Fitness and Injury Prevention

How General Conditioning Helps Reduce the Risk of Injury in Motocross

Most participants in motocross or dirt biking are not competitive; they are simply pursuing it as an enjoyable and sociable hobby. Physically training for recreational riding is often considered unnecessary since the goal is just to have a great time. Nothing wrong with that at all but it should be noted that improving general conditioning not only improves health and wellness, it can drastically reduce the risk of injury during riding. Nothing can end the enjoyment of the wonderful sport of motocross like an injury! Here is my top five list of how physical fitness can keep you safer while partaking in the greatest sport on earth!

1. Riding on the edge of your physical ability increases the chance of making a mistake that can lead to a crash just like riding on the edge of your technical ability. The more fit you are, the lower within your physical capacity you can ride and maintain your enjoyable level of speed. Riding at a pace that is well within your physical limits allows your mind and body to focus on correct technique and maintaining your timing and reflexes thus leading to less mistakes and safer riding.

2. Joint injuries occur when a limb is taken past its usable and injury free range of motion. This is due to two factors: flexibility and strength, both of which are increased through improved fitness. Greater flexibility allows a joint to move in a greater range without damaging soft tissues and connective tissues like ligaments, muscles and tendons. Once a joint gets to the end of a range of motion, your muscular strength must resist continued motion to prevent these injuries. The combination of increasing your range of motion through increased flexibility and your ability to resist further motion through increased strength will drastically reduce the incidence of joint injuries.

3. You can actually decrease the possibility of breaking bones through increased fitness; specifically by strength training. The loading of bones perpendicular to their long axis that occurs in strength training causes those bones to increase in density. This reduces the rate of fractures in these bones. The increase in muscle mass that accompanies increases in strength also increases the shock absorbing ability of the body and thus spares the bones from receiving much of the impact forces of crashing. Muscles are your body’s number one shock absorber and force reducer. More muscle mass equals more shock absorbing capacity and less broken bones and other injuries.

4. Part of being healthy is being physically fit. Being healthy means that you have healthy tissues. These healthy tissues (among them ligaments, bones, tendons and muscles) are better able to resist shearing forces, compressive forces, impacts and other attacks on them that create an injury state. Ligaments and tendons are especially affected by overall state of health. Healthy tissues are simply injured less and minor injuries such as slight ligament sprains and muscle strains are more quickly healed so that they do not progress into major injuries.

5. Physically fit individuals are good “healers.” When the unfortunate accident occurs, the better your fitness is at the time of injury, the quicker your body will heal and the less permanent effects you will have from the injury. The greater your fitness, the higher your relative metabolic rate and the healthier your tissues are at the time of injury. This means that your cellular metabolic rate is higher so the processes of healing (building new tissues, breaking down and eliminating damaged tissues, fighting infection among others) is faster than if you were not fit. The healthier tissues that fitness can promote are damaged less at the cellular level as well thus decreasing the amount of repair that has to occur to get you back into action.

OK, all these points sound great but how can you, the hectically busy Vet class/recreational rider, obtain these benefits with a small investment of time? Vet class riders and older recreational riders tend to be far busier than the racing crowd due to careers and family. These riders’ time is at a premium and it is important to make the most of this free time – free time that they would rather spend riding. It’s a conundrum: you have free time and you want to ride, not train! But if you train, you are less likely to get hurt and you will enjoy your riding more; and if you get hurt – there goes a lot of riding time. Argh.

One of the most effective ways to train for a rider like this is circuit training. You are incorporating aerobic conditioning with strength training in a way that saves time and gets the most done in that time. Aerobic and strength training activities are all done in a row with no rest but arranged in an order so that you are not stressing the same muscles back to back. This allows for each muscle group to rest before it gets stressed again. Aerobic activity sessions are done in between strength training circuits comprised of 3-4 exercises all done consecutively. The aerobic activity combined with quick transitions between strength training exercises keeps the heart rate and metabolism elevated for the entire training session. There is no idle time and therefore no wasted time! Every minute of the session, you are in motion and getting work done! This is very time efficient and effective.

Below is an example of a circuit training session that a Vet class/recreational rider may employ. It would take just over an hour and covers the entire body. It incorporates all three aspects of fitness: cardiovascular, strength, and flexibility. It combines 35 minutes of cardio with 22 sets of strength training and 10 minutes of stretching. Twice per week, spaced out evenly, would be a realistic goal for most busy Vet and recreational riders. Again, this is only an example; let your imagination and ingenuity create different circuit training activities.

Coachseiji.com Circuit Training Example Workout

Muscular Endurance for Vet class/Recreational Riders

Goal =  2x per week

Warm up: 10 minutes rowing on Concept2 rower, heart rate zones 1 and 2.

No Rest

Lower body circuit: No rest between sets, repeat 2 times

Leg press; 45 seconds

Single side hamstring curl; 45 seconds per side

Walking lunges; one minute

Single side standing calf raises; 30 seconds per side

5 minutes on Concept2 rower; all heart rate zone 2

No Rest

Upper body circuit: No rest between sets, repeat 2 times

Dumbell low row; 40 seconds per side

Dumbell chest press; 40 seconds

Lat pulldown; 40 seconds

Dumbell standing shoulder press; 40 seconds

5 minutes on Concept2 rower; all heart rate zone 2

No Rest

Core circuit: No rest between sets, repeat 2 times before going to cardio station

Abdominal exercise of your choice; 45 seconds

Abdominal exercise of your choice; 45 seconds

Abdominal exercise of your choice; 45 seconds

5 minutes on Concept2 rower; all heart rate zone 2

No Rest

Full body stretching for 10 minutes

Motocross is dangerous enough as it is. Maintain your fitness or get into better physical condition to reduce injury, increase enjoyment and improve your health.

Seiji Ishii is the head coach of www.coachseiji.com. Coachseiji.com provides online coaching and personal training services to motorsports athletes. Coach Seiji has worked with both pros and elite amateurs including: Heath Voss, Ryan Clark, Matt Lemoine, Austin Stroupe, PJ Larsen, Hunter Hewitt and Rusty Potter. Learn more at www.coachseiji.com or contact Coach Seiji directly at seiji@coachseiji.com.