Coaching in Motocross Part 2 – The Practical Science

The first post was a general statement that there is a problem in coaching in motocross and also some specific problems. These are things that perpetuate throughout the sport and have a tendency to hold our sport back. Advancement’s in science, understanding of a sport and increased competitiveness all drive the growth of a sport. The more we know about our great sport and how to more effectively train others in the sport, the further we move motocross into the main stream and out of its near limbo state. As large as it has become, it still hangs in the balance of the economy and the deep pockets of mom and dad. Sports like the NFL, MLB, NHL and MLS all continue on with increased or sustained popularity and revenue due to the increased competitive nature of the sport and the new level of interaction with the sport through technology.

Therefore our sport needs to continue to grow and I believe that it truly starts here with us as professionals of the sport and with you who are reading this in hopes of taking the sport to the next level. A major step in that evolution is our ability to coach in the sport.

As I said before there are these things called cognitive biases that vastly impact our coaching. If you take the time to read that Wikipedia list and the definitions, it should be an instant ah ha moment for you. This is just part of the things that need to be understood in coaching. Schools like University of Akron and East Tennessee State University have entire departments dedicated to PhD. studies in the areas of coaching and coaching science. There truly is that much to learn about . This ranges from the types of cueing to correct or teach an exercise, how you reinforce the persons behaviors and how well you understand the progression of that person based on their current age and level of abilities. Truly there is more than this, but I feel these are the three most fundamental pieces to focus on that will have immediate impact.

Cues

There are many different types of cues and they can be used in numerous ways to correct a particular part of the sport.  Some these cues can be visual, audible and physical/tactile cues, to start the list off. Visual cues can take place in ways like; your pit board, hand signals, color coding, visual demonstration of a task and showing a video. Audible cues are just that, things that can be heard. You can give a certain meaning to a word that reinforces some particular behavior or any numerous things. A great example is when having someone do plyometric jumps over hurdles. Your goal is to get them to create full extension with the body and sometimes I will tell them to imagine they are jumping to see over a fence. While this crosses many other boundaries in reinforcement etc… it does give you a simple example of how an audible cue can be used to create an action. Physical/tactile cues are a bit more challenging for coaching in motocross but can be done. This will typically be done when a rider is not on the track and requires some physical manipulation of the body. I help teach athletes to keep their foot firmly planted on the ground by tapping on the top of their foot while they are doing a stationary movement. I create this physical cue that causes a response in the brain to instantly react and send the message to the foot to accomplish my intended goal.

Reinforcement

This becomes very complex and is the real bread and butter of coaching. There are an established 13 principles of reinforcement. This could be an entire post and so I will highlight successive approximations, intermittent reinforcement principle and negative reinforcement principle. Successive approximation principle states that you teach someone to act in a certain way that they haven’t before by, rewarding successive steps that are pertinent to accomplishing the task. Intermittent reinforcement principle states that in order to get someone to continue to increase performance in a task you must slowly and intermittently reduce the frequency of rewards for proper accomplishment of the task. Last, the negative reinforcement principle states that you stop a mildly incorrect behavior immediately by having them complete the task correctly. As much as this may be a shock to many of you, NO YOU DO NOT GET SOMEONE TO STOP DOING AN INCORRECT BEHAVIOR BY GETTING MAD OR UPSET WITH THEM! If you’re talking about Ryan Villopoto not getting his elbow up in the corner or something that is a different story. But most of you won’t be teaching the top pro in the world, you will be establishing proper habits in a youth rider.

Progression

This topic is more complex because science has not studied motocross specifically for an established motor pattern progression through youth development stages. However, we can gain some clues from the general science of development of throwing. According to research from Langendorfer (1980,1982) there are 5 clear stages of throwing. The first is standing relatively still with little to no feet or trunk movement. Second is with rotation of the body, maybe a step forward and the arm crosses the body. Third stage is where they step the same leg forward as the throwing arm, little to no movement from hips during initial throw and some hip flexion and rotation during follow through. Fourth stage the child steps opposite foot forward with minimal hip and spine rotation and throws with follow through to wide base stance. Last is the final throwing pattern of a ball that you expect when someone knows how to throw a baseball properly, like a pitcher.

That was all just to describe the stages of development in throwing a ball that many of us have seen children go through. The point of this is to ask yourself, do you really think that you can just put a kid on a bike and expect him to get it all right? I didn’t even touch on the idea that you are suppose to roll a ball to kids first before you teach them to catch and throw progressively. This should open your mind to the fact that you need to pay close attention to where your rider is in their stages of development, especially if you are picking up someone who trained with another person who had no clue. They may need to regress in the complexity of their training before they can move forward.

All of these things listed above come together to create a more complete coach and training experience. You have to cue the person through different means to get their brain to understand how to execute the action. Once they do this correct you must reinforce that habit properly. Finally you must advance your rider along clear stages of progression in their riding. This will allow you to be the most effective coach possible.