Training Games on the Track

So if you think about any traditional sport, they involve some sort of object and people come up with challenging games in order to improve skill. These things are necessary for many reasons. They help to break up the monotony of traditional training and keep things fun. This fun aspect is key to internally motivating people to challenge themselves and their own abilities. Many times in these types of games is where athlete's will develop their highest level of abilities.

The other thing it does is create competition and drives the necessity for innovation within their own skills or the willingness to attempt some things they may previously avoid. These games can help to create higher levels of stress and demand for completing a task correctly which, then transfers over to real competition where you judge the situation and the task as familiar and less stressful. Resultantly, all of these things lead to improved performance. So how do we apply this to motocross?

This is not an easy task and needs to meet some of the following criteria. The game needs to:

• Challenge your personal skills
• Create some kind of stress from demand of performance
• Has scoring system for a clear winner
• Needs a set of rules that can be easily adapted to increase the challenge

So here is my idea for a game that can challenge everyone.

You can make riding at the track like video games. Many racing video games that you play you have to hit check points or markers to get new items or increase your score and win, for example; Mario Kart 64.

 This simple concept can be applied to motocross. All you really need is a track, some construction marker flags, stop watch and calculator, or just simply a smart phone. Then you set them up and simply have to hit the flags with your foot as you go by the flags and compare this against your lap time.

Using these simple flags that are cheap and easily distinguishable, you can create a race track where you can accumulate points. Designate specific colors of flags to have certain point values like red is 3, blue is 2 and yellow is 1. This point value then can also dictate the location of where the flag is on the track. The LOWER point value flags can be on a line that is harder to hit. For example, you can put a 1 point flag on the inside line right after a triple. There is obviously many places that you can put these flags on the track depending on the track itself.

Set your flags with the lowest point value in the hardest to hit area and the higher point values in the easier. Then you have to hit that flag with your foot as you go through that line (typically this will be in corners). If we have three colors of flags then if you go through a line and don't touch any flag you automatically get a 4 point score for that section. You ride the entire track and hit as many of the lowest scoring flags that you can.

After you have completed your lap with a clear start and finish line, you times your score by the amount of seconds in your lap. So if I hit the flags and got a score of 12 and my lap time took me 75 seconds, then your score is 12x75 = 900. You then compare your scores and lap times with all those involved to determine the winner. So how does this compare to the set of rules laid out in the beginning?

This game can definitely challenge your personal skills in many ways. It can force you to take lines you wouldn't normally hit, deal with more adverse situations on the track and make you think harder about where you are on the track. It creates a stress to increase performance because you are having to compete against others and striving to accomplish a new challenging task on the track, your score is dictated by lap time and accuracy and precision highly influence your score. The game has a clear scoring system that allows you to determine a winner or loser. Last, it has a clear set of rules that can be easily modified however you want to make the game more challenging.

Now your applying some real sport science to motocross training while having fun. This is the key to developing your skills to a higher level without getting into the mindset that you're training. I hope this idea sparks some interest for all of you and gives you some ideas of new ways to train.

IZOF and Your Optimal Performance

Ideal Zone of Optimal Function (IZOF) is a huge part of any sport. This theory suggests that there is an ideal level of mental arousal and a corresponding effect on performance. This can also be referred to as the Inverted-U Theory. This illustration below will help to make sense of this real fast.

As you can see the left side inverted axis shows the level of performance while the bottom horizontal axis refers to the amount of arousal. As you can see these two factors have an impact upon the other. As emotional arousal starts to increase for a person their performance increases up to a certain level (highlighted red section). As they pass that and become too aroused, they then decrease in performance.

Every person has their own IZOF based on how they deal with certain issues. This past year in my experience with assisting in training of over 30 of the 2013 NFL Combine athlete's, I saw a very real case of someone not knowing their IZOF and how it impacted their performance. This athlete was expected to go in the first round but, couldn't perform during the Combine. The Combine being largely exercised based with the bench press, 40yd dash and multiple others. He performed poorly in some of these areas, yet on the field in a game he was savagely unstoppable.

