 Rider: Jason McConnell Photo: Zachary C. Bako Joel YounkinsHigh Performance Coach Here’s the truth: instability doesn’t make you more stable, it makes you weaker at the things that actually matter. Back around 2010, when I first stepped into the coaching space, I was trying to take everything I knew from my experience as an athlete and my bachelor’s-level studies, and build my own training philosophy for motocross and off-road racers. It wasn’t perfect, but I was eager, motivated, and ready to dive in headfirst.
At that time, a lot of trainers in the sport were doing a lot of “balance training” exercises with their riders, both pro and amateur. I saw things like:
Coming from a Division 1 football background, these exercises were completely foreign to me. I assumed they were advanced, the kind of “next-level” stuff I just hadn’t learned yet. It made sense on paper: motocross involves balance, right? So, the more unstable we can make the gym environment, the more it should transfer to the bike. Oh, I was so young, so fresh, and so wet behind the ears at that point in time... The Shift I can’t pinpoint the exact moment my thinking changed; I’m pretty sure it was something I heard from Buddy Morris (a highly respected physical preparation coach), but when it clicked, everything shifted. I learned that training in an unstable environment actually does the opposite of improving physical performance. When your body senses instability, it reduces force output to protect itself, meaning you can’t produce maximum strength or power. When you train on a stable surface, your body can actually produce force and adapt in a way that builds strength, coordination, and performance. In other words, you create stability in the body by strengthening it and teaching proper movement patterns, not by throwing it into danger and shutting it down. Don’t believe me? Try to jump as high as you can on solid ice. Your feet won’t leave the ground. That’s your nervous system protecting you from instability. Present Day Fast forward to today, I still can’t believe how many trainers and racers are still doing this kind of stuff. I know motocross runs in waves of trends and fads, but I thought this one got left behind when Volcom was still on riding gear. The problem is, this stuff looks hard. It looks advanced. Someone standing on a ball while pressing a weight automatically seems like they’re doing something next-level. But what most people don’t realize is that “looking hard” doesn’t equal “building performance.” It just means you’re wasting effort on a skill that doesn’t transfer to the bike, or anything else for that matter. The reason these trends hang around is because they sell well on social media, they catch attention, they look athletic, and they make people think they’re doing something special. But real performance training doesn’t need to be flashy...It needs to be effective. The other reason this approach hasn’t died off is because there’s still a big disconnect between the gym and the track. A lot of coaches haven’t done both deeply enough to understand what actually transfers. So they end up copying what looks like balance or bike control instead of training what actually creates it. Just because something looks similar doesn’t mean it leads to the same result. Real transfer comes from building the strength, coordination, and stability that allows you to control the bike, not from trying to mimic it with circus tricks. Answering Your Questions
Riding a dirt bike is a skill. You improve that skill by actually riding. The handlebars and foot pegs are stable points of contact. Once you’ve learned to ride, you don’t consciously “balance” the bike, you control it through your feet, legs, hips, torso, shoulders, and arms. So instead of trying to create instability in the gym, train those areas to apply more force and create more control on the bike.
The body adapts to whatever stimulus you throw at it, even if it’s useless. If you train like a circus act, you’ll get better at circus acts. You’ll improve your skill at balancing on an Indo Board, but that skill won’t make you faster or more stable on the bike. You’re just getting better at the trick, not the sport.
Physical therapists use unstable environments as rehab tools, not performance tools. They use them to help injured athletes rebuild proprioception (body awareness/feeling) in a damaged area. Once that’s restored, they move back to stable training to rebuild strength and function. If you’re not rehabbing an injury, you have no business doing unstable exercises and calling it “performance training.” Final Thoughts I get it, I fell for the same trap. Unstable exercises look advanced. They look hard. And they look like something that must be helping motocross riders. But they’re one of the biggest smokescreens in the entire sport. If you want to become stronger, move better, and perform at a higher level, train in a way that lets your body produce force and move efficiently. Lift with intent. Control full ranges of motion. Develop stability by getting stronger, not by standing on wobbly platforms. When you stabilize your training, you stabilize your riding.
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