Arm Pump Questions

No special exercises. Play with your lever position, bar bend and grip choice. For me, that's "high levers, flat bend with very little 'sweep,' and thick, soft grips." Your preferences may vary.

Also, grip with your knees. 

I am 99% sure I have the weakest arms on Vital, but I never get arm pump.

Ride with your legs. Now, the other 10% can be improved by riding lol.

Really, hanging. If you can't hang for 60 seconds you're "weak" 75 seconds is "strong" and anything over 90 is impressive. varies with weight obviously. 

Rowing. Hop on and go! I usually hit 3-5 sets of forearm workouts or hangs before rowing and it makes it completely miserable because you basically have arm pump for however long you row for. Imagine 15 minutes into a moto, but sustained. 

Finally, ride management. If you've ever been an endurance athlete you'll understand this. You only have so much, and you need to manage it well during the moto. Think ahead, rest your arms when you can. Don't just shut your brain off on the bike and hold on. Be present in the ride and anticipatory of your exhaustion levels and be efficient.

I am using Troll Training this year to get ready for the riding season. The programs uses a lot of interval training and that seems to be the key for me to curb the pump. 

ODI lock on Rogue grips and grip with your inner legs. I don’t say “knees” because people will focus solely on that. All you need is a little pressure from your inner calf to your knees against the bike. 

There's no replacement for seat time.....

and for that exercise "Barry" is doing in that second pic. 

Funny, I would say anything but big lock on grips. Full waffles for me. smaller diameter+grip = low amount of strength required to hang on. Try both!

Jesus Christ.....I actually tried this thing and still have it some where. 

I learned later in life..... strength training every single muscle you can is important , but the 3 most important words you'll ever learn in this sport is Cardio , cardio and more cardio. 

Everything else falls into place once your cardio is on point. Everything you do after cardio is a BONUS!  Young guys , please listen. 

I’ve noticed I pump up less when I implement a combination of these 3 things. 

1. Control the bike more with my legs 

2. Riding frequently

3. Full diamond grips offer a smaller diameter grip which physiologically asks less of your forearms. 

Proper hydration and some sort of vasodilation supplement may help with blood flow. 

Cardiovascular fitness.

Arm pump is one of the most fascinating parts of moto in my opinion. It seems like there are two versions of it:

1: The muscle fatigue caused by poor conditioning and/or riding technique 

​​​​​2: A sort of mental and physiological chain reaction that can and does affect some of the best conditioned and most technically sound riders. The fact that Eli Tomac or Kevin Windham or Jeremy Martin or Robbie Reynard ever suffer from arm pump is amazing to me. They can flat out fly for 30+2 on the roughest fastest nastiest tracks in the world, while running the same pace the entire moto and pulling away from the field. And then at the flip of a switch, they can pump up and finish 8th on the same day. There is something going on there and it almost seems similar to the "yips" in other sports. It's a heart rate spike or an adrenaline spike... or it's that loss of flow state that keeps one from over thinking how to ride. We like to call it choking, but it seems to me that some people are just naturally more susceptible to this sort of meltdown. I've known athletes whose nerves cause them to puke, yet they don't get the yips or "choke" in even the most stressful of moments. And I also know people who get the yips by themselves with nobody watching or caring. 

l do think this second type of arm pump has a purely mental onset, but also that only certain people are capable of having it manifest physically the way it does. 

It's interesting how some guys suggest large grips and others suggest small. I'm in that boat right now where I'm debating ditching my lock on Emig's for a glue on grip that's got more cushion but I've been back and forth on the grip diameter thing. Smaller tells me I'd get more arm pump since I have issues closing my fist when I get arm pump, but I see what people are saying when they suggest that a smaller grip wouldn't naturally give you more grip 

Pre -exhaust the muscles!

Once you have reached a strong pump wait about 20 to 30 min.

Also, the muscles being somewhat fatigued will make use you legs and core more.

Order a set of Fat Gripz for the gym, that'll teach you everything you ever need to know about grip diameter.

You want a smaller grip, I promise. No pro uses lock ons. Start with a full waffle and thank me later.

Try massage. I have a scraper blade and a half an hour or so before I ride I will start working on my forearms and it helps a ton. I also run Steg Pegz and I really don't get arm pump nearly as bad as I used to. They get worked but no more than any other part of my body. 

That reminds me of a conversation with my brother in law when he complained about arm pump. I asked if he was holding on to the bike with his hands, and he called me an idiot and said of course. I told him to relax his grip and hold on with his knees, and could see the flash of realisation on his face.

Ride more

proper technique (pegs on balls of feet…toes in…knees behind toes…hips out…back straight…elbows up…head over front number plate)

proper Breathing (steady consistent breaths in your nose out your mouth).

loose hands, loose wrists, loose elbows, loose shoulders, loose neck

Strengthen your core and legs (this is a must to ride with proper technique).

