Motocross - The Most Physically Demanding Sport
“Motocross exists because football players need heroes too”
“It can’t be that hard”, “you’re just twisting a throttle”, “the bike does majority of the work for you”. If I had a dollar for every-time I heard somebody say this I would be financially better than Elon Musk. To the untrained eye It’s very easy to label sports where man meets machine as something physically “easy”. I get it, on paper it appears the bike is doing majority of the work but It’s a sport that requires 95% of your entire mind and body, and only 5% of the machine. As I write this article I still hear the echoes of my motocross coach, the great Colleen Millsaps telling me she doesn’t care how achey my muscles are or how out of breath I am. “To make it in this sport, there is no such thing as weakness; it takes blood, sweat and grit”.
At the age of four my father introduced me to the sport of Motocross. It will always remain my first love and sparked my obsession with anything related towards two wheels. I grew up watching the greats from James “Bubba” Stewart, Ricky “the Goat” Carmichael, and Australian sensation Chad Reed. Every Saturday my father and I went riding at our local track, where I burnt through gallons of gasoline. I was known as the kid who never took breaks and spun laps till I ran out of gas. From my days as a youth all I wanted was to be the first Jamaican to make it professionally and race with the best in the world. After long days of riding, my father and I would come home to wash our bikes, and conclude the day by watching the pros race on TV. I don’t remember much of those years but I’ll never forget I relentlessly told him “I’m going to be on this TV soon”.
• Unfortunately there isn’t any substantial amount of studies done on Motocross athletes, therefore the bulk of this article will be based around my personal experiences and what it was like training at a professional level.
Motocross racing requires a significant use of anaerobic capacity, total body strength, and handgrip strength. I’ve done almost every sport in high school from cross country, track, swimming, tennis, and basketball; nothing and let me repeat NOTHING comes close to the physical demands that is required for motocross. Motocross isn’t the most athletic sport, but I state with a strong chest It’s the most physically demanding. A typical race consists of 30-35 minutes completely covered in gear weighing 10-15 IBS , battling different obstacles that include: Ruts, breaking bumps, other riders, and you are man handling a machine that weighs over 220 IBS. Motocross is highly anaerobic and pushes your heart rate to levels you never thought possible. Throughout a race, a typical motocross athlete is living within a high zone 4 to zone 5 heart rate. A heart rate of zone 4 consists of 75-85% of your functional capacity, while zone 5 is 90-100%. The fitness level to maintain those heart rates for an extended period of time takes tremendous cardiovascular endurance. A study done on seven professional motocross athletes measuring their muscle strength and VO2 max showed that after 30 minutes of riding their oxygen use dropped 86% to 69% of their maximum during the ride. In that same study five hobbyists were also measured; the results showed that their oxygen use dropped from 94% to 82%. Both groups maintained high levels of heart rate with the pros close to their maximum at 97% and the hobbyists at 98%.
When I was seven years old my father was met with an unfortunate accident on the bike. After his surgery he suffered a stroke that permanently left him with global aphasia; A neurological disorder that occurs when there is damage to the left side of the brain that controls language and comprehension. After my father’s accident I had no choice but to hang up my boots. As the years went on I continued to watch the pros on TV, I explored the beauty of other sports, found success in track and field, but in my core all I wanted to do was race my dirt bike. Six years later I went crying to my mother to let me start riding again, my pleading worked to my surprise. It took a while, but thanks to her support I was able to start again. However that was short lived, at the age of 15 (2 years after I started riding again) I began having consistent seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy, placing me back on the familiar sidelines. I continued to explore other forms of athletics and grew a new love for the sport of clay target shooting.
No matter if you’re a pro, amateur, or weekend warrior, motocross takes a sheer amount of focus in order to stay off the ground. When moving at high speeds everything is coming at you intensely fast, and requires your reflexes to be vigilant. Being unfocused for half a second could be the difference of having a great day or in the back of an ambulance. With every lap around the track, the terrain is constantly undergoing erosion. The erosion challenges your abilities to more obstacles such as breaking bumps and deep ruts that you’ll have to strategically plan for in a matter of seconds. Every bump and landing off a jump your muscles are persistently undergoing stress and absorbing all the impact. Lower body strength is equally important if not more important than upper body strength. Although your turning the bike with the handlebars, your lower body is just as responsible for the maneuvering of the machine. Because your legs are connected to the bike more than your upper body It’s vital for motocross athletes to have: Strong quads and hamstrings to squeeze the bike, complimenting with strong calves and glutes to serve as an additional shock absorber to soak up the impact efficiently. By intentionally using your lower body to maintain control you prevent overexerting the upper body to hold on to the machine.
<— Notice the use of legs/lower body to keep the bike straight in the rut.
It’s not as easy as it looks…
As the years went by I managed to keep my seizures under control thanks to my medication. Once again I begged my mother to let me get back on the bike; it worked after some more pleading. The dream of racing professionally never left me, and I knew something needed to be done quickly because college was around the corner and I was running out of time. With my mothers blessing I was able to begin my training at the Millsaps Training Facility (MTF) that has a reputation for creating some of the best Motocross athletes the world has ever seen. I was welcomed by the great Colleen Millsaps who saw that I had a lot of catching up to do but she believed in my potential more than I did. Within two short years I gained prolific levels of speed, confidence, and resilience. The improvements were rapid and I was getting one step closer to my goals; unfortunately I was met with an accident that left me with 3 broken vertebrae, the most notable being my C1 that’s wide open to this day and will remain so for the rest of my life. Once again I found myself hanging up my helmet, boots, and jerseys only this time I knew it was forever which made it more painful.
Motocross is a grueling sport that is often overlooked, and if you’ve never ridden a dirt bike on a proper track you’ll never get a complete understanding for how difficult it is physically and mentally. A motocross athlete at the top of his prime is just as conditioned as any other runner or cyclist. A motocross fitness coach by the name of Alan Milway measured one of his athletes who compete on the European circuit and discovered that throughout the entire 35 minutes of racing, his athlete stayed between 185-190 beats per minute (Zone 5). Other action sports such as mountain biking and sport bike racing (Moto GP) include motocross as a training tool to keep their endurance and mental aptitude sharp.
I spent months and years shedding tears. As sad as it was saying goodbye to my first love it planted dozens of seeds that birthed a field of flowers. I never got to live out my dream very long but I lived it. I was training alongside some of the best in the world, I was the first Jamaican to compete on an international stage, and learnt lessons that will hold my hand as I conquer this life. I used the injury that plagued my career as a chance of rebirth; to become the most disciplined, the healthiest, and strongest young man I could possibly be. I discovered the world is mine, that shooting for the moon is limiting myself, and that I’m capable of achieving anything I want.
Failure isn’t finishing last, the real failure is when you quit
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