The season is over. A few GNCC Racers reached their goals, and a few more did not. What they all have in common, though, is that everyone wants to come back next year even faster, even stronger and even fitter. And they want to win.
Over the next few weeks, we'll help you via trainer talk with ace motocross and off-road trainer Robb Beams of www.completeracingsolutions.com and Motoendurance.net Beams helped train Chris Bach to a solid rookie XC1 bike season this year, but beyond that, he has a wealth of knowledge in every aspect of racing fitness--including training, nutrition and injury prevention and recovery. Check out a primer with Robb here, and feel free to email some questions to us, and we can post the answers as the weeks unfold. It's never too early to start preparing for 2011, but before you know it, it will be too late!
Photo By: MotoE
Robb Beams
I have been involved in motocross since 1978 in one capacity or another. I have been a professional human performance coach for 17 years now. For the duration of our business, we have been heavily involved with the endurance side of human performance with sports like triathlons, mountain bike racers, road cyclists, and road racers [runners]. We also have a speed and agility division within our AEM Endurance Group (MotoE's parent company), which involves soccer, lacrosse and baseball players. Basically, anything that involves power, speed, and agility.
In our motorsports division, we work with supercross, motocross and off-road racers, and have even worked a little bit with Indy car drivers. Our focus at MotoEndurance.net has always been on the human performance component to riding and racing motorcycles fast. So what we did within our MX division is bring the endurance background and incorporate the speed, power and agility specific to riding.
MotoE's first exposure to the motocross scene came under the umbrella of the Toyota Moving Forward program a few years back. We were hired by Toyota to provide fitness programs to the riders that were registered within the program. After that program finished, we launched our own motocross performance facility, online coaching services and now our rider online resource center at our completeracingsolutions.com website.
You have a training facility in Florida, but what if a racer doesn't live down there? How can you train them?
Well, there are two facets. One, we can jump on a plane and come out to your training facility, whether it's your local track or a track you physically own. We host three day workshops where we will come into what is essentially your training compound and live with you for three days. During those three days, we will complete numerous testing sessions to evaluate your current level of muscular strength, endurance, lactate tolerance, flexibility and nutritional habits.
We gather the information and process it through our Complete Racing Solutions Performance Report CardTM and develop an customized performance training program.
If someone is looking for a performance program via the internet, email and phone, we have our Complete Racing SolutionsTM packages. Within these programs we provide you a daily outline of what to do daily both on and off of the motorcycle based on a baseline assessment that the rider completes. In addition to the motorcycle and cross training protocols, we also provide nutritional guidance, flexibility & strength programs as well as a sports performance psychological program for optimum performance.
Talk about some of the riders you work with, including Chris Bach.We host a diversified group of off road and motocross riders out of our facility year round. We have a couple of guys that live at our facility year round in Florida that race motocross professionally. In addition to the motocross riders that come in for a week or month at a time, we have the likes of Adam Cianciarulo with Pro Circuit Kawasaki, Ian Trettel with Suzuki and Ashley Fiolek of Red Bull Honda who utilize the track and human performance services throughout the year.
Photo By: Shan Moore
Chris Bach worked with Beams this year and logged a superb rookie XC1 season.
Living and training down there full time may be a bit much for the weekend warrior at a GNCC, but how can the regular guy benefit? Can a trainer provide insight even without seeing each other every week?
We provide complete training solutions to riders all over the world who have a various goals and ability levels. At Completeracingsolutions.com we provide riders a resource center where they can get access to me on a daily basis. Riders can post specific questions, watch muscle specific strength and flexibility exercises, learn how to properly shop for high quality foods at the grocery store, handle a pulled muscle or injury. Our latest feature outlines how to specifically workout to improve a specific challenge on the motorcycle - like jumping, turning or high speed whoop sections. I outline the specific muscles required to complete a task (i.e. turn), how to evaluate physical limitors (strength or flexibility) and how to improve the limitation within the muscle and/or surrounding joint.
What type of training do you recommend for a weekend warrior GNCC type? Riding as much as possible? Mountain or road biking? Gym work? Running?
This is a great question. Simply put, all riders need to improve their aerobic ability both on and off of the motorcycle. Over the last 24 years of evaluating riders, aerobic capacity is the number one limiter. If a rider does have access to daily riding, to maximize the development of the aerobic energy system, the intensity level needs to be quantified and monitored during riding. To ensure that the rider is not working too hard, a max heart rate assessment needs to be completed to determine this number. If you haven't completed a max heart rate test on the motorcycle, please email me (robb3@earthlink.net) and I will forward over to you the testing protocols and how to create your heart rate training zones.
The best way to improve this is simply seat time; however, not all riders have the time, access or resources to ride every day for an hour or more. With this being said, the rider has to focus on cross training off of the motorcycle to improve the endurance on the motorcycle.
If I were asked to create the ideal training schedule for a working rider, I would suggest that the goal be to cross train 60-90 minutes a day (combining strength and cardio work with some flexibility at the end of the workout) 3-4 times a week, one day of rest and riding/racing on the weekend.
Thanks, Robb, we will get to more specific training questions next week. Readers, feel free to send questions to jasonw@racerxonline.com and I'll forward them onto Rob to get them answered!
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