Over the years Coach Seiji has become one of the most prestigious trainers in the motocross/motorsports world. He has a B.S in Kinesiology, is an American College of Sports Medicine Certified Personal Trainer and a Registered Massage Therapist. He has worked with the most accomplished pro and amateur athletes in the sport and is the Official Trainer of Vurbmoto.com. It is our pleasure to bring you Industry Insider with...Coach Seiji.

For those unfamiliar with your program, or that think you are solely and online instructor, give us a little background into your approach as a trainer?
I have two separate services: Personal Training and Online Coaching.

I personal train 4 to 5 athletes in person; usually this is at my place near Austin, TX but it can also be at their location. My “standard” program is one week per month in person then the remainder of that training period is managed via the highest level of online service that I offer. This system sort of morphed into play these last few years as I used to only train one or two riders full time in person but realized that very few people can afford that type of program. This program allows the riders to have 90% of the benefit of a full time personal training program at 25% of the cost. It has been working very well. Of course I have made adjustments in the past for those who wanted more or less in person training, ranging from every single training day to only 3 days a month, but the one week in person/3 weeks online is the “standard” these days.

Personal training is still expensive any way you cut it so I have offered online coaching services from the beginning and have done so for a long time across several sports. The online system allows daily interaction between coach and athlete via a comprehensive web based tool. Training duration, intensity and frequency are all prescribed and recorded by the athlete as well as diet logging, stress markers, the works. Anything that can affect training, recovery and general wellness can be tracked, and prescribed in detail through the system. In other sports in my past this is all I did and it guided athletes to national championships not only in the U.S. but in other countries as well, so I know it can do the same in motocross. Well it has done the same already with riders like PJ Larsen who was an online client only in his last year as an amateur and look how well that worked. PJ’s determination and efforts combined with online guidance was an example of how well it can work if applied correctly. There are three levels of the online program that vary in personal attention and cost so hopefully one of them will fit almost all situations.

As an athlete working through your program from across the country, what can they expect in terms of day to day operation and attention?
Well in the VERY simplest of terms on the online system: initial field testing gets some numbers generated so that training intensity can be prescribed. I create a “map” of the season based on their racing goals and strengths/weaknesses. Then, again in simple terms, daily training (and recovery) intensity and duration are prescribed in detail. This is shot out automatically via email but can also be viewed in their online account on a training calendar or daily log. Training is done and the athlete either logs it or downloads a training device and enters in comments and how they felt as well as diet - if required - and daily metrics such as stress, sleep, etc.

I view all this at night and make changes, reply with my take, comments or get on the phone with them. Depending on the program, the phone contacts can be multiple times per day to once per week. Some days I run my phone completely out of batteries by like 2 pm. Those tend to be weeks where the program switches up or the weeks just prior to big nationals just due to the stress and nerves! I support the athlete as much as I can via phone, email and these days more and more texting. Man people are hooked on texting. I am surprised we aren’t doing this whole interview via 10,000 texts.

The premise of these interviews is to give insight into what it is like working in the motocross industry. What would be one piece of advice you would give someone interested in entering into the training side of motocross?
I get this a lot. I have an associate coach and in my personal training studio we get one intern a year that specifically wants to enter motorsports. My single biggest piece of advice is to be a keen observer to each individual athlete, their support system, their background and their personality. I know it’s cliché but everyone is different and will respond differently to stresses and recover differently and it’s not just them, it’s their family, surroundings, friends, etc. Your schooling, no matter what it is, will not teach you that. You have to be a good “student of the sport” to figure out each athlete and no degree guarantees that at all. I guess what I am saying since I get college grads in my place is that your degree will help you with the science and may get your foot into the personal training world but nothing will teach you what you need to know about motocross athletes until you have been immersed in it and have gathered enough information by observation and just plain trial and error. Everyone is different is the bottom line and their responses to training, recovery, stress, etc. is something you cannot learn in school, you have to live it and file it away in your head and constantly be adding to those files. Good question, hard to answer but great question. My interns are so motivated but there’s no rushing that part, they just have to jump into motocross and the riders and see what goes on day and night.

Talk about the "one week per month," you have built a training compound on your land in Texas and have plans on doing more. Explain the purpose behind putting together such a large on-site facility?
The one week per month coincides with the first week of each training period. This is when the training “pattern” is altered and when they will need the most personal attention. The training activities change, etc. and that is when personal instruction is required. The remaining three weeks (normally) of the training period have the “pattern” repeated but the duration and intensity change, but that is all easily managed online.

When I was personally training only one or two riders, it was easy for me to be in the right location. When I went to training more riders, it presented a huge logistic problem; I can only be in one place at one time and there are only 4 weeks a month. It is way easier logistically for riders to meet in one spot no matter where they may be and then they could also train together so I and my wife took the big leap and sold our house and bought a ranch an hour out of town. Then we took an even bigger leap and built all the tracks, RV sites, etc. so that the riders can meet in one place and we can train on our terms. Plus, well, I’m not getting any younger and I am married and it would be nice to stay married.(Laughs) It’s a great spot; it’s in the middle of a lot of other public tracks and the one hour from Austin is where I need to be to avoid sound issues, zoning, etc. and I’m right off of 1-10. I researched for a long time to decide what the perfect location would be. Anyhow, it has been working great so far and it’s still a work in progress. I eventually would like to have a training studio on the track site as well as the one in town. Someday I want to put up a building for a gym, athlete dorms, another shop, kitchen, etc! Shoot, I need a ranch hand too! Japanese people aren’t historically ranchers and that learning curve has been steep. If someone was taping me at first “ranching” it would have been so funny…the things I messed up, cows running away, etc.

