doing this in the sand is a huge waste of time and you will kill your clutch.
However, instead of using a normal balance between your front and back brake, concentrate more on using the back brake. There are two reasons for this: 1) you conserve your drive and momentum when you don’t use the front brake. You slow down twice as fast in a shorter distance, robbing all your forward drive. 2) If you were to use the front, it would combine with the soft sand and throw your entire weight forward, causing the front end to cut.
So, you have properly braked and are ready to sit down. In the sand, you want more of a neutral spot on the seat because aggressive riding in the sand saps your energy and you have a greater chance of the front wheel cutting and diving. Like most turns, when you sit down, you want to put your inside leg up and get back on the gas. This ideally should be one, smooth motion. If you have enough drive/momentum, you don’t have to get back the gas as hard as you might think. A steady handful will suffice. Sand corners are really pretty simple. You just need to be smooth and have a nice arcing line. The rest will fall into place and you’ll be draggin’ your bars before you know it!
Carmichael vs. McGrath
Both Ricky Carmichael and Jeremy McGrath are extremely talented racers….so what happens when you put these two on the same Supercross track. Magic. That’s what happens. In light of the upcoming stop in San Diego, I decided to bring back some footage of RC and The King of SX in San Diego.
The video isn’t all that great, but the racing is. Put it on full screen, sit back and watch some brutal racing.
Part 1
Part 2
Breathing to Ride Longer
People are always throwing money towards their bikes in an effort to make them faster. They spend hours in the gym every week preparing themselves for a big race or just to ride longer. And, they always go to the riding schools thinking they can ride faster on their murdered out steed. However, unless you have the basics down, all of this time, money and effort will go to waste. One thing that I always catch myself doing is holding my breath. Breathing throughout your moto can help you relax your death grip and ride longer.
It sounds really stupid to be telling you to breath, but it is something that everyone does. This is really evident when you go through rhythm sections or whoops. You take a deep breath, hold it in and get really tense. I would do this on starts; when the board went sideways, I would just tense up and hold my breath until the gate dropped. Doing this bad habit constantly can wear you out sooner than you think. If you are running and you hold your breath, you are not going to last as long when you are taking nice, relaxed breaths.
When you are loose and getting plenty of O2 (oxygen) to your body, you will be able to think clearer and minimize mistakes. Lately, I have been on an arm pump kick, but breathing consistently while riding could help you alleviate your pumping problems. If you are holding your breath, the whole body is tense and you ride stiff. Riding like this doesn’t allow your legs to help absorb the hits.
The whole oxygen concept goes with the idea of heart rates as well. When you are in a race situation where you are battling someone, your heart rate is extremely high and your body requires additional oxygen to deliver to your muscles. If you are holding your breath, that oxygen saved up in your lungs will only last so long. Lactic acid builds up from being in an anaerobic state and lack of oxygen will have you feeling fatigued early in your moto. I know it sounds pretty dumb, but making conscience effort to remember to take deep, controlled breaths will make a big difference.
Irregular Jump Faces
Everyone loves those first few laps of practice. The track feels as smooth as pavement and the jumps are PERFECT! However, once everyone gets to the track and starts hitting the jumps, kickers form and the face develop multiple lips. This becomes pretty dangerous and the odds of going over the bars increases. I have seen it happen in front of me plenty of times; that panic rev from the engine screams and you know it’s going to be bad. So how do you avoid this from happening?
First and foremost, you want to be approaching the face straight. If the jump is right out of a corner, make sure you are not dumping the clutch and spinning the rear tire. Remember, if you are having trouble with this, keep weight on the outside foot peg as you exit the corner.
So, you want to be approaching the face straight and with plenty of drive. This is critical for the next step.
As you start to hit the face of the jump, you want to be on the gas hard so you can get your front end light. Shifting your weight back helps tremendously with this and is necessary as you leave the face. This allows the front wheel to skip over any kickers, dips or any irregularities on the face. If you were to just ride up the face normally, the front end would hit everything, possibly dive down in something and throw all of your weight forward.
Keeping your weight shifted back throughout the face is most important when you leave the lip. This allows the rear tire to ride through the kicker, instead of launching off of it and sending you to the ground. You don’t want to be sitting through this process because you load the rear too much and that could increase your chances of getting bucked off.
