Strength Training
Weight training is seen as an important part of any athlete's preparation for competition. Developing strength, power or physique is also something many people want to do regardless of whether they are competitive.
The role of strength training is important for motorcycle sports and a well structured plan will help you make the most of your time in the gym, and knowledge of what you are training and why will also let you critique the effectiveness of a general plan given to you by a gym instructor who may question any need for strength in motocross or the like as 'you have an engine to do the work right?'.
We know that after as little as 10 minutes on a practice track can leave you sweating, out of breath and with arms as locked up as Michael Jackson ought to be. What we need to do is break down the physical performance and demands of the sport and train those areas effectively. The first area is the endurance aspect. Prolonged activity at high heart rates requires training, so you should include relevant exercise into a weekly training programme so your cardiovascular system is prepared for a battering at the weekends. I reviewed this area of training in my last article.
The second area that I want to address, because of the confusion it seems to be causing, is that of weights training. Some people refrain from lifting weights as they think it may promote arm pump, some lift light weights for lots of reps, and some lift very heavy weights, benching more than my body weight for only a few reps in order for them to be better on their motorcycle.
There are some fundamental things we must know about our muscle make up before we can put together a worthwhile training plan. Muscle tissue is made up of muscle fibres, with these fibres split down into different types, specifically adapted for different tasks. They are all present in muscle tissue, with different concentrations being due to genetics and a certain amount of training. Type 1 muscle fibres are known as Slow Twitch fibres. They have a relatively low force production capability but are very fatigue resistant so can perform lower power output for long periods. They are red in colour due to the presence of myoglobin (capable of binding oxygen) thus helping resist fatigue through aerobic respiration. Type 2 fibres are the other category; they are white in colour due to little myoglobin present (think of the different colour meat in your roast chicken - this is why) and are sub-divided into Type 2a and Type 2b. They are both fast twitch fibres and they produce high levels of force. Where Type 2b fibres fatigue quickly but produce the highest force, Type 2a are a combination of properties of Type 2b and Type 1 so give good force production and also resist fatigue. These different fibre types not only have different characteristics but are also recruited at different times. For low intensity exercise, Type 1 fibres are recruited first, followed by Type 2a and then for very high intensity contractions Type 2b are finally recruited. I don't want to digress into a physiology lesson, but it is important to know the make up of the muscle so we can then plan a strength plan around this, and also how the muscle will be used.
We want to increase strength to aid performance on the bike, and more specifically this will be manifested in better control, improved technique and thus hopefully lower lap times. To stay in control of a speeding motorbike, make it turn, stop and put it where you want on the track takes a lot of strength. This is one of the reasons why you are tired after riding, even though you haven't turned a pedal or run up a flight of stairs. An increase in strength is directly related to the amount of muscle fibres available to recruit and thus the size of the muscle. So an increase in size of the muscle will mean more strength and more control. It also means that for a given action, proportionally less muscle is used leaving more available in reserve prolonging fatigue.
This over-simplification is where things start going wrong. What I have said is true, but there are more factors to consider. If the bulk of my training was strength training, I would have very little cardiovascular development. This cardio training is important in increasing blood supply to the muscles and improving efficiency in using this oxygen. If I have increased the size of the muscle, but not the blood supply, there will be proportionally less blood available to the muscle and this will promote muscle fatigue, and also is one cause of Arm Pump and thus the theory behind the 'I don't train my arms as I'll get arm pump'.
We can therefore see that cardio training is integral to a motocross riders training plan and activities that use upper and lower body muscle groups will help develop this blood supply and efficiency to arms, legs, chest back etc. So swimming and rowing are two good starting points for this.
Now we have cleared up that issue, what about the weights to actually lift?
If we go back to the fibre type explanation, we can see that if you are to lift very heavy weights for only a few reps (5-6 reps) you will recruit all the fibres in the muscle, and this type of training will give maximum strength gains and also muscle mass gains. At first this sounds ideal, however we are training for motocross (or Enduros) so we need to think about the event itself.
It is very interesting to note here that for events such as Trials, a weights training programme to increase strength such as this and also explosive power seems the ideal but you don't see trials riders built like this, they are normally svelte in their one-piece suits. Theory would advise looking at this aspect of strength training as this sport demands short, sharp efforts to haul a bike up seemingly impossible obstacles. I feel as though the skills aspect of Trails has led to a training programme centred around hours in the (excuse for a) saddle and not so much around a specific strength training plan. It also shows that balance and skill play a very major part and the trade off may lead to more time spent practicing this than in the gym.
Getting back to Motocross, the demand on the body is not so short and sharp and the full activation of all muscle fibres would be limited, so training geared around Type 2b is not ideal. With training we can actually change fibre types from 2b to 2a, so lower weights for 6-10 reps would help this and give not only good strength gains but also some fatigue resistance. If we look at those who consider that training with much lower weights for much higher reps is the way to go, they do have a point. Motocross demands repeated movements over a long period, so training with lower weights for longer reps will give us this 'burn' and adapt us to the feeling of fatigue and the change in muscle biochemistry associated with fatigue. My reservation with solely using this approach is that one may improve fatigue endurance, but you will only see benefit from this after so many repetitions. Your muscle mass will not increase and thus strength will not improve to any great degree. Similar benefits will be seen if you have more muscle mass and use proportionally less of it for a given contraction, and also improved muscle strength goes to improving joint stability and helps in injury prevention. If you are using more than say 15 reps per set, you will be better off, in my view, from doing a relatively high intensity session in the pool, on the rowing machine or on the cross trainer to give the same benefits.
When you start to put together a strength training programme, strength gains will come about relatively quickly and this is encouraging. What is confusing for the athlete is that there is not the associated muscle size increase. This is due to the strength being due to neural adaptations i.e. your brain 'learning' to fully activate the muscle and learning the movement of each exercise thus improving its nerve signals and resulting in an improvement in the weights you can lift. After 4-6 weeks of training, strength gains will be associated with muscle size increase.
Strength training is an area with many factors to consider. The actual exercise performed can vary from using a machine which targets one muscle group only, free weights that train not only one muscle, but other muscles to help control the movement and also actions that train numerous muscle groups and require a lot of co-ordination to perform. I think that from the evidence provided, there is a place for both lower rep weights to improve specific strength for control and also higher rep lifting to improve fatigue resistance, but this should be combined with suitable cardio training for best benefit.
Consider which muscle groups are primarily used when riding. Motocross taxes many muscle groups, both upper body and lower body. Some people suffer from specific muscle weakness areas so training can focus on these, but it is necessary to plan training so that you train muscles in their antagonistic pairs, which means you balance muscle development around each joint. I will not go into a 'How to' in this article as that is a separate area in itself and should not be treated fleetingly.
Consult a fitness trainer with knowledge of the sport to help put together a suitable plan for you that is geared towards making you faster on the bike, especially if that's the whole reason why you go to the gym...
