Tag Archive for: Training

Key Components to Early Season Fitness and Speed

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In an attempt to make up for the lost time associated with winter, motocross riders and other athletes have a tendency to get a little overzealous during early season workouts, which frequently results in injuries and/or performance frustrations. By implementing these four strategies, you will make early season training both productive and injury free.

Establishing Your Physical Weakness Profile – Maximize Your Training Efforts

“Strengthen your weaknesses and race your strengths” is the motto that I say to all of my clients, because as humans, we spend the majority of our time doing things that we like and that we are good at. To make the greatest progress within your training program, you must identify what you are not good at and start there. Establish where you are lacking muscular strength, endurance, lactate tolerance, and don’t forget the non-sweating disciplines of flexibility, plus consider nutrition and realistic goal setting. Begin where you are the weakest or have room for the most improvement (relevant to your personal goals). Early season baseline testing will help pinpoint your weaknesses as well as capture your current maximum heart rate for that specific discipline.

Establishing Heart Rate Zones – Avoid Injury and Burnout

By not knowing how hard you are actually training (versus perceived exertion), athletes and riders run the risk of injury and burnout. Actual intensity levels need to be monitored with a heart rate monitor to ensure you are training within your aerobic zone for the majority (not all) of your early season efforts. Please note that you must establish your heart rate training zones for each discipline that you train. For example, if you use the Concept 2 rower as a cross training tool for motocross, you cannot use your heart rate zone from the bicycle; more muscles are engaged during rowing than cycling which results in a different max heart rate number and associated heart rate zones. Over my last 37 years of coaching, I have seen the use of generic formulas (i.e., 220-age) have a margin of error as high as 30%. The assessment of your pre-season max heart rate can be captured with a simple pre-season max heart rate assessment.

Establishing A Personalized Eating Plan – Determining What Works and What Doesn’t

The food you eat has both a long- and short-term effect on your body. An immediate influence of food is reflected in your energy levels and mood. A long-term influence includes the building and repairing of lean muscle tissue and bones. Research has validated that the muscles, bones, connective tissue, and skin that is on you now is the result of your food intake over the last six months. By keeping a detailed food log and comparing it to your training log, you can get feedback on what is working immediately (i.e., energy levels to complete a high-quality workout or early season race), as well as the long-term (i.e., body measurements indicating increased muscle and decreased body fat). Don’t be intimidated by this process. Humans tend to eat 15-20% of the same products each day. By following a consistent eating plan, you can determine the positive or negative effects of a new food item added to your eating plan.

Establishing A Soft Tissue Maintenance Plan – Maximizing Power and Endurance

Chiropractic and massage are two modalities that should be a part of every athlete’s routine for one simple reason: tight muscles pull bone out of alignment, and misaligned bones keep muscles tight. It is the same as if you pulled the ends of a rubber band far part. No matter how much you rub the center, the band is still tight. You have to get the attachments of the muscles to the correct position before you will get the tension out of the muscle. The reverse is true as well. If you get an adjustment and the muscles are tight, the muscles will simply pull the bone back out of alignment. Lining up the spine and removing tension within the muscles will result in better strength and improved endurance.

 

This article first published in Issue #75 of Endurance News, June/July 2011

 

The Familiarity Principle

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Your Morning Weight

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Your Evening Weight

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Concussion Dangers and Side Effects

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In a previous article I outlined what happens to the brain when a concussion is experienced, and the four stages associated with a concussion. (Note: if you need a copy of this article, please email me and I will send you a copy of the article). In this article I want to outline the associated dangers and side effects of a concussion.

Defining a Concussion

Research has validated that you don’t have to be knocked unconscious to be classified as a concussion. We now know that a hard hit to the head without losing consciousness can result in damage to the brain tissue and the neurons and nerves embedded within this tissue. Initial symptoms of concussion include, but are not limited to disorientation, headache, vertigo (loss of balance), nausea and vomiting. The secondary symptoms include, but are not limited to mood swings, insomnia (not able to sleep), memory loss, inability to talk without slurring, sensitivity to noise and light, sudden symptoms of being clumsy and unable to hold onto things without dropping them unintentionally.

