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.