 Pro Hard Enduro Racer: Quinn Wentzel Photo: Zachary C. Bako Joel YounkinsHigh Performance Coach Supercross, Motocross, and Off-Road Racing is tough. And that's exactly why you need to train hard for it. If you're not putting in the laps out on the track and hammering away the reps in the gym, your lack of effort will be on full display when you show up to the races. You know it, your competitors know it, and the fans know it. Pretty crushing to the ego right?
So being aware of this reality, what do most racers and coaches do? If working hard is good, doing more is even better right? Well, 90% or more of the industry thinks this way..."If my competition is working hard, then if I just work harder than them, then I'll beat them." When everyone is working hard, this isn't exactly the kind of pissing match you want to get yourself involved in... Digging Your Own Grave You see, training is stress, practice is stress, and racing is stress (the most stress) on a racer. And when it comes to improving performance, there needs to be recovery somewhere in that equation. If only stress is happening on the body, it can only handle so much until it breaks. When it breaks in moto, it comes in the form of bad performances, crashes, injuries, illness, and mental and emotional burnout. The athlete no longer is improving, and is now getting worse. This is exactly why, when you take a high level racer and they are forced to take a week off from everything, 9 out of 10 times they come back better than where they left off. The much needed rest allowed their body to supercompensate (improve to new levels) and they now feel rested, refreshed, and mentally sharper...You may be surprised at how many times I've had to advise racers to take a week off of hard training leading up to a race. They question my advice at first, but once they feel drastically better on race day, they don't second guess me the next time I recommend this to them... Here's what most programs look like. Train hard all week long to "out work your competitors and to be ready" and then take a day off before the race. The race happens, and then you take a day or two off afterwards before getting back to the grind. If the race doesn't go to plan, the racer starts their week even earlier because they feel like they're not deserving of extra rest and the paranoia kicks in that they need to make improvements right now. As much as I love this attitude and commitment to getting better, you're only digging the whole deeper for yourself, especially if fatigue accumulation was the reason for the bad race for in the first place...And yes this happens way more often than you think; increase the competition, increase the frequency of poor recovery. I love the saying, "with more power comes more responsibility." The more you race, the tougher the competition, the harder you train, all comes with a higher level of responsibility. A responsibility to understand that every move you make, has actions and consequences. One day where you train hard when your body was begging for rest, can literally ruin you for the rest of your week and can lead to a poor level of readiness for the races. The relationship of training and recovery is a lot like a seesaw. The more you push in training and your racing, the more you need to recover. Recovery takes a plan of action, time, and effort to prioritize. If you're just loading up the seesaw with just hard training and there's no recovery to balance or counterbalance it, you just end up with a ton of stress that leads to bad things happening in the coming weeks for you. Recovery is where the body catapults into its better self. Training, practice, and racing literally just breaks the body down, recovery is when the body builds itself up. The gains, the performance, and the skills get improved when you allow the body to actually recover. Pro Tip: When you are properly recovering, it allows you to actually go hard on your hard days. A lot of times riders/athletes believe they are training their hardest, but when they're actually prioritizing recovery, this allows them to take more advantage of their actual hard sessions out on the track and in the gym. This only further drives up performance. How to Recover? Recovery can look a bit different for every person depending on endless variables at constant play. But we can cover some guidelines to help make sense on all this. I'm going to provide some general ground rules that will help you recover the way you should so that you can manage racing, riding, and gym work.
Reading these guidelines, some may think that it doesn't leave enough time to train. But I can assure you, that when you have a full and proper understanding of the training process, when you're able to get very specific protocols in place to create specific outcomes, you can really begin to limit a bunch of junk work that so many riders do or get lead to do by their coaches and trainers. There are also daily recovery guidelines to follow as well. These are non-negotiable on a regular full-time basis if you expect to be properly recovering.
Whether you're having a hard day of training or a recovery based day, these are staples in your recovery. These things impact everything from the ground floor and up for you. When you are properly applying the rules above and you still can't recover, do a self audit on yourself to be sure that you're sleeping enough, drinking enough fluids everyday, eating enough, and lastly looking into supplementation and even blood work. My 90% Rule If you've been following my content in the past, you should remember this 90% rule that I live by for my racers. I refer to it often and I'll speak on it again I'm certain, so bare with me as it's an extremely important concept for sport performance. In school, when you take a test, if you get a 90% on it, what grade do you get? An "A" right? Well it's the same with your performance. We're really never at a true 100% (we never truly arrive), but if you're above 90%, then that's considered your A-Game. Your A-Game will allow you to at your best for the day. This gives you the chance to have your best performance on the track. If you're below 90% than it's you B-Game or worse, and nobody wants that... So when it comes to recovery, your aim should be at least 90% or better. If you're not going to be 90%, then your program is wrong, it's off, and it needs to be adjusted ASAP. I don't care how hard you work and how dedicated you are during the week posting on your social media, if you're not showing up with your A-Game, all that work was literally a waste of time.
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