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No, it definitely is not. They're good at running (well, running sprints of 30-50 meters), but that's about it. Compared to other athletes ofcourse, they would smoke me in any type of physique.
You could say about cyclists that they're only good at cycling, but their physique is way (and I mean WAY) better as footballers. They have more stamina, more drive, and they're willing to go much deeper.
We had a tv-show in Belgium in the 1980s and again in the 2010s, comparing different athletes from different sports to find out who were the strongest overall. Types like rallyriders, judoka's, triathletes, athletes, motorriders, gymnasts, cyclists, mountainbikers, rowers,.. were all way stronger as footballers.
Swimmers didn't came that well out of the test either, they're very strong and in very good shape, but they're basically only good at swimming, because they use a different type of muscles ofcourse.
Yes, EXACTLY...
something else very sketchy, regarding on the red links in the OP's article, which I assume is where its got its 'findings from), only ONE OF them looks legit, yes 1 out of 6, that is!) Many of the links are referencing studies for 'drugs on treating Alcholism' and another one of them is a study for 'low carb diets in young healthy females'!!?
All of those links are well screwed up and cannot be used for any evidence or truth whatsoever in relation to the artice(other than the first link, which is the only one that checks out). The bad study links prove exactly what you are saying and for me to believe any of this I want to see the exact medical studies, not a bunch of rogue links for a study on treating Alcholism etc!
All looks very interesting and clever but delve abit deeper and the cracks maybe start showing... Hmmn🤔 Not convinced, especially by the false links
side note, its abit like beleiving and trusting it as gospel truth, as it's so clever...yet is it? Then you look closer and find the 'discrepencies' and errors, it doesn't look so convincing then.
What is V02 max of elite mx riders compared to Tour de France athletes, top tier cross country skiers, pro boxers, etc.? Does anybody have this data? Is there another metric to compare the fitness level of sports or athletes other than tested or estimated V02 max?
Where did it find and summerise the evidence? From the study links?!
😉
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I find triathlon and moto are about the same in physical exertion but the mental stress of a moto is unmatched
AI gives me some wildly off base answers. It absolutely can not be trusted, though mx is one of the most physically demanding sports for strength and cardio.
Decent rough draft, albeit some quantitative mistakes, if you ask me. Which is all anyone should expect from language models. It took 1 minute to find all the sources. Of course a human should go and check them and know what they are doing as they write the final draft. I wasn’t about to do that for you jabronis.
AI is not to be trusted. It's actually pretty dumb at this point, and it has no idea when it's wrong. It'll continue to improve, but at this point, do not trust it. It simply makes far too many mistakes, some very obvious.
For many things, it appears that it just read a bunch of webpages, then summarized what it read.
I'd rather read the source.
As others have stated, the biggest problem with it now is that a lot of people are considering it to be accurate.
In the future, the problem will be that a lot of companies will use it to save money, while it's spitting out subpar, but just good enough, results.
From a company's perspective, if it saves time, programmers should use it to generate code, then fix the bugs.
From a programmer's perspective, I'm not interested in having my job be to fix buggy code written by Ai or other programmers.
Since we’re in the weeds here, the thing with ai that gets me besides the impact it will have on our decisions and memories and the inevitable Orwellian endgames, is the environmental impacts.
They take such an enormous amount of data / energy to run. They are literally recommissioning nuclear plants solely to power ai data centers.
Is all this really a positive thing? Is it really necessary? Nuclear was too scary and too whatever for our use, but for a tech giants science project it’s ok?
This shits horrible.
Yes, not to mention, right now we are at the onset of AI. So, all the source data it searches is pre-AI, human-generated data. As time goes on, it will be ingesting more and more faulty AI-generated data with a compounding effect.
Wow, good catch! This is one of the biggest issues with AI, source citation. This is a pretty extreme example. The AI tools we build internally do a second pass and check all the citations. Clearly OpenAI is not doing that…
I promoted it again, calling it a liar:
You’re right—some of those links were too broad or not tightly matched to the exact claims. That’s on me. I’ve rebuilt the post so every key statement is backed by motocross-specific studies (plus one off-road/enduro hemodynamics paper and a motorcycle-PPE heat-strain study). Here are the precise sources and the lines they support:
# Motocross is S-tier in physical demand (cardio + force/impact + skill)
**TL;DR:** At race pace, motocross drives heart rate into the high-90s %HRmax for ~30–35 minutes while you absorb repeated impacts, brace/pull with the whole body, and make rapid line choices in full gear and heat. Motocross belongs on any shortlist of the most physically demanding sports.