Here’s a quick list of things to remember:
- Straight approach
- Be on the gas hard, but steady
- Shift your weight back and lift the front end up
- Grip with your knees to keep the bike straight
- Keep on the gas and weight shifted back as you leave the last lip
Creatine and MX
Everybody loves to be in shape and look good. Body builders are always flexing their muscles and trying to get “swoll.” This is where creatine monohydrate comes into play. Some have dubbed this powder as important as protein powder. Because creatine draws water into the muscles, it makes you appear to have more muscle mass than you normally would. That is why most muscle heads use this. However, I was reading a forum and topic came up about Davi Millsaps using creatine. This got me thinking about the benefits of creatine for motocross.
Creatine monohydrate is a naturally occurring, organic acid that is in animals and humans. Creatine was not invented; it was made popular in the 70’s and 80’s through professional body builders. The liver produces creatine and most of the time, it ends up in your skeletal muscles. It aids in the production of ATP, one major source of energy for the body. This source of energy is mainly used when you are doing explosive exercises and/or in the anaerobic heart rate range. Remember, this range is when you are weight training or in the more intense intervals.
Okay, so our own bodies have creatine and we can get some very small amounts from meats…do we need to go to GNC and get some creatine monohydrate powder? In my opinion, not really. Since most of the time, you are using creatine to produce ATP and ATP is used in the anaerobic ranges, it really isn’t useful for motocross. Sure, we have times when we are using some explosive movements that require this sort of energy, but we need a balance of aerobic ranges as well. Creatine, for the most part, benefits sprinting and weight lifters.
When training, motocross racers do not need to concentrate only on those things. As I have said before, the off season is used to build up strength because you may not be on the bike that much and we need to do longer, less tedious cardio sessions. As you move into race season, high intensity intervals are a good thing to have, but the weight training is not as required. The products on the market don’t have substantial research behind them to show that creatine can benefit endurance athletes. Power lifters and track stars are not endurance athletes and although a 20 minute moto is not considered by many to be long, it sure isn’t an explosive, 30 second race.
One last thing that concerns me about creatine powders is that is draws water into your muscles. Sure you will look bigger, but this might draw water away from other parts of the body. I have not taken it personally, but my roommate takes it and he has to have a bottle of water with him all day or he feels extremely thirsty. It sounds good because you are drinking plenty of water, but you are also not hydrating your whole body, just your skeletal muscles. So, I do not believe that creatine is really necessary for motocross.
Trouble Shooting: Arm Pump
I recently had a conversation with a rider who was looking to get back into racing after a little break. He is a quick kid and riding a 450. Now, unless you are Davi Millsaps or Josh Hill, most people are going to have to take a little bit to get back into race mode, especially if you are of a smaller stature. Even if you are a mini rider stepping up to big bikes, arm pump is something that might be a burden. I was thinking to myself, why do you get arm pump? A few ideas popped into my head and some of them might be easy to fix, while others may take some time.
First of all, form is the most important thing. Obviously, you want to keep your head up, looking ahead and not at your fender. Your elbows should be squared up, grip the bike with your legs and keep a neutral, attack position over the bike. This is numero uno. If you have your elbows are down, your back and arms come into play more. Once this happens, your upper body becomes fatigued and you just get tired. Thus, you get a death grip on the bars.
This leads me to my next idea. Gripping with your legs keeps the bike from dancing underneath of you. It tracts straight in the rough stuff and you don’t ride like a goon. As I have said before in previous articles, your legs are a larger muscle group and take a greater load of stress for longer periods of time than your chest and arms. If you have “chicken legs” (i.e. weak legs), then they are going to burn out early in the moto. When this happens, your upper body has to compensate and takes over. If you are still riding when your upper body burns out as well, your form suffers.
When you have been off of the bike for a while, you lose that moto “muscle.” You’ll feel those muscles when you ride after a long hiatus and your back or your quads are sore. This happens for northerners that can’t ride in the winter. You’ve lost the endurance and strength. That is why is it important to train in seasons if you live where the weather won’t let you ride. Don’t kill yourself with cardio; concentrate on getting back that overall strength. Once, regionals and regular weekend racing starts, you can go back to cardio and interval sessions.
Finally, maybe you have a mental problem. Not, literally; you don’t need to see a therapist. What I am talking about is a mental block, so to speak. You “psych” yourself out and at races or qualifiers and you make yourself more nervous. Maybe you need to podium to win the series or something. You add stress to yourself on the line and second guess your abilities. That is the difference between champions and the guys who fill up the gate. Dungey, Stewart, Carmichael, Villopoto…they all knew what they had to do, but they just went out and rode. Block out the doubts and ask yourself, how did I get here? You did it once before, just let it flow out of you.
If these suggestions don’t work, get forearm surgery ….that’s a joke. Don’t do that.