Health Dangers Associated with a Concussion (only made worse by multiple concussions)

You have rattled your brain, extensive research has validated that a second mild concussion shortly after the first can add up to a lifetime of physical disability (troubles with balance, walking, eating, etc.) and cognitive disorders (inability to focus, remember, perceive analyze and blend sounds, delayed processing speed which makes it difficult to take a test, tie your shoes or answer questions).

How to Handle a Concussion

First and foremost, discontinue any more activity – no matter what anyone says (reference the long-term complications outlined above)! According to the American College of Emergency Physicians, the following criteria must be met before a patient is released from the hospital after incurring a concussion:

  • Patient is alert, oriented and able to follow simple commands
  • Patient has no suggestion of skull fracture (which can include some subtle signs, such as bruising around the eyes or behind the ears, blood behind the eardrums, or clear fluid leaking from the nose or ears)
  • Patient isn’t taking aspirin or other anticoagulants (a substance that keeps the blood from clotting)
  • Patient hasn’t had a seizure
  • Patient can remember events up to 30 minutes before the injury
  • Patient is younger than 65 years of age

Ironically, even if you pass the criteria outlined above, the next round of questions stems around the nature of your concussion:

  • Did you fall from higher than three feet?
  • Did you vomit more than once after the injury?
  • Were in a car accident?

If you answer yes to any of these questions, then you need to cat a CAT scan (CT Scan) of your head to ensure that there are no signs of inflammation or swelling. If the CT scan comes back normal, you will need to ensure that someone is with you at your place of residence to wake you up every two hours and ask you simple questions like: What is your name, what is today’s date, when is your birthday, etc.?).

How Long to Wait Before Resuming Training & Racing

This decision needs to be made by a qualified physician and no one else. When you realize that you are making a decision about your brain and your long-term health, clearance to resume training and racing needs to be made with medically backed supervision. The reason for this is two-fold. First, the physician is providing you feedback without emotion: your body is either ready to resume training and racing or it isn’t. Second, if your physician is saying that you are not ready to train and race, he/she is keeping you from injuring yourself worse. This occurs as a result of your brain not being clear and the lack of skills necessary to safely train, ride and race: depth perception, ability to process speed, etc. This situation will result in you hitting the ground again and causing not only a delay in your return, but worse, causing more damage to your head and associated bodily functions.

I realize that you love to train and race, but you have to respect the fact that you have only been provided one brain and it is literally the center of your existence – if your brain is injured, the rest of your life will suffer. No puns intended, but think about this…

What Happens to the Brain When You Get a Concussion?

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Inside your skull you have cerebrospinal fluid and of course your brain. A violent impact causes your brain to vibrate and sometimes even bump against the skull bone. If the force is too much, you end up with a concussion. Ironically, the trauma that occurs when the brain hits the skull is often not evident because the damage is on the inside.  It is known as the “Silent Injury” according to Dr. Lovell from the University of Pittsburgh’s medical center which researches concussions.

Once common mistake is assuming that because you didn’t get “knocked out”  the hit to your head was minimal. If you experience vomiting, dilated pupils, loss of smell or taste you should visit with a neurologist immediately. Additional negative symptoms after a head impact are headaches, dizziness or memory loss lasting more than five days or delayed memory of easy questions (i.e. what did you eat for breakfast yesterday morning?).

Four Stages of a Concussion

Impact to the head – The most common causes of concussions are falls, car accidents, impact sports and explosions. The trauma causes force to the head in two directions: linear (forwards and backwards) or rotational (side to side). These forces literally cause your brain to “slosh” within the cerebrospinal fluid and bump up against the skull.

Inflammation – Trauma to the brain can damage neurons, the cells that govern the flow of chemical messengers known as neurotransmitters. In the worst-case scenario, those damaged neurons lose control of the neurotransmitters, allowing them to accelerate up to five (5x) their normal speed. The resulting chemical acceleration can cause memory loss, blurred vision, dizziness, headache and nausea.

Hibernation – Your brain’s cortex detects the neurotransmitter imbalance and tries to fix the neurons by calling for a surge of healing glucose. At the same time, calcium neurotransmitters start constricting the blood vessels, delaying glucose from reaching the neurons. Your brain function slows until blood flow returns to normal.

Recovery – Healing the neurons within your brain can take several weeks.. However, if you sustain another concussion during this period, you could suffer permanent damage and a lifetime of headaches and other adverse side effects. Though it is hard for competitive athletes,  staying away from the potential of re-hitting your head, rest and proper nutrition will facilitate the recovery process.