---
## What *motocross-specific* studies found
- **Real track, breath-by-breath VO₂ + HR + lactate + grip**
9 A-level riders did a 15-min moto on a motocross track. Mean **VO₂ ≈ 32 mL·kg⁻¹·min⁻¹ (~71% VO₂max)**; **ventilation ~73% of max**; **post-moto lactate ~5 mmol·L⁻¹**; **max handgrip strength ↓ ~16%** immediately after.
[Konttinen et al., 2007, *J Sports Sci*](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17497401/)
- **30-min at each rider’s max speed (real track) + EMG**
During a 30-min moto, **HR averaged ~97–98% HRmax** throughout. Lower-body muscles showed **~24–45%** of maximal activation (continuous bracing/absorption).
[Konttinen et al., 2008, *J Strength Cond Res*](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18296976/)
- **Simulated 30-min MX heat (lab track setup)**
Riders spent **~87% of time >90% HRmax**, with increased blood lactate and post-heat decrements in **handgrip** and **Wingate** power.
[Ascensão et al., 2008, *J Sports Med Phys Fitness*](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18974716/)
- **Off-road/enduro hemodynamics (field)**
A 10-min enduro session roughly **doubled cardiac output (~5.0 → ~10.9 L·min⁻¹)**; HR rose to ~153 bpm—clear cardiovascular strain while riding in gear.
[Sanna et al., 2017, *Frontiers in Physiology* (open access)](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5736362/)
- **Hand–arm vibration (*motocross*, on-track)**
On-bike measurements quantified HAV at the hands; **bar/plate/mount choices** materially changed transmitted vibration.
[Tarabini et al., 2020, *Muscles, Ligaments and Tendons Journal*](https://www.mltj.online/hand-arm-vibration-in-motocross-measurement-and…)
- **Heat + protective gear (motorcycle PPE)**
In hot conditions, thermally inefficient PPE **raises thermal and cardiovascular strain** and can impair cognitive/psychophysical function—stacking with MX’s already high internal load.
[de Rome et al., 2019, *Accident Analysis & Prevention*](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001457519306050)
> **Method note:** The on-track VO₂ studies used portable systems validated against the Douglas-bag gold standard.
> [Rosdahl et al., 2010, *Eur J Appl Physiol*](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20043228/)
---
## Why this places MX in the top tier
- **Cardio:** HR near the redline (≈97–98% HRmax for ~30 min) with sustained VO₂ ~70–80% of max.
- **Force/impact:** Repeated landings and bumps → continuous **isometric/eccentric** bracing; measurable **grip fatigue**; significant whole-body/hand-arm **vibration**.
- **Skill/decision-making:** High-speed line choice on a **changing surface** each lap under heavy gear and heat.
**Bottom line:** Two ~35-minute summer motos demand near-max cardiovascular output, continuous whole-body force absorption, and fast decisions under heat and vibration. That cocktail makes motocross firmly **S-tier** for overall physical demand.
And this goes right into my point about the energy and data required for ai searches and analytics.
This is literally just for fun and it’s consuming huge amounts of energy. People ask dumb pointless questions 24/7 and then the tech giants have it working on complex algorithms and whatever else literally 24/7.
Is any of this worth it? Is the energy used worth it? Is the damage it’s guaranteed to cause, worth it?
I know what I think, but would love to see other people at least think about it.
Well, yes, as you previously said though its only the links getting generated wrong and the studies are actually real. Other than that I agree, it is a pretty good summarisation, which has obviously gained its info from the relevant trials and studies mentioned in the links.
I guess the other more negtive points that are being made are also more about AI in general and the longterm effects, rather than what its generated here about Motocross Athletes fitness. I mean it sort of has summarised very quickly what may have took one hours to read and research all the indepth studies.
Its always interested me how people are slightly surprised when you tell them how fit you have to be for MX. Remember chatting with boxers and other sports people and stated that motocross is extremely physical, in some ways not too dissimilar to boxing or other high intensity sports. I sort of got smiled at contemptuously, like 'yeah, right...'.
N.B, Yeah, all good Sandtrack315, as you said, the links to the real studies could be easily found anyway, appreciate you adding them so it makes more sense and reads good now.
I plan to confirm this on Saturday at Revolution MX in SC. My moto times are 8-10 mins typically nowadays. Top Fn tier for sure!
I’ve competed in motocross, BMX, Jiujitsu, and trained hard, but never competed in boxing. All are definitely physically and mentally taxing. Bmx, jits and boxing all use a lot of energy is short burst, while motocross is a long intense burn. They are all very exhausting mentally and physically, but I’ve never been wore out the next day the way I have after a big race.
