Question
time: have you ever wondered what might be the
best way to spend your money in order to get
you riding faster? What do you think is the
method that’ll reduce your lap-times the
most for every hard-earn ed pound you spend?
How much do you spend on afterm arket products,
extra kit or riding instruction? How often do
you spend this? How many different thing s do
you spend this on?
Each season, if you dare to total this up (and
don’t be anywhere near sharp objects when
you do...) it may well be a whole lot more than
you think. But ask yourselves this: what is
the power and effectiveness of this expenditure?
And is it making a true and measurable difference
to your performance?
The problem you’re faced with is that
there are dozens of things you could spend your
cash on in an attempt to up your game. I don’t
need to list them for you here, as your dad/sponsor/team
manager/credit card/overdraft will easily let
you know if you’ve forgotten what they
are.
However, the best known solution to your problem
may lie in an area you’ve never even considered.
This article is going to tell you how the top
guys use this ‘best known’ solution,
tell you what the ‘best known’ solution
is and tell you how you too can make use of
it to improve your performance and stick one
over the opposition.
What the top
guys do
Have you ever heard legends like Everts and
Carmichael talk about their training regime?
If you’ve ever been lucky enough to hear
RC’s trainer Aldon Baker (who now trains
MotoX columnist Ben Townley) describe the key
to fitness success then you’ll have heard
him describe some of the main things you need
to do. Google his name, take a look on some
of the American websites that his stuff appears
on and take note of what he says. Remember,
this is the guy whose approach to diet and fitness
took 10kg of fat off Ricky Carmichael and helped
turn him into the Greatest Of All Time. The
guy knows a thing or two about preparing to
go fast on a motocross bike!
Like all good coaches and trainers, Baker sets
his stall out to get away from opinion, rumour
and hunches and aims to tighten up the way he
makes decisions on what to do. The way to do
the right thing is to make the right decision.
The way to make the right decision is to get
the right information in the first place. Just
think about this for a moment, when you pick
up an injury and have to go to the physio, or
see a doctor in a hospital, do they assume they
know what’s wrong with you and fire the
first solution they think of right at you? (For
the sake of your health, I truly hope not!)
No, they take time to ask the right questions
and conduct tests to get to the bottom of the
problem. Only then do they decide what to do.
Similarly, just think through how you check
out an issue with your engine. (Now that most
of us are riding thumpers rather than two-strokes,
what I’m about to tell you here applies
even more so.) If you do a good job, you systematically
strip the engine and use your callipers, feeler
gauges and micrometer to get some data on where
you’re at, such as measuring valve clearances
or bearing journal diameters. Based on these
hard numbers, you decide what to do to fix the
problem. You might use what I call the ‘Carpet
Fitter’s Technique’: measure twice
and cut once!
It’s a basic process of measuring where
you’re at, thinking through the numbers
and the data, making a decision and then going
and getting it done. Look at the last part of
this sentence again. Any plan needs action if
you’re to get somewhere. Sure, think it
through, but once you’ve done that, get
on with the job in hand! This is how science,
proper data and a professional opinion will
help you up your game by applying ‘best
known practice’.
Step
One - Measure your Body
 The
first ‘off-the-bike’ aspect any
rider usually thinks of is fitness. The second
one is normally nutrition. To know
what you need with these two aspects you are
best off getting wired up and measured in a
sports lab. An example of where you can do this
is at the Centre for Sport and Exercise Science
(CSES) at Sheffield Hallam University.
CSES has a world class record of sports science
support over a number of years, providing help
to GB athletes that won Olympic medals in Athens
2004, such as boxer Amir Khan.
It’s not generally known that such modern
facilities are often available for paid public
use. So go and take a peek at what’s out
there near you and see if you can book an assessment.
It’s no secret that MX2 hotshot Carl Nunn
uses London’s Olympic Institute. In getting
you to undertake targeted physical tests the
experts at places like CSES will get a baseline
measure of your physical performance. They’ll
build a picture of your capability with things
like oxygen uptake tests, lactate profiles,
anaerobic measures and lung performance data.
CSES can even complete some measurements inside
a fully controllable climate chamber, although
I don’t know if anyone’s ever asked
them to set it up to simulate the mud and pissing
rain of an earlyseason British Championship
round!