Plans for the future. With an ever changing business world and the rapid development of information technology, what do you see as the next step for your company?
That dream building for sure. Swimming pool, the “water treadmill” kind! Basketball half court. More championships!

Seriously though, I want to expand by having a few more associate coaches and running 4 day to two week long “camps” designed to teach someone how to train themselves. I want to teach training methodology; I want athletes to walk away and have the tools necessary to create and execute their own training programs. Seminars for parents so they can learn the same thing for their mini/schoolboy kids. I have the facilities to do that now, I just need more manpower.

Dude, technology changes so fast. It’s good and it’s bad. It’s good because the “resolution” of what you can observe in an athlete goes up so you can be more accurate with training loads and recovery. It’s bad because I think it tends to make both athletes and trainers “forget” how to listen to the body and have a “feeling” for what’s going on. The art of being an athlete or coach can get lost in all the analysis, data, etc. Paralysis by analysis is the saying.

I do see, however, that motocross will at the very least catch up to other sports in this regard. An example is aerobic training via heart rate zones. Heart rate zones are just estimates of work load being done. The direct measurement would be Joules and that is what they are using to measure and prescribe training in cycling. It is absolutely dead on accurate. Instead of saying go do this at this heart rate for this long, now you are saying go do these things at this wattage and you will do this number of Joules of work this week, etc. It’s not estimating anymore, it’s the actual unit of work being performed. Electronics are getting smaller; now you have telemetric heart rate monitoring where a coach can see the heart rates on the field of the entire soccer team, power outputs of cyclists on the road, etc. Accelerometers are getting smaller and more accurate and there are portable VO2 analyzers that are getting surprisingly small. So in the future, for motocross, both on and off the bike, I see direct measurement of actual work being done and the benefits of this measuring being applied to training and recovery. Man I sound like a total geek.

I know you predominantly work with high level athletes, which in turn means that your clients have high expectations. How has this affected your training style? How much emphasis do you put on the athlete in terms of their desire and work ethic?
Man you said it. The more elite an athlete is the more expectations they have of their trainer for sure. I was used to this in the other sports I have been involved with but in motocross the athletes and support staff have these expectations but there are a LOT more things out of the rider’s or trainer’s control. What I am saying is that a race result has a lot more variables in it than say a runner. A runner can’t crash, is less likely to get hurt, doesn’t have as many mental issues (like fear of injury) and their race result is much more directly linked to their physical state at the time. This has made me even more keenly aware of what I and the athlete can control and I am much more demanding of the athlete to control these things to the best of their ability. Focus on what you can control and let go of what you can’t. Motocross has a much deeper mental side as well and in the last four years this has been my biggest personal area of improvement for sure.

Desire. Work Ethic. Dedication. Goal orientation. These are HUGE. These are things that cannot be forced. You can only show or try to show what the results could be if these things were present. The desire has to come from within the athlete. The desire to reach self-set goals is what spurs work ethic and determination. This has to be internally sourced. It’s a problem when the parents or the trainer want it more than the rider. Throwing money at a lack of desire by hiring a trainer or buying faster bikes is not a long term solution. I am very adamant about the desire having to come from the rider themselves. Yes, you can be a guiding light but you cannot transfer your desire on to the rider. You can help shine a light on the great things that can happen when desire drives the dedication and work ethic to reach a goal but you can’t actually do it for them. I have a lot of personal experience in this regard (both of my parents were national level coaches) growing up as an athlete myself and I have seen tons of this as a coach and trainer. Bottom line: the athlete has to want it for themselves; if you don’t have this then everything else is a band aid and not a long term solution.

It’s a tall order man: natural speed, athleticism, desire, dedication, work ethic, etc. There are so many things to get “right.” It’s not easy for sure but getting the right program to guide you in the right direction is a great start.

If a rider is seeking training, at what point in their career would you suggest putting together a serious program? Are your services only for those looking to earn a national number?
It’s all relative. My opinion is that when racing results become a high priority in your life, no matter what level you are competing in, that is when you should start thinking of getting on a prescribed training program. No, it’s not just for national level riders: if a vet guy has gotten to the point where his racing has become a high personal priority then go for it. It has to be a priority in your life. Family, work, racing. OK, it’s up there so put forth the effort and see where you can get as the personal rewards of reaching something of that priority in your life is definitely worth it. An amateur rider looking to go pro may have it as their #1 priority in their life since they have yet to establish a family or career while the vet guy might have it, like I said, third or fourth or whatever, but to each they are equally important and I treat it as such.

It’s funny, I actually have to be much more attentive to the vet guy. He has a limited training time, has a lot more stresses in his or her life and their recovery is often compromised by life’s responsibilities. It’s much more complicated than say the pro rider that trains, eats, recovers, sleeps, and repeats. They have more time to train but even more importantly, more time to recover and the sources of stress can be much, much less in number. An 18-year-old pro has the ideal training situation and lifestyle whereas the vet guy who owns a business and has three kids who also races has the most challenges to overcome to improve their results.

I am equal opportunity! It’s just as important to me that the vet rider reach his or her personal goals as it is the 18-year-old pro! I will admit that the personal training is pretty much for elite amateurs and pros since just that lifestyle is required but the online system is ideal for the others if you think about it. Camps would be great for them too. I have a soft spot in my heart for that guy or girl! So many obstacles…I tried to make a cycling comeback in my thirties after being married and starting a business so I know and I feel for them. It was the hardest thing I had done…until I threw my leg over a dirt bike!

Very well, how might someone get in touch with you regarding training?
They can emal me at Seiji@coachseiji.com or log onto my website, coachseiji.com for more information.