Motocross Training Blog

Core Strength Workout

Here is a little circuit workout to mix things up.  This keeps your heart rate up and gets the blood flowing through some resistance movements.  These are pretty simple exercises modified to stimulate the core a little bit more than usual.  Building and maintaining a strong core in moto is one of the most important aspects when strength training for this sport.  As I have said before, the legs and core provide a base while the arms are simply attachments to the handle bars.  Not to say that you shouldn’t throw in some arm work, but the main idea is to concentrate on strength and power movements, not working on the “gun show.”

This workout is best utilized in the middle of week or if you are short on time.  For this reason, you want your rep range to be 12 – 15 and your rest should be around a minute.  For beginners, start out with 3 sets, and then advance to 4 sets when you complete 3 sets easily.

• One leg push up – Jump Squats – Medicine Ball Crunches
• Stiff Leg Deadlifts – Pull ups with Legs held up – Dumbbell Press on Medicine ball
• Lunges – One leg and alternating Dumbbell shoulder presses – Plyo crunches

Let me explain this work out a little bit.  For the one leg push up, simply get into the push up position.  Instead of having both feet planted, raise one leg and begin the push ups.  Switch legs half through your rep count.  For you jump squats, you want to perform a regular squat, but with much lighter weight.  When you go down, you want a smooth and controlled descent. On the ascent, you want to explode up and jump just a few inches off of the ground.  When you come down, you want to land “lightly” on your toes.

For your stiff leg deadlifts, you want to be careful and not put too much weight on.  This is supposed to work your lower back and hamstrings, so make sure you stretch for this one.  The next exercise adds some intensity to the whole workout.  Simply perform a pull up, but pull your knees up so that they are parallel with the floor.  If you are feeling really crazy, straighten your whole leg out as well.  The presses on the medicine ball are really for balance.  This is basically bench press on a medicine ball, so have someone hand you the weights to avoid injury.

This shoulder exercise hits the core with fury.  You can stand on one leg or grab a bench to place one foot on and simply do your shoulder presses.  Standing on one leg adds a balancing act while your core muscles are used to keep you up straight.  With the plyo-crunches, you need a friend.  If you don’t have a friend, face a wall.  Start by lying down on a medicine ball with a 10 lb. ball in your hands.  Stretch back with the ball touching the ground behind your head, crunch back up and simultaneously throw the ball to your friend.  Then have your friend toss it back to you.

Tomorrow I’ll be back with another workout that hits your cardio and muscular endurance.

Joint Injury Series – The Shoulder

The last major joint I want to go over in this little series is the shoulder.  If you remember, Reed had major problems with shoulder issues.  Most notably, a shoulder separation.  Separating your shoulder is not something that should be taken lightly.  You won’t feel that way when you the pain almost blinds you….okay, that was a little intense, but it is pretty serious.  Just like the other 2 joints I covered, your shoulders take a lot of abuse, especially when you fall.  The deltoid, clavicle, humorous and ligaments/tendons all take a beating when your front end washes out, sending you to the ground on your shoulder.

The main part of the shoulder girdle is where the head of the humorous inserts into the scapula (shoulder blade).  The point at which these two bones meet is called the glenoid fossa (fossa refers a small indentation in a bone).  Thus, the joint is called glenohumoral.  From here, you start to get into the tendons and ligaments.  What’s the difference between a tendon and ligament?  Tendons connect bone to muscle and ligaments connect bone to bone.  There are a number of rings that are composed of tough fibrous tissue and synovial membranes in this area similar to the knee.

Now that we have an idea of the main joint, we can look at the “roof” of the shoulder, which involves the clavicle.  The clavicle (collar) bone is considered to be part of the shoulder girdle and is one of the most common injuries.  Because runs across the body, it is open and easily accessible to forces.  The clavicle connects to the scapula at a point known as the coracoid process.  Ligaments attached to the coracoid process, the clavicle and acromion (another part of the scapula that helps form the “roof”) form a web of connective tissue that holds everything in place for the “roof”.  When you separate your shoulder, this web is ruptured.