Note: if you experience headaches after hitting your head, DO NOT consume aspirin or ibuprofen (this may increase your risk of brain bleeding); instead use acetaminophen.

How Strength Training Results in Faster Lap Times

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There are numerous professional opinions on whether or not strength training should be an instrumental part of a racer’s training program.  In my opinion, strength training is imperative for the successful racer at multi-day races like Loretta Lynn’s, Ponca, Lake Whitney and Oak Hill. Overall body strength will help prevent the effects of cumulative fatigue and allow for proper bike position and efficiency on the bike throughout the entire week of racing.  Also, full body strength is a complement to the other elements of a complete performance training program: endurance, flexibility, nutrition and mental preparedness.

Let’s take a look at three direct benefits of strength training from a physiological stand point and how it relates to motorcycle racing.  First, it will increase the amount of force your muscles can exert on a particular object.  As a racer, moving a motorcycle around that weighs anywhere from one hundred to two hundred plus pounds for any extended period of time requires strength levels above the typical athlete that only has to concern himself with one’s body weight.  When you add both the weight of the rider, the weight of the motorcycle and the law of physics that exponentially adds resistance to the working muscle, force is a key component for finishing a race as strong as you started.

Second, strength training will permit your muscles to reach a maximum output of force in a shorter period of time.  Even if you are not a big fan of science, hang in there with me for this concept.  Weight training will increase and facilitate the balance of strength in all working muscles and the resulting motor units (which include motor nerves and muscle fibers).  One nerve impulse can charge hundreds of fibers at once; a rapid series of multiple fiber twitches can generate maximum force quickly and for a long period of time.  Weight training will “teach” your nervous system to recruit a wide variety of fibers.  As one group of fibers fatigue, another group will be prepared to relieve the fatigued group.  Without getting to complex, think about nerves as messengers from the brain which control every physical response.  If motor nerves don’t “tell” the muscle fibers to twitch, your muscles won’t contract.  The entire concept behind physical training is to teach your nervous system, with repeating particular muscular movements, to get the correct message to the working muscles.  With a diversified strength program, you will initiate a message to include the number of fibers to be recruited, type of fibers used (fast twitch A or slow twitch B) and frequency of contractions.  Remember, a diversified training program will recruit all of the fibers and the types of fibers needed for the required physical demands.  This is the purpose behind sports specificity and related workout – the more specific the more productive.

Finally, the duration of time your muscles can sustain the level of force before exhaustion is extended.  The overload principle is based on the concept of subjecting the muscles to slightly more load levels than it has incurred in the past.  With incremental load levels, the muscles will increase the fiber solicitation and corresponding recruitment.  With proper rest, the muscles will grow stronger by developing new muscle tissue as an adaptation to the load levels.  With increased muscle mass, the muscles are able to exert higher levels of force and for extended periods of time before exhaustion.  To capture a better idea of this concept, imagine you have muscles that fall under the category of primary and secondary muscles.  The primary muscle groups are the obvious muscles that are responsible for assisting movement.  The secondary muscle groups are also referred to as “assisters” for primary movement.  However, once the primary muscle groups fatigue, the secondary muscles are required to step up to finish the task at hand.  Strength training makes this task familiar to the secondary muscle groups at both the muscular and neuromuscular levels.

Three indirect benefits of strength training include stronger tendons and ligaments, greater bone density and enhanced joint range of motion.  Concerning tendons and ligaments, weight training will increase the size and overall strength of both which will increase the stability of the joints that they surround.  Bone density will increase as a by-product of tensile force being placed on the bones – without this tensile force, the bones will actually become brittle and susceptible to breaking.  An increased range of motion at the joint is due to the increased strength and size of the tendons and ligaments.  This increased strength will enhance the ease of mobility within the joint due to tendon and ligament strength and resulting efficiency.  When you look at all three of these components collectively, they address the concern of every racer: broken bones and torn up joints (particularly knees).  Keep in mind that the ultimate goal of the muscles and a self- protecting mechanism called the Golgi Apparatus are to keep the bones from being taken outside the normal range of motion.  If your have a strong muscular system (accompanied with good flexibility), you will be able to take large impacts without the typical injuries because your body has the proper mechanisms to protect itself.

As a top racer, you need to identify your weaknesses and address these variables specifically.