 Rider: Jeremy Hand Photo: Zachary C. Bako Joel YounkinsHigh Performance Coach In order to train speed, you have to first understand it. I want to let you in on a little secret — I have a fascination with speed.
Not just in motocross or off-road racing, but across all sports, vehicles, and even animals. There’s something magnetic about speed — the limits, the control, and the sheer capability behind it. In motocross, some racers go fast because they know how to hang it out and ride that edge. Others are fast because they’re smooth, efficient, and make it look effortless. And then there are a rare few who blend both — precision and determination — into a perfect balance that generates blistering speed around the track. Whatever the case, if you’re a competitive racer, speed is the advantage you’re after. “Joel, you’re the fitness guy — what do you know about speed on a dirt bike?” Let me let you in on another secret: I can’t actually stand the fitness industry. The industry has done a lot more harm than good — copy-paste programs, recycled advice, and clickbait “you’ve been lied to” gimmicks. That’s not where I come from. I come from the performance world — the coaching world. My foundation is physical preparation, but that’s only the starting point. Before anyone in moto knew me as the “fitness guy,” I spent years as a Sport Performance Coach, studying one of the hardest things to improve in any athlete — speed. I spent countless hours learning how to make athletes faster. Faster runners. Faster movers. Faster competitors. These principles are what we call Speed Concepts — and they also apply directly to motocross when you pay attention to them. Because here’s the truth: When you struggle to find real answer inside your own sport, you have to step outside the box to find them somewhere else. In a sport where everyone copies the latest trend, or we do this because this is what so and so did, doesn't cut it for someone like me. I’m not a riding coach. I’m a High Performance Coach. I don’t teach riders how to ride — I coach athletes how to perform at their best when it counts. And what I’m about to share with you are Speed Concepts that I didn’t learn from motocross…But instead, from the fastest athletes in the world. 1. Train Speed When Fresh Here’s what every motocross racer says after practice: “I did some motos and finished up with some sprints.” Every single one of them does it backwards. You move the needle with speed when you can fully express it — and that only happens when your brain and nervous system (CNS) are fresh. When you’re fried at the end of a practice session, your CNS isn’t learning — it’s just surviving. Train speed early, when you’re fresh and sharp. That’s when your brain and body actually problem solves it, learns it, and adapts to it. 2. To Create Speed, You Need to Experience It In moto, speed starts with your eyes and is produced by your brain (CNS). If you want to go faster, you must create dedicated time to experience and produce high-speed outputs. That doesn’t happen at the end of a rough and rutted track when you’re smoked. It happens when the track is fast, smooth, and your mind and body are firing on all cylinders. Expose your eyes, brain, and body to real speed — that’s how you reprogram what “fast” actually feels like. 3. Respect Speed Speed is performance. You don’t chase new levels of speed when fatigue is present. Sprint work should only happen 2–3 times per week, max, and it should be carefully monitored. When you truly train speed, it taxes your CNS heavily. You’ll need recovery days after. One of the worst habits in moto is trying to “throw down heaters” every day. That’s not speed work — that’s reckless practice. It’s unproductive and dangerous to the rider. 4. Speed Is an Equation If I were training a team sport athlete to run faster, I’d follow this equation:
Then I’d repeat that system, progressively, until their season starts. The same logic applies to motocross. Speed = Skill + Physical Preparation + Exposure. A rider must be technically sound enough to execute, strong and conditioned enough to handle speed, and consistently exposed to high-speed training to adapt to it. 5. Maximal vs. Operational Speed Here’s where the rubber meets the road, I mean dirt. Maximal Output is your top-end speed — your “heater,” your one-lap sprint. Operational Output is your race pace — the speed you can hold under stress and fatigue. The goal? Improve your maximal speed to automatically raise your operational speed. When your top speed increases, your old race pace now feels slow. That’s how you elevate your baseline performance — not by grinding out endless laps, but by strategically pushing your ceiling higher. Pro Tip: When this does happen, a rider usually feels a dip in their fitness on race day initially because they are operating at higher outputs than they were used to. Fitness will need to catch back up over the next couple weeks. Final Thoughts Speed isn’t random. It’s not luck, genetics, or “just send it.” It’s a skill. A science. A system. If you want to be fast in moto, train like the fastest athletes in the world. Respect speed. Expose it. Develop it. Because once your brain and body know what fast really feels like —everything else slows down.
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