So first off I will say that nothing in this article should be misconstrued to say anything negative Aldon. Unfortunately people out there love to twist and meddle so I have to state that.
It is interesting to read the article on Racer X about the Ken Roczen and Aldon Baker story. This highlights a truth about sports and athletes that many people don't recognize. Not all athlete's are the same. Some vary greatly compared to others. Working in professional soccer myself I see this everyday. I use almost $100k in advanced analytics programs and physiological monitoring systems to determine an athlete's readiness on a daily basis.
You will see that for some players, the day after a game is the best day for them to do some activity and maybe even moderately intense work and then take the 2nd day off. Other athlete's respond better to having the day after off and can come in the next day to do some light to moderate work and the 3rd day we are 100%. Again, some guys it's best to do something light and easy the day after, something moderate a day later, work hard the 3rd day and have day 4 off. The bottom line is there is a broad range of what can be best.
Now when you read this article and they mention the dispute of Monday off or not, it brings in some interesting ideas of maybe that's what Ken's body was telling him is right. Maybe though it could be ass backwards and Aldon was spot on. Do I know? No. I don't have Ken hooked up to all of our systems to analyze him and determine the best scheme for him. I'm sure Aldon has technology that he utilizes to evaluate readiness and was using his best objective reasoning to choose his method.
Now on the other hand, Aldon's method might fit perfect for Dungey and so he has decided to slide into that full-time spot because he can tell it makes a difference. Once again this is simply speculation but there are a lot of things that matter and go into this. As Dungey said himself, he didn't have his week planned as effectively as Aldon lays it out for him. This is extremely valuable for an athlete who has millions poured into his bike and R&D but never into the readiness of the athlete's themselves.
The moral of this story is to pay attention to your own racing and planning structure. Play around with some options and see what you feel works best for you. Pick a schedule and method and stick to it for 3 weeks. Then try another for 3 more weeks and see what kind of difference you find between the different options. Then simply pick what works best for you.
The goal of this blog is to bring new ideas in sport science to the forefront of motocross. The world of sport science in more traditional sports is years beyond the capabilities of motocross currently. The goal of this blog is to help bridge that gap with my education, experience and imagination. My goal is to bring real research and evidenced based science to the world of motocross.
