 Vet Racer & Motocross Coach: Jason McConnell Photo: Zachary C. Bako Joel YounkinsHigh Performance Coach There's one particular group of riders at every race that show up for the most important reason of all to race a dirt bike. And that reason is the fun and enjoyment of being able to twist the throttle for the pure thrill of competition. Those racers are called Vet Riders.
You see, with peewee riders, some are scared, most are learning, and some take it way too seriously. Mini riders and the School Boy aged classes, those riders have a level of pressure to get better and better each year if they want to race at a high level, so it's go time for them. Pro level riders, they race primarily to get paid, money is on the line. But on the backend off all that, you have this group of riders who just show up with their bike for the pure reason of what racing is really meant to be about. To show up, ride their bike, compete, give their best effort, and head home to get ready for the next one... For the sake of the context of this blog, when I refer to Vet Racers, I'm really covering a large population of riders who are 25 years of age and older who do not compete professionally, whether they were ever a pro in the past or always an amateur. The group of Vet Riders can be very broad, all depending on endless factors. Things like past riding history, current skill level, past injuries, current age, time allowed to focus on the sport, and so on will depend on how a rider performs on the track. Off the track, even though this is an extremely broad range of riders we are discussing, I can narrow a few criteria that will fit the mold of a Vet Rider and help dictate how we view physical preparation.
Vet Life Challenges There are two big realizations that all Vet Racers need to remember. When you feel like you don't "physically got it anymore" and you'd "do anything to be young again," there are two main reasons for this. And once we've excepted these two things, we can move on and proceed with a proper plan to execute so that you can enjoy racing on the weekends and enjoy being able to put down solid performances on the bike. First, as you increase in age, so does your recovery time. Secondly, the more responsibilities that you have outside of racing, (life, work, kids, etc) the more that those things take away energy from your racing. This is the exact same reason why factory racers were known to have "man friends" back in the day. It's the same concept as why Olympian Athletes hire people to handle responsibilities for them like paying bills, laundry, cleaning, etc. so that they can solely focus on training. The more stuff that's going on in your life, the more your energy is being stripped away from racing. It's not so much just about "being old" and that's why you can't feel like you can ride and train as much as you used to. Sure some of that reality holds true, but most athletes peak in their late 20's to their mid to late 30's even. The harsh truth is though, that there's only a handful of select Vet aged racers good enough in the entire world to race for a living. And for the rest of the group, they do it for pure enjoyment and the love of the sport. If you're a Vet Rider reading this right now, I promise that if you didn't have to work, had no kids, and could live off of investment funds, you'd feel pretty good about your racing no matter what age you currently are. This is why you see older racers who are able to retire early and they start getting really good on a bike. Because now they have the free time and more importantly, energy and focus to hone in on their hobby. How to Train as a Vet Racer Training as a Vet Racer shouldn't look much different from training as any high level racers. All of the same training principles still apply, you're still a human being that needs to be prepared for the demands of race day. You choose to race, this comes with the territory and you cannot hide from real hard work. You can only use your experience so much until physically you're going to hold yourself back from the results and fun that you want. What's more important to realize are the considerations since the playing field looks a little different for you compared to Mini Racers, School Boy/College Boy Racers, and Pro Racers whose racing is top priority in their lives. You still want to train at least two days per week. Even when you're racing, this will help keep your fitness levels up throughout the year. Being in your mature/older years of life, it's not a great time to let your fitness drop to low levels. The more you age, the harder and longer it takes to regain your fitness when compared to being 18 years old. Because you probably don't get to ride much during the week, you can't rely on seat time to build and maintain sport specific conditioning as what most try to do. Therefore you have to keep your fitness up one way or another. Your muscles will stay in an active ready state so that your body won't be in as much shock after days off of the bike. Training will keep you healthy. We can really make an argument that physical preparation for Vet Racers may be one of the more important racing populations that really need a solid physical preparation program in place. You certainly want to be actively strength training, just like we talked about in 5 Rules for Motocross Strength Training. This will be important for a number of reasons just liked discussed in the 5 Rules blog. Bone strength and muscle size/strength is a very high priority so if you hit the ground, you actually can give your body a chance to not break so that you can make it to work on Monday morning. The more you age, the more your general strength levels drop. The bikes aren't getting any slower, so increased strength levels will help maintain good technique and provide you a feeling of being able to "manhandle the bike." Pro Tip: If you're having trouble recovering from strength workouts, start by decreasing a set off of each exercise to reduce volume and to lessen the training load. For obvious reasons you still need aerobic conditioning. Again the same principles apply as in 5 Rules for Motocross Conditioning. Beyond on the track performance, an improved aerobic system drastically improves recovery time. As we age, it gets harder to recover. But with a high functioning aerobic system, it helps the body cope with stress and the increased blood flow helps circulate waste in which speeds up recovery for you. Pro Tip: Lower heart rate zones will allow you to build general aerobic conditioning effectively, but will minimize training stress and not lengthening recovering times. Shock Training (any sort of plyometrics, jump training, and medicine ball work) will again be beneficial to a Vet Rider. As we age, we begin to lose reactive abilities in our muscles. We become less elastic, neurological outputs decline, and we see a reduction in fast twitch muscle fibers. These are all things you want to keep you feeling young on the bike with faster reaction times. What we don't want is your brain knowing you should do something on the bike in these microseconds, but your body can't send the signals fast enough for the body to respond. So things like Shock Training or any sort of fast twitch exercises (we can include heavier compound strength training exercises into this conservation) will have a very big impact on this. Improved elasticity will improve chances of soft tissue injuries, like achilles tendons, shoulder labrums, and ACL injuries. You can learn more from Plyometrics for Motocross. Pro Tip: Start with low intensity exercises and methods if you're new to shock training. Vet Racer Considerations You may be reading that last part and say, "great, I need to train just like a Supercross Racer because Joel is telling me I'm old and brittle"...That's only half true, and you'll find out which part here soon ;) Yes, fundamentally you want to get as much training in your program as possible that you can recover from, it's only going to help your riding performance and experience. But, like we covered earlier, because you have a life, I know that you can only allocate your time to a smaller degree than a pro racer can, and that includes recovery. So we have to have some ground rules for you as a Vet Rider.
Personally, Vet Racers have been some of my best clients to work with. A lot of Vet Racers treat their own preparation more seriously than a lot of Pros or up and coming fast A Class riders do. They come in all sorts of ages and skill levels, but nevertheless, it's really awesome to see a Vet Racer's enjoyment for racing because they know they can leave it all out on the track when they feel physically confident. In my eyes, Vet Racing is a sacred part of the sport that doesn't get enough recognition as it should. It's a bunch of people (thought I was going to say old guys didn't you? I'm a part of the joke too as I'm in the Vet Rider population) who want to still enjoy racing their bikes who could have all of the excuses in the world. They have the true understanding that you do this because you love it and it's fun. Whether you're 25 or 55, riding a bike takes you right back to the same place as a kid who gets that enjoyment of power underneath them. When you properly train for racing, you get to increase all of the same feelings to a higher degree.
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