An example of this is the UK-based N-Gage Coaching
and Athlete Support Scholarship Programme, who
taught MotoX’s Tim Slater a thing or two
about not falling off recently (MotoX 53). All
motocross riders on the scheme undergo a full
programme at CSES. They get tested at regular
intervals to check progress and allow adjustments
in the programme to suit.
 Step
Tw o - Use a Technical Coach
To integrate the knowledge you’ve gained
in Step One with your riding you are best using
a technical coach.
N-Gage, based in Doncaster, are an excellent
example of a forward thinking outfit that deliver
tailored programmes to their scholarship athletes,
pro riders and the rest of us based on the data
they get from assessments done at CSES. The
bit they really add is in the regular on the-
bike coaching. Rather than just instruct riders
to do things differently N-Gage coach and nurture
people in the way professional sports coaches
do. Consider them more a Jose Mourinho or an
Arsene Wenger than a traditional Brian Clough!
However, like all good coaches, they know when
the Alex Ferguson ‘hairdryer treatment’
needs to be used. Whoever we are, a targeted
‘kick up the backside’ from time
to time can nudge us on our way to improvement.
All N-Gage’s technical sessions are carried
out with a specific end in mind. The systematic
‘measure it - think about it - decide
what to do - act’ process is carried out
within all that they do. It’s all about
breaking the job of riding down into small chunks
and working through them.
For example, you might just work on your starts,
but you’d do this in a way you could measure
the important stuff. Similarly, when you finish
a moto do you just say: ‘yeah, my lap
times were good’, or do you have someone
measure every lap so you know how consistent
you were? Better still take plit-times around
certain sections. You know what the top guys
do now, don’t you?
Step Three -
Apply the Process to your Mind too
To bring Steps
One and Two together like a well-oiled machine
you are best getting a performance coach/sport
psychologist on board with your programme. Although
this is Step Three, it may pay you to do this
from the outset, as a sport psychologist will
help you develop your mindset and attitude to
make use of the other professional support.
If you’re a regular MotoX reader you’ll
have already seen the three articles on motocross
sport psychology we ran during the off-season
(MotoX 46-48). These were about concentration,
mental toughness and professional attitude,
and are just three examples of performance gains
that allow you to control and improve your mood,
behaviour and thoughts to get you riding the
way you want to ride.
This third step may be far more practical than
you first think. Useful tips on preparation
and pre-start warm-up routines are all part
of what a sport psychologist would give you.
Of course, any advice and help would only be
given after a scientific process of first measuring
where you’re at had been done. The Carpet
Fitter’s Technique applies all the time,
even when dealing with your psychology.
This is the value the sport psychologist really
adds, in giving you the tools to break the mental
side down into chunks that can be measured.
Step up and make the difference
You can go through
all the Three Steps yourself. In doing so, you
are investing in the things that mean the most
to you and the things that will make the most
difference out on the track: your body, your
skills and your mind. The skills you’ll
learn and develop can be applied to anything
you do in your life. Laboratories and universities
can offer all the measurement methods you can
handle and are all over the country.
Take this a step further and get them to offer
you a specific training programme based on your
needs as a rider too. Being specific is of massive
importance. You don’t need pasta coming
out of your ears and three-hour runs if your
goal is to ride a dirt bike at and above your
lactate threshold for three thirty minute motos.
Get yourself properly coached too. Coaching
is so much more than just instruction. A good
coach will understand how you learn, the rate
at which you learn and by using demos and examples
will get the major points across in a way that
means something to you. What your coach knows
is not that important.
What is important is how your coach tries to
get that information across to you and whether
you can take it on board and act upon it. The
coach is there to make you faster, not to tell
you how much they know or to tell you what they’ve
done.
Finally you can get yourself in the mindset
of a champion by taking on board all that performance
coaching and sport psychology has to offer.
There are a handful of such practitioners operating
in the UK now but it’s a growing area
and one the very best are using already. The
best athletes know that they need to get even
better! If you stand still, you go backwards.
Are you happy to keep getting frustrated with
mid-pack finishes or are you going to try and
be the very best?
|
 N-Gage
N-Gage fitness training
is devised with input from Sheffield Hallam
University, who helped train Olympic boxing
silver medallist Amir Khan and the rugby world
cup winning England team. Sports psychology
also features prominently in N-Gage’s
philosophy
and Gaz Wright certainly knows how to push the
right buttons to unlock what makes an athlete
tick. For more information contact, tel: 07771
866787
Article Taken from MOTOX
Magazine Issue 54
www.motoxmag.co.uk |
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