 Pro Women's GNCC Racer: Rachael Archer Joel YounkinsHigh Performance Coach I will start and end this blog post by not taking full credit for Rachael's success or any other racer or client that I've had the privilege of helping. But, I did play a small part in helping her win three Grand National Cross Country Championships in a row. And you can also add to that list, a couple more Enduro Championships too...
This is the Blueprint of what we did during the 2022, 2023, & 2024 seasons to help her win three consecutive national championships in a row. Came Up Short I met Rachael back in 2021. She wasn't a client of mine yet, but we got to know each other on a cordial-friendly basis. My first impressions of her was that she wasn't scared of hard work, and she wanted to win, badly; even though she hadn't even won a championship yet. I felt like we spoke each other's language right away and we had a mutual understanding of that championship mindset and reality. She was contending for the 2021 GNCC Championship that year, but she came up short. Mostly due to overtraining and not being able to recover for the last part of the season when she needed to capitalize on points to seal the deal. She finished second that year. We didn't start working together until 2022. I believe she hit a point where she knew she couldn't just keep training hard and she would need to prioritize recovery and planning if she wanted to become champion. She knew she put in the effort, but she wanted to make sure it was being done correctly. Being that she lived in South Carolina, it was also a positive note that I offer Online Coaching which made all of this possible to work together. She's not someone who needed babysitting to get her work done, it was more of my main concern to make sure she would take a day off to recover as she's always on the go. Between 2022, 2023, and 2024, we worked together and she won 3 consecutive GNCC Championships. Like I said it wasn't all me, it was all her. There were people involved helping her and everyone played their role to help give her an opportunity to do what she does best, winning. I'm here to tell you what I did in my lane, and what I believe helped make that possible for her. Rachael had all the ingredients to win a championship, the speed and skill, the determination, and the work ethic for what it takes. And not just a one time championship run; but to be able to conquer multiple championships and to maybe be one of the best to ever do it. But we had to contain all of that and make sure we were shooting the arrow in the right direction so that she could hit her target. No matter how hard you pull that arrow back, if it's aiming in the wrong direction, you'll always miss the mark. A Peak Behind the Curtain: Here is What We Did As far as gym workouts went, we utilized my standard moto performance workouts, all of the things that Rachael excelled at. Based on her personality profile, she has high levels of acetylcholine and dopamine in her brain. So being focused on a well rounded approach with standard strength exercises (squat, bench, trap bad deadlifts, rows), plyo/shock training, and accessory work like pull ups, glute ham raises, shoulder work were all things she responded great too. Again because of her personality profile, she liked to throw in warm up and active recovery protocols with kettlebell routines due to the nature of momentum which created a productive feeling for her. We programmed in various aerobic conditioning methods based on the time of the year, but once her aerobic fitness was in a winning place, we maintained that volume mostly with her sport specific conditioning. Meaning we relied more heavily on her dirt bike riding/practice during the week to keep the overall training volume on the lower side for her. The next part of it, and the biggest part of it all, was her recovery. She has some considerations that I cannot expand upon, but we had to manage her recovery to make sure that she kept her body in a championship level readiness at all times. If not, her recovery would tank and it would take weeks to months to bounce back. We had a couple of close calls, but between her experience and our plan for her, it never became an alarming issue during those three seasons. Had she wrecked herself at any point during any of those seasons, it would've made it really hard to pull off a championship with how talented and motivated her competitors are. The magic was done in the planning, structure, and dosing. Not some magical exercise or diet plan that we had her on. It was about doing the right stuff at the right time. I started her plan each year by building out her race schedule. From there, the first variable I planned in program was her recovery days with certain ground rules for post-race and pre-race recovery parameters. We had at least 48-72 hour recovery plan heading into each race, and we tried to push the 72 hour post race rule too. This was all considered based on scheduling, how hard/hot the race was, how many races in a row, if there were off weekends coming up, and so on. Some weeks, we didn't even have any hard workouts, we just had some recovery methods and blood flow workouts to help stimulate recovery between rounds. And in the case of off weekends, I'd tell her to go do nothing racing/riding related and go hang out at the lake to recharge mentally and emotionally. We followed a high/low model during her weekly training. We never had two high intensity days in a row. So if she lifted heavy one day or had hard motos on a day, the next day was followed with lower intensity conditioning or more technique type of work that wouldn't require high strain and she could easily recover from as an example of this. On her own, she incorporated deep stretching and yoga at times to stimulate parasympathetic activity. And she did prefer ice baths on a more regular-semi-frequent basis to help keep inflammation levels down. I'm personally not a huge fan of re-occurring ice baths and I prefer to save them just as an ace card. But she responded well to them and it helped keep her inflammation levels down, so in her case, I was okay with it. But like with all the other racers that I work with, we ran a post season phase, an off-season phase, pre-season phases , and in-season phases throughout her whole entire competitive year. We had planned time completely off after the season, but we never let her "get out of shape" so that we never had to push super hard at any one point in the year. We just needed to keep the show on the road and keep her recovery in check. Bringing Her A-Game Like I said, she won those championships, but yes we did work together for those three championships. We were 3/3. Besides her parents, I believe that her and myself working together, was the only consistent piece of her puzzle for all 3 of those championship seasons, 2022, 2023, and 2024. In a world where championships are on the line, and multiple pro women racers can win the championship, you can't show up with your B or C game to any races like what happened to her 2021. My main goal for her for those 3 years was really simple, BRING YOUR A-GAME to every race, and she wins. Winning is really a simple formula, executing it in real time in real life is what is hard and what many fail to do. And I am proud of Rachael for what she accomplished in the last three years while working together and I'm very honored to say I got to play a small part in her journey of becoming the best in the world!
1 Comment
Jerry Cox
12/30/2024 08:54:55 am
Excellent article Joel. Congratulations to you and many more years of success Leave a Reply. |