Coach Seiji works with top pro motocross and supercross racers and wants to help you advance your riding through smarter training.

Off-road athletes are often single minded in their pursuit of racing goals: they take a never say die attitude and push their bodies to the limit with seemingly endless determination and grit. But, alas, both the professional athlete and weekend warrior have real world restrictions that must be considered when planning and executing their training programs. The professional athlete is restricted by the energy available to train and recover. The weekend warrior is held back by their available training time. Both of these athletes can benefit from focusing their training efforts in particular areas called limiters. A limiter is a skill, a physical ability, mental aspect, lifestyle factor or health habit or any other issue that is the true weak point holding back overall ability. Part of training smarter instead of just harder is identifying your limiters and planning training to address them. Identification of personal limiters is a key step in a proven training methodology called periodization:

The athlete should do the least amount of the most specific training that brings continual improvement.

Your own program can become more effective if you do an honest self appraisal of all the aspects that relate to your performance and training. Almost anything can become a limiter to the progress of your overall ability. When you search for your limiters, categorize items into the following groups:

Skill limiters:

Technical riding skills: cornering, starts, whoops, jumps, rhythm sections, rocks, mud, loose dirt riding, ruts, body positioning, etc. Any specific riding related skill or ability.

Physical limters:

Cardiovascular fitness, strength, flexibility, riding specific endurance, etc. Any physical ability or aspect of conditioning that can be improved through effective training.

Mental limiters:

Performance anxiety, social acceptance anxiety, practice mindset vs. race mindset, ability to focus, motivation, etc. Any mental component of performance or training.

Lifestyle/Health limiters:

Diet, sleeping habits and patterns, illnesses, allergies, unhealthy lifestyle habits, etc. This is a very wide category and can encompass activities of daily living.

You should be able to identify between two to three specific limiters in each of the above categories. List each of these limiters in the order of severity. Now think about the categories and list them also in the order of severity. What you should end up is a list of eight to twelve specific limiters broken into four categories with the categories also listed in order of severity. Here is an example of the process:

Dirt Bike Dave is an aspiring B class woods rider. His training is haphazard at best as he simply wakes up, calls his riding buddies and does what they are doing or just does what he feels like doing himself. He lives on the east coast so often times rides damp, rutted tracks or trails so he excels at rutted corners with lots of available traction. His general aerobic conditioning is often lacking so he rarely rides long sessions; instead he likes to race past his buddies then pulls off and repeatedly rails rutted turns. Since he is good at ruts, he likes to hammer them repeatedly trying to see how far over he can lay his bike, asking his buddies to take pictures for his Facebook account. He rides mountain bikes on occasion, and strength trains a few times per week. He randomly puts his strength program together when he gets to the gym. Although he seems to flounder through strength training sessions his overall strength compared to others is naturally high. His “training” over the course of the year is inconsistent due to long winter weather and occasional back injuries caused by lack of core strength and inflexibility. His health habits are average for a teen ager of 17 years old but below average for an aspiring athlete. He eats fast food, sometimes goes all day without eating at all, and stays up late a few times a week doing nothing in particular. He sometimes has a lack of motivation to train at all simply from being tired from staying up so late. He is still enrolled in high school so he only really has about 10 hours a week to dedicate to training. At races Dirt Bike Dave often lacks focus because he seems to spend as much attention to hanging out with his friends as his racing. He is calm at the gate and doesn’t get nervous but seems to lack the aggressive attitude that might be expected from a hungry competitor.

Skill limiters:

Hard packed turns

Flat sweepers

Turn exits in loose conditions

Physical limiters:

Riding endurance

Back injuries

General cardiovascular conditioning

Mental limiters:

Focus at races

Aggression during races

Motivation to train (but most likely caused by lifestyle habits)

Lifestyle/Health limiters:

Nutrition

Sleep habits

Limited training time

The above list of limiters for Dirt Bike Dave is only an example; many more limiters could be listed but for this article we will limit the discussion to these. The categories are listed in the order Dirt Bike Dave feels is the order of severity. So in this example the Skill Limiters are the most limiting in his progress as a racer. Using the limiter list Dave would be best served by spending a higher proportion of his available training time and energy on his skill limiters, especially working on hard packed turns. He should then spend the next highest proportion of his available time on riding endurance; then mentally work on focus at races and improve his nutrition. If more time becomes available Dave should work on flat sweepers, work on his core strength (to fix his back injuries), mentally work on race aggression and improve his sleep habits. The more time becomes available for training, the further down the limiter list he can progress.