Looking more closely at a separated shoulder, the ligaments that form this “roof” are stretched when the clavicle come apart from the web.  Like the other joints, the mild to severe categories are called Grades for the shoulder.  Grade 1 separation includes the tearing of the acromioclavicular ligament, Grade 2 is rupture of the acromioclavicular ligament plus strains of the coracoacromial and coracoclavicular ligaments; Grade 3 is a rupture of the acromioclavicular and coracoclavicular ligaments plus strain of the coracoacromial ligament.

In addition to the separated shoulder, you can also have rotor cuff injuries.  The rotor cuff is comprised of the teres minor, infraspinatus, supraspinatus, and subscapularis muscles.  These all are attached to the scapula and extend to the humorous.  These muscles help give you all of the controlled motion of the shoulder, plus they help stabilize it as well.  Most of the time, when you tear the rotor cuff, it is the supraspinatus.  Usually, you can tell if something is injured in the area when you lift your arm out directly to the side.  Depending on the severity, rest is the best answer.  However, surgery may be necessary if there is a rupture.

As I have stated before, strength training helps the tendon and ligaments get stronger.  Not only that, but the muscles in the shoulder girdle become stronger and help provide you with a greater source of protection.  If injured, apply the RICE method until certified medical help arrives.

Joint Injury Series – The Ankle

So, yesterday I covered common knee injuries and the basics structure.  Today I wanted to cover the ankle.  This is another place to injuries to occur because of dabbing your foot or casing a jump.  Not only does the ankle have to be incredibly strong to withstand the forces applied to it, but it much must able to be flexible enough to absorb the forces when changing direction.  It can also be divided into 2 “joints”.  The ankle joint allows you to move your foot up and down, while the subtalar joint allows movement from side to side (i.e. letting you walk on the side on your foot).

The ligaments that hold your tibia, fibula, calcaneous (the heel), and foot together are a little more complicated than the knee.  The lateral (outside) portion of the ankle has about four ligaments attached to the bones.  On the medial (inside) and posterior (behind) portion of the ankle, there are another three ligaments.  Each one is named to the bone they are attached to and whether they are posterior or anterior.  So there is a little more to the ankle than most people think.

When someone says they have sprained their ankle, they are most likely talking about the anterior talofibular ligament, which is located on the front part of the foot, towards the lateral portion of the ankle.  Just like the knee, whenever the ankle is pushed too far past the normal degree of the ligaments, they are going to either get stretched, torn, or ruptured.  This is the same scenario for a major tendon, the Achilles Tendon.  Injuring this can be from having your feet too far back on the pegs and landing off of a jump.  This sends all of the downward force on your ankles and pulls the Achilles Tendon away from the insertion points.

The healing process should start as soon as possible.  To get this going, a great place to start is to use the RICE method; Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevate.  Depending on the severity of the accident and condition of the ligaments, putting the ankle in a brace for a couple of weeks is pretty normal.  After a few weeks, close supervision of movement helps the joints from getting too stiff.  Like the knee, any tearing of the ligaments or tendons takes a lot of time to heal.  Tomorrow I will go over the shoulder girdle.

Joint Injury Series – The Knee

Pain is a part of every real sport and Motocross is not different. Broken bones, concussions and bruised egos are inevitable. Collar bone breaks are very common among riders, but another common injury is one to the joints. Your knees, shoulders and ankles take a heavy beating and over time, they could become weak and give out at the wrong time. Knowing what is happening and what to do is important to know so you can get on the bike faster.

Knees

Every part on the human body is important, but the knee is extremely critical in motocross. And it probably takes the most abuse. Your knee is a simple ball and socket joint with lateral (outside), medial (inside), anterior (front) and posterior (back) ligaments. Supporting your knee, you have a tough fibrous tissue called a meniscus, which can be lateral and medial to the ball of the femur (thigh bone).  Injuries to the knee can be graded as mild, moderate or severe depending on tears, partial tears, and the range of motion.

For mild injuries, a few days to a couple of weeks should be a good amount of time for recovery. Moderate ones take a few weeks to a few months and severe injuries take months or even year(s) to fully heal. When you injure your knee, you are tearing a ligament, breaking one of the bones or damaging a meniscus.

