Archive for February, 2010:
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.