During his two and a half month combine training he struggled in the weight room and it was a bit of a mystery to everyone. How could someone so savage and obviously strong, struggle so much when lifting weights? Well if you think about it, during a game there is high excitement and lots of emotion. His threshold could have been very high and took a large amount of excitement to get there and perform well. In the weight room it was less mentally arousing and caused his performance to decrease but, in a game he could push a couple hundred pound lineman over like they were playing on a high school JV team. Some people are very dependent on this IZOF and in hindsight I believe it CONTRIBUTED immensely to his Combine performance (no one single factor can usually ever be truly blamed for poor performance and I'm not a Dr of Sport Psychology though do have a Minor in the topic area). So how do you find this?

Finding this and the right way to do it is still an question left unanswered by science however, there are some very practical suggestions. One of the best books on this subject is by Terry Orlick: In Pursuit of Excellence. This book is kind of the poor mans practical handbook for sport psychology. In it is a series of interviews with people who have worked with Orlick at the Olympics and in other professional sports. Also there are sections from these athletes personal journals.

To find this IZOF you need to try multiple things. Each person has their own individual zone that is achieved by different means due to the fact that it is purely individual. Some people need to be more excited like John Henderson and then sum people need to be like a Buddhist monk before competition.

This IZOF state is impacted by everything else that you do. It's not just your mental pre-game, it's how your food, your training and everything else comes together to impact that moment before competition. You hear of many people being superstitious about things in motocross, with their helmet, boots, bike and many more. This is all related to your IZOF and you need to be aware of these tendencies in yourself. Being consistent with them is part of creating your IZOF.

Regardless of what that is for you, you know yourself best and need to find that. The next step is to chart what you have been doing in a journal so that you can find what exactly works best for you. Then you are able to be more consistent over time. This isn't just mindset, it's also your training regime, food, warm-up and everything else.

Now its time for you to find out where your own personal IZOF is in order to replicate your best performance as frequently as possible. You just need to take a very simple scientific approach to this and find out if you need to be more hyped up mentally or more zen before your race.

Readers Question: Confidence and Plateauing

So this is my first answer to a topic request by a reader and it's a good one but, too long to answer everything in one post. The first focus of the question from the reader was on mental strategy and overcoming plateau's. Now after clarifying some of these topics with him the question evolved to this:
Question - "I would say my plateau would be my age now. But in my younger days it was turning from intermediate to pro. It sometimes is hard to have the confidence that you can actually go that fast. Injuries mostly held me back. The mental part was hard to overcome after being injured. I see lots of trainers focusing on the physical side, but not the mental aspect. Which to me it is kind of like golf. Sometimes it is harder to focus than other days. I now am like vet intermediate at 43 I still compete in over 30 from time to time."

Answer: So first off YES age can be a real plateau for many reasons. Typically it's because you've realized that your bones will break and that it all adds up to some giant hospital bills. I think truly in this sport physical abuse from injury and a change in mental state from that abuse, leads to the end of a persons career. A now friend of mine Dwayne De Rosario, a 35 year old professional soccer player who is 6th overall leading goal scorer in MLS history, eludes to a couple more seasons still left in him. The true expected peak of a professional soccer player is in their late 20's and early 30's. Just considering that alone, leads me to feel even more confident of abuse from major injuries and shift in mental focus being the main culprit in stepping down from ones position in the sport. If you don't buy into that, just think of our very own 31 year old legend Chad Reed. He is truly competitive regardless of this past season and he still thinks the risk is worth the reward.

Secondly, a plateau in ability from intermediate to pro is most likely from a lack in change of training stimulus; based on my opinion. I wasn't there for your training and to deal with everything as a whole and resultantly, my answer would be lack of change in training. The best analogy I can come up with for this is something that I think most of us can relate to, hitting a plateau when lifting weights. Most of us have been there and gone through that experience.

So you're lifting weights and your not getting any stronger or making any progress forward. You start asking people about it and you get the following answer most of the time; change your training. So what do you end up doing? Maybe you switch to lighter weight and go for time instead of reps, you increase the overall volume or you drop the reps and start increasing the weight. These are all simple logical explanations for how you break through that physical plateau. Respectfully, you always will hit a slight plateau and then have to adjust. This is why most models of physical performance follow an near staircase effect, like the one below. Specific things to help you break that plateau are all situation specific and depend upon what you are or aren't doing. In terms of motocross specific, it comes down to creating some kind of new training stimulus and that is something I am working on developing. My next post will actually be entirely focused on one major idea for accomplishing this.