Following this procedure will give you very specific training goals in the most effective order of attack. Knowing which limiter to work on should give you specific goals for each training session which will focus your energy and time. If done correctly, your limiter list changes as the seasons progress and hopefully the current limiters become your strengths and the things you were good at become your limiters. This means your overall motocross ability just took a huge leap forward.

Just looking at the results of an honest self analysis written on paper should shine a guiding light on where you should be spending your training efforts and available time. It’s not rocket science but unless instructed many riders will never identify their limiters. They will more than likely repeatedly reinforce the things they are already good at and almost ignore the actual things that are holding back their progress as a well rounded rider.

Seiji Ishii is the head coach of www.coachseiji.com. Coachseiji.com provides online coaching and personal training services to motorsports athletes. Coach Seiji has worked with both pros and elite amateurs including: Heath Voss, Ryan Clark, Matt Lemoine, Hunter Hewitt, Austin Stroupe, PJ Larsen, Johnny Shafe, Drew Yenerich and Rusty Potter. Learn more at www.coachseiji.com or contact Coach Seiji directly at seiji@coachseiji.com

Coach Seiji works with top pro motocross and supercross racers and wants to help you advance your riding through smarter training.

Part of the powerful allure of dirt biking is the challenge of getting faster. You have no doubt put in endless hours on the trails and at the track and you may spend endless efforts training for cardiovascular endurance, muscular strength and flexibility. The average dirt bike fanatic is not at all afraid of hard work and a common “training plan” is “go harder, get faster.” This credo can produce results in the short term especially to those new to the sport; but the more interested you are in producing sustainable improvements, the more imperative it is to use the most powerful tool in your training arsenal: your brain! Once you have transitioned from not just training harder but training smarter, improvements to your riding become planned and expected, not just a haphazard wait and see game.

The first step in training smarter is actively seeking out knowledge about training and you are already on your way browsing through the many excellent resources available on the internet (lots at my site at www.coachseiji.com). This search for knowledge usually begins with the how’s and what’s of training but you should really search for the why’s. You can easily find training regiments to follow and exercises to incorporate into your program but it is the smart rider that also knows why things are done. This deeper understanding of your training will provide clarity and direction in your training as you will know how each training activity contributes to your goals. Your long term motivation will be much improved as the path to your goals will be much clearer and you will be assured that you are moving in the right direction every day.

Training may consist of riding woods loops or laps at a track, lifting weights, running, cycling and other activities. All these components that could make up your program must follow the same scientific principles in order to continually improve your overall riding. Broken down into the simplest terms training pretty much looks like this:

The Overload Principle and Workload

Apply stress to body → break down body systems → accumulate fatigue → recover from fatigue → supercompensate → apply higher levels of stress to body → repeat cycle until reaching peak of fitness

The stress you apply to your body during training is called workload. Workload is composed of the following elements:

Frequency: how often you work out. The correct frequency depends on both ability level and where you are in the training year. A beginner may ride dirt bikes twice per week and an expert may be able to ride four times per week. In both cases, the frequency is correct for that particular rider. Frequency goes up as the training year progresses to increase total workload but goes down before a big event to allow proper recovery.

Duration: how long you workout. This varies by day of the week, by time of the training year and by ability level. Early in the training year you may want to ride trails for a long duration to stress riding endurance. At other times of the year closer to your peak you may want to ride 3 laps on a track at faster than race pace which is very short duration in comparison. All this depends on what specific area of fitness you are working on that day.

Intensity: The most important element of workload to hit correctly. Simply stated, this is how hard you go. During cardiovascular activity it is measured by heart rate or power output (in cycling). In the gym it is measured by the weight you are lifting. Intensity is the element that can cause the most positive change when administered correctly but can also cause the most damage to your season should you have an intensity overdose. You can have the correct frequency, the exact right duration, but if you blow intensity it won’t matter. Beware!

A successful motocross training program consists of:

Planned cycles of the overload principle where the three elements of workload are progressively changed to produce an increasing fitness level leading to a season peak.

Training Intensity

Intensity is the element of training workload that is the most easily abused and the most difficult to administer correctly. Think of intensity as a powerful drug: the correct dose at the correct time can produce the desired result. Too much of it or incorrect timing can produce detrimental effects. How much intensity, when it is applied in relation to your important events and how to recover from bouts of intensity are the most crucial pieces in the training puzzle.

One of the most important rules of training is to train moderately.  This is to ensure that you can go really hard on your hard days because you are actually going easy on your easy days. The most common error that athletes make in training is that they go too hard on the easy days turning the hard days into mediocre days at best. Quantifying intensity is the only way you can consistently use the correct intensity of training so you can make expected performance gains by making those hard days really count.