So many people ride once a month, hold their breath when riding, are out of shape, and ride with a tight upper body and crappy technique and then wonder why they get arm pump…

Here is bad technique:

Here is good technique:

Man I'm like half of the comments in here but titan reminded me of something else.. Bike setup to where you're comfortable is key, obviously... but let me explain. In an interview i saw one time, RC said he was scared of "nose down chad" because that meant he was extremely comfortable on his bike. When you're uncomfortable, it leads to overcaution which we all naturally respond by rotating everything "back". More rear wheel emphasis on everything - jumping, bumps, cornering, and so on. Just like the pictures titan posted, the KTM rider is hanging on and is using his energy to stay on the machine. The bike is taking him for a ride. The YZ rider is comfortable and neutral with his bike, he is not using his energy to hang on but to direct the motorcycle. He is riding the bike. The guys who are comfortable on their bikes tend to keep things flat, and they're not scared of the front wheel. Please don't go get kicked off the front of your bike, but try to move your body up more. Use your core to keep your body over the bars. Your abs should be holding you in place in corners and in the attack position just as much as your arms.

Yeah, the hands are for controlling not staying on. That might sound like a=a but it is not. An exercise that taught me how to discern this is by increasing intensity each lap by 10%. It's easy to ride like a textbook at 60%. Start there and take it up each lap until you're at your normal pace but you're operating inside the parameters you apply at the beginning when it's easy to stay solid. As the intensity grows you'll use more of your mental capacity on "not dying" but the conditioning is in place and the habits are forming. When you start becoming exhausted lower the intensity and keep the form. You're developing fitness here too by pushing past exhaustion and still going but at a lower output.

Cardio and hydration

thinest grips and thinnest gloves for me 

revalved suspension 

Yes, I also like a bigger diameter grip.

Thin grips don't fit well in my palm.

I love when people say ride, ride and ride as a solution. They do realize that sometimes pros get arm pump, you know pros whose literal job is to ride, ride and ride.   

I've found light Bicep work helps. Incorporating Biceps curls and hammer curls using 10-12.5kg dumbbells into my workouts has helped with arm pump

Im the opposite. Thinner/smaller grips give me armpump. There is way to many factors involved to say there is one solution only.

Original lock-ons has smaller diameter than the renthal g165 has that a lot of rider use.

The mcginley clinic. 

Arm pump by definition is too much blow flow in and not enough outflow out. Certainly position, training,  grips etc can help but at the root it is a physiological problem. 

I got botox in my forearms from Dr mcginley. I had tried everything. If youve heard of it ive tried it. At one time I was a low level pro rider and I was never able to combat arm pump. That is until I tried his procedure. Instant cure. 

It's a basic principle. Blood goes and then squeezing of the muscles pinches the blood vessels coming out. Blood backs up. Fascia can't stretch that much. Pump.  He selectively puts botox guided off a CT scan and it doesn't allow you to clamp those muscles. I'm not affiliated with him at all. It's wild how well it works. I can legit get on a bike and hammer and I don't get any pump. I'm out of shape in other ways but I was amazed that I could actually have fun early on in a race instead of having bricks for arms. 

If anyone has any more questions on it I will gladly answer but the efficacy of his treatment is above 90 percent and i can tell you it works on an anecdotal level to a point I wouldnt have imagined. 

I use a grip donut, light weight. Something like this: 

light weight so you don't grip too tight

But all that has ever worked is riding and diet. Diet is anti-inflammatory fruits (raspberry, blueberry, pomegranates) and avoiding any breads, meat, cheese at least on morning of ride/race. Then the rest of me gets tired but I don't have arm pump.  

It’s all good saying technique, but imo what happens is the gate drops & we tend to ride beyond our staying relaxed ability. When racing we are constantly pushing & that pushes us beyond our skills to control arm pump.

The reason top pros pump up is because they also have a limit, we all do.
 

So if your going to ride more, I guess it’ll need to have intensity similar to racing to make much difference.

Ultimately it’s not the easiest sport to avoid tensing up. 

Pros and us weekend warriors here are an apples to oranges arm pump conversation in my opinion.  
 

The pros its way more mental, and bike set up (because their technique and fitness are already on point that they can feel those changes)…

In my opinion, For most weekend warriors its technique and fitness way before its mental…and way way before bike set up.

And I say that because Improper technique forces us to use our arms way more than needed to stay on, and control, the bike, makes it take way to much effort to ride the bike, and makes the bike react randomly to bumps, ruts, rocks etc (which causes us to tense up and hold our breath, and even more tightness), and we don’t have the fitness ride with proper technique more than a lap or two, which magnifies the prior two things….so we mentally overcompensate by gripping the bars to tightly, and pump up…and then blame grip thickness, bar bend, lever height, gloves, pegs too low, or a plethora of other bandaids to the real issues.

In the 70s , LEMMON 714 and a lucky or pall mall