Your question about mental strategy I guess really has more to do about overcoming lack of confidence as a result of frequent and devastating injury; I assume. One of the most encompassing models to evaluate this situation is from Brewer (1994), Cognitive Appraisal Model of Psychological Adjustment to Athletic Injury:

This chart is an adapted version applied to dance. We will re-write this with a motocross focus. What happens here is that you crash and you break your leg. Then you have you have both personal and situation factors that impact the future progression of your injury. Personal factors are related to how well you cope with the situation, how this impacts your self identity, how well you take care of yourself previously and individual stress's that you encounter daily. Situation factors can be how well you're supported by others, how quickly your sponsors will forget about you, what kind of treatment is possible for you and other things more outside of your control. These all come together to create an interpretation in your mind, of how this injury will impact you. Then following is the flood of emotions like anger, depression and disbelief. This comes to a final impact on your behavioral response to treatment and rehabilitation. Rather long winded but, it all comes together to impact your performance in the future.

Say you had a negative response to all of this. Now when you come back your always thinking about this. It plagues your mind and slowly eats away at your confidence. Your response to the situation is to not do your rehab exercises all of the time and rebuild everything as a whole. It's not just the injury but, everything as one that develops your confidence. The smartest thing I've ever heard from Tony Alessi was when Mike re-injured his knee at Thunder Valley a few years back. He said you now have to rebuild the entire rider. Your fitness, your nutrition, your discipline, your preparation, your training, how you talk to yourself; everything here impacts your confidence level. If you install an electrical circuit in a house and are missing one little piece, the lights don't turn on. Your performance is the same.

Mental training and strategy is important, especially after injury. Without making this post any longer what I can tell you is this; I do have several posts coming up about these topics specifically. Methods and strategies for improving mental performance encompasses a lot of things that need to be broken apart and hit in depth. These things will come soon, but the best answer for now is to look up Positive Self Talk. Talking to yourself the right way can have a huge impact on your performance.

Train Like You Race

A huge thing in professional sports is the intensity and the quality of training. As I have mentioned before, when your at an elite level the complexity of training jumps way up and things more closely mimic competition. So first what are some of the things you want to mimic in your training on the track? My ideas are these:

• Intensity of a race
• High Stress of a race
• Varying stimulus
• Replicate portions of a race

I wont elaborate on all of these points today, but simply go over some basics. These points will get hit on more in later posts. But for now we'll speak in general terms with at least one major take away.

One of my biggest pet peeves is going to the track and watching some guy who races, riding the same line over and over again on the track. Granted yes you need to develop a fast line because other wise if your slow then you will lose. This hits at the core principle of why most people race, to WIN!! Well if you really want to win then train like you race.

In an Outdoor National for example, you have 40 guys who are all insanely fast, lining up at the gate. 40 guys on a track wide enough to really maybe only line up 3 or 4 wide in the main sections, means things get crowded. Hence when you need to move up fast and have to pass guys but, there is limited space. So how do guys like Dungey, RV, JS7, Reed and other factory guys pass so easily? THEY TAKE DIFFERENT LINES!! Besides the fact that they have faster bikes, they don't ride the same line the whole way. They are comfortable enough to take a new line or pass guys in a way that others aren't used to. So how do you get there?

The big thing you need to do is force yourself to train on different lines. Without question you need to have a fast line and every track naturally has one or two major racing lines. However, you cant always stick in them and need to move forward and avoid playing follow the leader like so many do. The more you force yourself to train hitting different lines, the better you become over all. Think of any other traditional sport. If you were an NFL wide receiver and you ran the exact same line every single play and never changed it, you would get shut down every play and would probably get cut pretty fast. When the coach would ask you to try running a different line and you weren't as good at it most people would then avoid doing what they are not good at.

This is a basic principle in the psychology of human beings. We don't like to admit that we are not good at things. We tend to overly focus on the things that we are good at and avoid those we are not. This simply means that you need to advance your skills on the track in places that you are not as skilled. In a race a lot of things happen and you need to react as fast as possible. If you're the guy that always rides the same line that he's fast in then you cant deal with new situations. However, if you practice taking those slower lines sometimes in order to get faster with them, then you can create some results on the track that may not have otherwise happened. This should be training 101 for most of you truly. But I still see it every day.

Take this to the track with you next time you're training and make yourself a better over all racer. Hit new lines and find ways to become faster in them so that you can force passes to happen in a real race.