Take for instance, a force directed to the outside of the knee. The force is applied to the lateral ligaments, which are compressed. However, your medial ligaments are pulled away from the insertion points. This can result in sprains (mild), tears (moderate) or even ruptured (severe) ligaments. Your meniscuses are crushed and/or ripped apart. Another common motocross injuries results from hyperextension. This is where your knee is bent the wrong way, but far enough to injure the lateral and medial ligaments.

Now, I know this sounds pretty bad, but your knees are pretty resilient to most forces. Wearing knees braces helps tremendously with the prevention of almost every type of knee injury out there. With these types of injuries, they take a long time to heal; and once they do heal, odds are they probably won’t be the same again. Protection is crucial in avoiding the pains of tearing something and paying the bills. Tomorrow I will dive into the ankle and common injuries for that. I will also get you some info on healing these types of injuries. Stay tuned!

Starting Fresh

Loretta Lynn’s has come and gone once again.  A lot of the sweat, blood (hopefully not too much) and tears have poured into the preparation for this week long event.  So many hopeful families have put so much into this and look forward to winning the big show.  If you did well, then congratulation is in order.  If not, there is nothing to worry about.  There are so many things that can go wrong and so few things that can go right.  Now that Loretta’s is finished, it is now time to start looking ahead.  Dwelling on defeat will only lead to more lackluster results.

Confidence plays a huge role in racing.  When you keep thinking about the results you don’t want, your whole outlook changes.  Frustration sets in and sometimes you feel like you need to change your whole program up.  Look back at Ricky’s jump from the 125’s to the 250’s.  There was no doubt some frustration in the Carmichael camp, but they took something from each race and worked up from there.  They took each loss in stride and kept moving forward.

Once that confidence leaves you, doubt fills that void.  When this happens, you second guess your abilities as a rider and tend to over think your riding.  It is a terrible feeling to put everything you have in the gym and training only to come up short on your goals, but the only option is to keep looking ahead and improve.  Again, look at RC4.  He put his head down, trained his ass off and took down the King of Supercross.  Once he got his confidence back, he started riding like he knew he could.

If you didn’t make it to Loretta Lynn’s, don’t fret.  There is always next year.  Learning from your mistakes is certainly the hard way, but if you overcome those past mishaps, it will make you a stronger rider.  Like I said before, if you didn’t do well in your qualifiers, it happens to everyone and it is not the end of the world.  Concentrate on moving ahead with your program and look forward to next year.  As the saying goes, “what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.”

Heart Rate Zone Breakdown

In yesterday’s article, I went over the procedure for the lactate threshold test.  When you have your heart rate (HR), you can now find each exact zone.  There are a total of 5 zones and each one can be utilized for individual workouts.

Let’s break down each one:

Zone 1 – Under 83% of Lactate Threshold – This is mostly a recovery zone.  You can use this for warm up, cool downs and for active recovery at the end of the week.  The fuel source is fat.

Zone 2 – 83% to 89% – This range of HR is great for longer aerobic workouts to build your cardiovascular foundation.  At this HR, people who haven’t trained much will see the heart is learning to pump blood more efficiently and oxygen uptake improved.  Just like in the first zone, fat is still a major supplier of energy.

Zone 3 – 89% to 93% – Now you are starting to get into the higher end of the aerobic portion.  Once you get past this point, things switch from the fuel source being fat, to more and more carbohydrates. However, by staying in this HR range, the body eventually begins to use fat more than glucose to use energy more proficiently.  You will see improvements in both duration and intensity in your cardio from training in this zone frequently.

Zone 4 – 93% to 100% – When you reach this level, the body converts from fats to carbohydrates as the fuel source.  The body can no longer supply the skeletal muscles with enough oxygen, so there is a buildup of lactic acid.  You are now reaching the anaerobic threshold.  To train in this HR zone, you must make sure the duration is short like in intervals.  The longer you spend in the zone, the better you will be able to tolerate the lactic acid.

Zone 5 – 100% and above – This is the equivalent of holding the throttle wide open on your bike.  You fatigue quickly and lactic acid is builds up extremely quickly.  The fuel source is only carbohydrates and not many people can stay in this zone for very long.

With all of the zones and percentages laid out, you should be able to train smarter, not harder.  You don’t have to kill yourself in order to build a solid aerobic base.  The rule of thumb to remember is that the higher the intensity, the lower the duration.