Strong Legs = More Endurance
Any athlete will tell you that the way to great overall strength are well trained legs. You don’t need have bodybuilder size thighs, but a strong base will help you last longer in your motos. Your upper body cannot support the amount of stress for an entire moto for you to be competitive. It’s pretty simple to prove this. How much can you bench? 
Maybe 170, 180 lbs; however, you can squat twice or maybe three times as much weight. Squeezing your bike throughout the moto is always important and if you squeezed your handle bars as much, your arms would be pumped for the next week.
To get a good, strong base, you’ll need to hit the legs hard. To me, when the legs get lactic acid built up, it is the worst burn ever. But you have to remember, this will pay off on race day. So, to start off, you might want to do this leg work out for a few weeks:
Front Squats: 12 reps, 10 reps, 8 reps
Leg Press: 20 reps, 20 reps
Lunges: 12 reps, 10 reps, 8 reps
Leg Curls: 20 reps, 20 reps
Calf Raises: rep out 3x
Front squats put a lot of emphasis on the quadriceps as well as the abdominal muscles and lower back. If you have never done them before, it may be a little awkward at first, but your get the hang of it the more you do it. It is performed just like a regular squat except you place the bar in front of your neck instead of behind it. The same concept applies when executing: keep your back straight all the way down, head and chest up. The rest are pretty self explanatory, but for the lunges, make sure you explode off of the foot to be most effective.
However, don’t just concentrate on this one routine; you must work on all of the muscles. To work your squats a little different, try to put your feet closer together with your toes pointed out, or you put your feet out wider than shoulder width. This will mix things up and keep your muscles guessing. Again, don’t just go through the motions, work your legs hard and it will pay off when the track gets rough in the later motos.
Setting up for Corners Mid-Flight
Saving time on the track is always a priority. If you can master a technique to get faster, you better take advantage of it. When things get tight during racing, it’s the little things that add up and make a big difference in the end, especially if you can set up for corner more efficiently. When the outside is not available or you need to make a pass on the inside, sometimes setting up mid air for a corner can help get that pass made.
If there is a berm already there, you don’t have to do this, but if the inside is flat off the downside, this technique will come in handy. You want to make sure that you have the jump sized up before trying to sit down and set up mid air. If you come up short or over shoot it, this will hurt. Especially guys. Once you have everything timed right, you want to loosen up in the air, trying to get the back end of the bike out just slightly. You can let the outside leg out and lean in to get the rear end moving.
As you approach the down side, you want to start moving into the correct position for the corner. You don’t necessarily have to be seated in the air, but as long as you are ready for the landing and corner, this transition will be smooth. When you land, make sure that your inside leg is ready for the forces of gravity; keep it high and stiff.
If traction is not a problem, you can apply a handful of throttle and accelerate towards the corner. Remember to keep weight on the outside foot peg and outside elbow up as this will plant you into ground for more traction. If the downside is harder, you will have to apply the throttle with grace as you don’t want to the rear end to break loose.
This is something that you should start small on and on a jump you are comfortable with. No sense in trying this on a new jump and getting hurt.
Saving Energy on the Track
With heart rates constantly through the roof, moto is no doubt one of most physically demanding sports on the face of the planet. Your heart is pumping just from the adrenaline, but throw in a rough track, huge jumps and some whoops, you will definitely work every energy system in your body. Although it is still hot as hell down here in the Deep South (not hell, just Florida), things seem to be cooling down for the rest of the country. However, just because it is not as hot, fatigue will creep up on you before you know. Save yourself some pain and read on!
One of the most important things to remember is to stand up. I know this is probably a no brainer, but some people will still ride as though the track is still smooth. Most of the time, you will have to stand up later into corners and then get up sooner when exiting. For rougher corners, it is even a good idea to stand up through the whole turn and look to the edges of the track for smoother lines. Many European riders will do this because the course gets so brutal, if you sit down; your back will take all of the impact. This is not the best idea because your back could tense up and result in some serious pain.
