Motocross Injury Prevention Thoughts

Joel Younkins

Physical Preparation Coach

We know that racing motocross racing (and all its forms of racing) is dangerous. Anytime someone decides to swing a leg over a bike, the chances of getting hurt start to climb. The faster you go, the faster those chances increase!

Now, I'd love to sit here and tell you that by training properly you will eliminate a large % of those injuries. But because of the nature of the variables at play, we'll never truly know how much we're actually eliminating. But it's certainly worth the effort I believe as a coach looking to help an athlete!

A huge component of my motocross training programs revolves around the goal of building a safer athlete. One that can withstand injuries. I believe Chase Sexton was a perfect example of someone who most criticized how often he threw himself on the ground, however he was the last man standing holding the number 1 plate at the end of the SX season. While many others had one significant crash and bang, seasons done...

A lot of factors are at play obviously, and it takes some luck and things to swing your way.

I also don't like to speak on injuries too much, especially when an athlete is healthy. I prefer to not speak that stuff into existence if I don't have to...But it's something we must be well aware of.

But also simply just saying "injuries are part of the sport" and blowing off the reality isn't good enough in my opinion. My client Jeremy Hand competed in the 250 East Coast Supercross Series, the 450 Outdoor Series, and the 450 SuperMotocross Series. He didn't make it out unscathed, but he was able to compete in all of the races. Which got him to finish in the top 22 in the 450 SuperMotocross standings as a true privateer. While other racers were hurt or sat out, he was there to take advantage of the moment!

So we know injuries happen, they're going to happen, but lets put our heads together and figure out how to better approach this racing stuff so that maybe they can happen a little less...

Let me share my philosophy and try to be of some help...

Here are my 3 Main Rules to helping injury prevention in Motocross Racing.

1.) Train like an athlete: Build your physical stature to help strengthen your skeletal system and allow a couple extra pounds of muscle mass to act as padding to your frame. This will at least give you a better chance to withstand a hard crash. Stretching alone WILL NOT help decrease your chances of injuries regardless of popular belief.

2.) Ride fast when fully recovered: I believe a lot of crashes happen due to fatigue states on the bike. We all know that the margins of error on racing at high levels are very small. And just like when mistakes get made at the end of races due to fatigue, I believe this happens during the week practicing and also not coming into races fully recovered would be a very easy to slam the ground and hurting yourself.

3.) You don't always have to pin it: Part of training hard is to put in the work, do your moto's and sprint work, but also take time on your other days to drill technique work. Also, in the gym it's important to go hard, but it's also important to know when to dial things back. Know when to push and know when to dial things back, everything has a time and place...

Your body's readiness fluctuates on a daily basis. Sometimes it's low and sometimes it's high, you want to time it up right so that when you're sending it on your bike, it's 90% or above in those times. You don't want to be at 80% asking your body to push at 95-100% of your pace...This is where things will go wrong FAST.
Hopefully this helps or at least you can consider some of my philosophy to help yours!

Coaching

The JYT Moto Method 2.0 eBook