Make Good Use of Your Off-Season by Preparing Yourself, Your Bike, and Your Body for Next Season

December 13th, 2008 • Comments Motocross Tips
Tags: 2008, 2009, motocross, Motocross Tips, training, winter

Motocross is a fair weather sport, and unfortunately, this limits it to a little more than half the year for us northerners. Most riders take the off-season off, but I strongly believe that the offseason is a great time to improve your performance for the upcoming year. I've posted before on what I plan to do this winter, but this is meant to be a guide more specific improving your motocross performance over the off-season.

Train, Train, and Train Some More

-Photo by mrflip on Flickr.

Fitness is extremely important to your performance in motocross. Both strength and aerobic training off the track can be the difference between a stellar and a subpar season on the track. Contrary to popular belief, the off-season is not a good time to make huge gains in your physical fitness. Rather, the off-season is your chance to lay down a solid physical base for which you can build upon during pre-season training. During race season, most riders focus on riding and recovering based on motocross, forcing them to neglect their training. this is one of the reasons why off-season training is so important. Unfortunately, according to Aldon Baker, most riders underestimate the benefits of off-season training.

Unfortunately, many MX athletes short change their off-season training by jumping ahead and making it sort of a mini-Pre Season period by doing anaerobic intervals and generally race-type workouts. What a shame.

I totally agree with Aldon on this subject. The off-season is an incredibly crucial time of the season, and training correctly during this time period can have huge benefits come race time.

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Tips for Using Bicycle Rollers Indoor as a Part of Winter Cross-Training

November 18th, 2008 • Comments Cycling/Fitness
Tags: cycling, rollers, training, winter

In one of my past posts, I highlighted why I believe using rollers as a part of your winter training program is crucial. However, there are a number of tips, tricks, and methods which can make training indoors on a set of rollers much more enjoyable.

Rollers+Doorframe=Heaven

Many cyclists shy away from using rollers. They have the reputation of being very dangerous, and hard to use. Fortunately, this is extremely far from the truth. When used alone, rollers are very daunting, as the prospect of staying in a 1 or 2 foot wide path while cycling, drinking, or sprinting through intervals is daunting to say the least. Thankfully, a door frame is about the perfect width for you to use your rollers in. If you position the roller frame so that your elbows line up with the edges of the doorframe, the chances of you falling off the rollers is slim to none. You can simply stick out your elbows and block yourself from moving off the side. Another useful tip to prevent falling while on rollers is to remember not to turn the handlebars. Instead, lean from side to side while keeping your handlebars perfectly straight. This makes it much easier to stay upright and prevents the dreaded front-wheel roll-off that many new roller users experience.

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