This next tip goes hand and hand with standing up: gripping with your legs. I have said many times before that you will save yourself from arm pump and getting tired quickly if you squeeze the tank. The quadriceps are large enough to take the impact from a rough course and they can handle this stress much better than your forearms and biceps/triceps. You almost want to think of your arms as hinges to your core. Relaxing your grip on jumps will also keep your “hinges” from cramping and pumping up too much. To help get through extra tricky sections; you can even apply pressure to one side of the tank with your leg to help steer the bike.
If you watched the 250’s, then you saw Barcia killing it everywhere. Other than his crazy style, he was doing something that caught my eye more than a few times during the second moto. If you notice, he was riding on his back wheel, a lot. The deep holes and moguls were not as bad when he could get the front wheel up. The back wheel would just roll over the bump and the rear shock absorbs the tire’s vertical travel. If you go through a rough section with both wheels down, it just rocks you back and forth. I am not saying to do a full blown wheelie here, but just getting your front tire to skim or get over the rough stuff will make life much easier. Remember that riding in a high gear will help the suspension work properly in the chop and provide you with more traction to get the front tire up.
One final tip is to just relax! If you know that the track is rough, just accept it and ride. When you tense up, any bump and hole you hit is sent throughout your entire body. If your breathing is deep and even, you should be able to roll your shoulders back and ride smoother. By your rolling them back, you can keep that attack position much easier and you open up the diaphragm for this more efficient breathing. Like I said earlier, this is not hard stuff. Keep it simple and remember the basics!
Wednesday Workout
Today’s workout is pretty straight forward. It will combine your cardio and muscular endurance. Most of the time, people either perform bouts of cardio or a certain volume of resistance training. While this is great for setting a foundation, you can really get a great workout from alternating between the two in a certain amount of time or sets. Like yesterday’s routine, this can be used in the middle of the week during a race series or for an upcoming race. It is high intensity, so you need to properly warmed up and give yourself some time in the next few days to recover.
- Run 200 meters
- Overhead Squats
- Run 200 meters
- Dips
- Run 200 meters
- Dead Lifts
- Run 200 meters
- Inverted Rows
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.
Long Ruts on Straights
Nothing reminds me of motocross more than a rutted up, fast, flowing track. This is the pinnacle obstacle that separates the men from the boys. If you watched Southwick this past weekend, then you saw the insane ruts in the moist New England sand. Most beginners find themselves nervous approaching long ruts and often end up on the ground. It doesn’t matter if a rut is in a corner, on a straight or on the face of a jump, you will encounter one sooner or later. Some look at this as a burden, but you can actually use these to your advantage.
A lot of people can go fast on a straightaway. It’s pretty simple; open the throttle as far as possible. That’s generally how ruts get formed on straights. People actually use the power of their bikes and it trenches out the soil. Obviously, the main line will get dug the deepest. In the beginning of the day, this won’t be a bad choice to use. It just depends on how it sets you up for the next section. However, a majority of the time, the main line usually gets too deep and ends up slowing you down.
When the whole straight gets rutted out, things start to get a little tricky. The middle of the track is going to have deeper ruts than the edges of the track. So, by taking the edges of the track, you can avoid the choppy mess made by the slower riders and you can save your energy for more important times in the moto.
As with any rut, approaching it with both wheels in line is very important. You want to keep both wheels in the rut, preventing you from getting cross rutted. You also maintain your momentum and forward drive, as well. Once, you have both wheels lined up, keeping your head up and vision ahead is very important. Staring at the ground right in front of you will only send you one place, the dirt. That is not where you want to be. A good guide is to keep your vision a few bike lengths ahead of you. The faster you go, the further you want to look.
Depending on how deep the ruts are, a good idea is to ride on the balls of your feet (and point your toes in, gripping the cases). This prevents your feet from getting caught in the rut and ripping your leg off the peg. As always, you want to be gripping the bike with your knees and applying steady, consistent throttle. As you get to the end of the straight, there are more than likely going to be braking bumps. This is where you want to start shifting your weight back slightly to keep you from going over the bars.
Like I said, if you can conquer ruts, you can conquer anything. It is mind over matter and just keeping good form and looking ahead. Stay loose and relax; you’ll get through them sooner than you think.