Intensity and Body Fuels

Measurement of training intensity is really an estimation of the ratio of fuels your body is using to perform at that moment. There are two fuels that your body uses for energy production: Fats (FAT) and Carbohydrate (CHO). Similar to the air/fuel mixture your engine uses, FAT and CHO are used as a mixture in various ratios depending on how hard you are going. These two fuels are used by your muscles to produce something called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) which is the actual energy providing molecule your body needs to perform work. ATP is the energy “currency” that can be used by all cells in your body. The food you eat and the air you breathe are converted to this universally accepted energy currency.

At lower levels of exertion your body can produce ATP via aerobic metabolism. Aerobic means “with oxygen” and this combined with a fuel mixture of mostly FAT and less CHO produces ATP for your working muscles with no harmful by-products. As your intensity increases the proportion of CHO in your fuel mixture increases while the proportion of FAT decreases. The faster you ride, the more “rich” your mixture becomes with CHO and “leans” out on the FAT proportion. One goal of a training program is to increase the efficiency at which you produce ATP via mostly FAT metabolism and increase the intensity at which you can continue to ride using this metabolism and push back the level at which you start to need a more CHO rich fuel mixture. This allows you to perform using the fuel that has more storage capacity and does not produce harmful by-products.

When you reach a very high level of intensity your body switches from aerobic metabolism to anaerobic metabolism. Anaerobic means “without oxygen” and at this high level of exertion your body’s need for ATP surpasses its ability to produce it with only oxygen. Your fuel mixture is heavily biased towards CHO and very little FAT is being used to produce the ATP. This anaerobic metabolism produces a by-product called lactic acid which is dumped into the muscles and produces the burning sensation and heaviness which if not counteracted will eventually cause you to drastically slow down or stop. When the lactic acid leaves your muscle cells and enters your bloodstream it loses a hydrogen molecule to become lactate. A major goal of a training program is to increase the efficiency at which your body can remove the lactic acid from your muscles and neutralize/use the lactate in your bloodstream.

The measurement of training intensity must be consistent from day to day in order to be useful. This means the smart rider must practice measuring intensity daily and be honest with him/herself during the measurement process.

Measuring Cardiovascular Exercise Intensity

Training intensity during cardiovascular exercise is easily measured by heart rate. Intensity during cycling can now be measured in power (watts) due to the advent of power meters. Both of these intensity measuring methods requires that you create your own personal intensity scale (training heart rate zones or training power zones) by administering a test to find out at what heart rate or wattage your body currently starts accumulating lactate in the bloodstream faster than it can neutralize it (Lactate Threshold; an example of this test was covered in a prior installment to Virtual Trainer).  With the tools of the RPE scale and your heart rate monitor or power meter you can now measure and moderate the most important factor of training workload during all your motocross training activities.

Measuring Strength Training Intensity

This is the simplest mode of training when it comes to measuring intensity: it is simply the weight being used and the repetitions per set. The higher the intensity, the higher the load and the lower the reps required to reach failure at each set. Remember that in strength training the goal is to reach momentary muscle failure and this means being unable to do another repetition with correct form.

Measuring Riding Intensity

Riding intensity is not “metered” during training because of the neuromuscular (nervous system plus nerve/muscle communication system) component of riding ability. One of the challenging things about dirt bike riding is that it is an equal combination of skill and fitness. The skills required takes precedence and training on the dirt bike has to accommodate this most important aspect of overall riding ability. The science and methodology of this is beyond the scope of this article (look for a future article on digitaloffroad.com!) but here is the short version: all riding needs to be done at the fastest speed that your current skill level and fitness allows. You need to be practicing at your fastest speed so that you get better at going your fastest! Riding at a slower speed only gets you better at riding slower. Those, again, are the simplest ways to state a very complex process that your brain, nervous system and muscles are “programmed” for the multitude of actions required to ride fast.

Hopefully this article has provided a big “why” of training as well as an important “how” to go with it. Understanding the overload principle and the measurement of intensity are cornerstones of a solid training program and will serve you well into the future as your riding improves. You are well on your way to training smarter, not just harder!!! Keep that helmet on to protect that valuable training tool that lurks inside!

Seiji Ishii is the head coach of www.coachseiji.com. Coachseiji.com provides online coaching and personal training services to motorsports athletes. Coach Seiji has worked with both pros and elite amateurs including: Heath Voss, Ryan Clark, Matt Lemoine, Hunter Hewitt, Austin Stroupe, PJ Larsen, Johnny Shafe, Drew Yenerich and Rusty Potter. Learn more at www.coachseiji.com or contact Coach Seiji directly at seiji@coachseiji.com