It's a problem that AI has no idea when it's wrong, and more of a problem that people using it often have no idea when it's wrong. We're in a bit of a conundrum when we want information but aren't in a position to evaluate the information because we're lacking the knowledge required to do so - which can be the very reason we're consulting AI. It takes expertise to recognize expertise, and lack thereof. For example, I can access the results of medical tests online before I have a chance to talk to the doctor. I'm not a doctor, so I don't know what any of it means, beyond seeing that something is or is not within a reference margin - and I don't know what that something is. So the temptation is to let AI interpret the results - after all, we want to know and who knows when the doctor will actually tell you anything. But not knowing what any of it means in the first place, we couldn't know if AI was getting things wrong. So it's handy when you're ignorant and want to understand something, but that ignorance also leaves you vulnerable to being fed false information and having no idea that you're being led astray. It helps, I think, to acknowledge your ignorance and take what you read with a grain of salt, and verify from multiple sources. But that's not what everyone does.
Going back to dirt bikes, I was involved in a comment thread on Facebook about 250 2stroke vs 450 and 250F horsepower. The thread was overrun by idiots who claimed all sorts of crazy things, such as that their stock 25 year old 250 smoker makes more horsepower than a new 450. Many were armed with AI "evidence". I tried explaining that unless we're comparing numbers from the same dyno under the same conditions, the horsepower numbers they're pulling up are useless, They'd just pull up more AI nonsense and tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. It's a little frightening what so many people are so willing to uncritically accept.
This is a snapshot of my 4 laps of vet moto. It’s pretty hard to replicate the complete body fury of racing with other forms of high intensity exercise. 10 minutes of exercise should be really easy but I’m still feeling it after 2 days.
Pit Row
There is no comparison to other sports here. The level of risk that comes in that 2nd moto at a National is above and beyond any data ever tracked. Go ahead and line up with 39 other nut bags, side by side, and see how many close calls you will have throughout the moto. The track is wasted and everyone wants the same thing and willing to risk it in order to get that result.
It's ok if you don't understand, not many do. Just be willing to listen and respect the ones who are or have lived it.
A session of practice laps. I’m 53 so my average heart rate here is theoretically my max hr (220 minus age). Sand track so it’s more demanding. When I ride on dirt it feels comparatively easy. Not an easy sport for an older guy!
Not even a big soccer fan, but "they're just good at running" is crazy work. There are multiple millions of kids trying to make it as a pro every year and for a 12 year old talent for example the chance is less than 0.1% to even make into the bigger leagues. The talent pool is huge, people can't even imagine, same for the NFL and NBA btw. Those are rare gifted athletes among the professionals. You won't make it as a pro, just because you're good at running for 50 meters.
Also you guys really have to differentiate between being athletic, fit and physical demanding. Motocross is for sure one of the top most physical demanding sports, heart rate and specially injuries being nearly unmatched, cardio is definitely up there aswell. But most of the riders aren't among the fittest athletes in the world, except for the absolute top guys in our sport like Jmart, Kenny, Tomac, Sexton, Jett, Herlings etc for example, who could all probably excel in other sports aswell.
The gap in MX between the top guys and just guys who make it to the pro level is absolutely insane though. There are riders who make it to the pro level and still have normal jobs or don't even train off the bike. Something like that is absolutely impossible in most other sports. You can compensate for a lot with proper bike skill and technique in MX.
So one of the most dangerous and most physical demanding sports out there? For sure, no question. Among the fittest athletes in the world except for the absolute aliens in our sport? I doubt it.
Agreed 1000%.
Something that is overlooked in the conversation is outright speed. If you have to sprint to run the pace, you will gas out. But if you can be Jett or whoever and back it down 5-10% from your max, all of a sudden it gets ALOT easier to crank out lap after lap.
What platform / app are we seeing?
Just 1?
2 different ones?
Sorry I'm so old and dense....
Looks like Garmin for heart rate and Litpro for laptimes.
And yet a pro would be faster with a more moderate heart rate. Skill on the bike plays a huge role in the MX/physical exertion ratio. Not saying it’s not very demanding, but we’ve all been passed by that guy who eats a bag of doughnuts every morning.
Take Jett. He’s easily the fastest rider but doesn’t exert more energy due to his talent. Moving roughly equal mass over an equal distance in a shorter period of time typically results in greater wattage requirement. But Jett rides a gear high and flows over obstacles, resulting in lower wattage but greater speed. How? The bike…
That's Litpro for lap times but the heart rate info is from an Apple Watch.
Well that’s obvious. Jett holding my laptimes around Redbud would probably be like his site lap. On the other end of the spectrum, a 10yr old learning a clutch for the first time in the lot will have a ridiculously high heart rate compared to us riding to the start line. It’s obviously a combination of stress, nerves, competition, and physical exertion and not just a straightforward physical fitness test.
Yeah. It’s infinitely harder to be a pro soccer player just due to talent pool. The top guys are literally one in a billion
Show us your V02 max.
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