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Edited Date/Time
3/16/2013 6:27am
A friend of mine is going to nutricion konvention. He is going there representing MX as athlete.They going to debate different sports physic demands. Hehe!
I'm sure i read something about serius tests being done on SX and MX riders in the States. Can someone please guide me where to find those again? Thanks.
MX was found to be second only to soccer in physical demands.
I had this debate with guy i was training with, he a road cyclist and he would not concede that there was any tougher athlete than a road cyclist.
Guess every guy really into a sport thinks his it the most demanding
I can not believe some people could say something like "MX is second to soccer in physical demands".
Let me tell you...I follow soccer regularly as it is the main sport here in Europe, and I can say with confidence that this sport is not even in the top 20 of most physically demanding sports. And the best part is, 90% of all soccer players will agree with that.
Sure, there are some guys in great shape a la Cristiano Ronaldo, but the average soccer player has the fitness of a semi-competitive runner.
I would personally classify Tour-type cycling as the mother of all sports brutal, and I would put Motocross in the top 3 of "overall" most physically demanding.
- http://www.racerxvt.com/virtual_trainer/Dr_A_heart_rate.html
- CARDIO-RESPIRATORY AND NEUROMUSCULAR RESPONSES TO MOTOCROSS RACE
The Shop
http://www.moottoriliitto.fi/@Bin/70922/MXtutkimusSuomi.pdf
It´s a pdf, so I dont know if you can use google translation or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ii1iuJCm_8Y
Vital Link
http://www.racerxvt.com/virtual_trainer/Dr_A_heart_rate.html
There have always been talks about some study in the 70's but I've never been able to track it.
Everyone always says (at least the MX guys do) that the MX athlete is the best conditioned athlete in the world. Since you also train Lance Armstrong and are around other world class athletes, where do you think MX ranks?
MX is by far the most complex sport. You have to have the flexibility of a gymnast, strength of a power lifter, endurance of a Tour De France cyclist, mindset of a bull rider, composure of a world poker champion and intelligence of an Einstein. You have to have it all. In other sports you don’t have to have all those ingredients so proportioned. You can always get away with something. If you race cars you can have a better car and be a lesser driver. If you are on a bicycle you can have lesser bike and a bigger set of lungs and legs. But in MX you can’t hide from anything and have to be great at everything. It’s hard to compare the individual things in each sport against each other. Take Lance for instance. He has a bigger VO2 than any of the top MX guys, but what does that have to do MX? Not a lot, because a great VO2 by itself won’t win races because racing readiness is about the entire mental and physical package. It’s not possible to compare one thing in one sport against 5 or 6 things in MX and accurately define a rider’s readiness to race. In fact those comparisons can hurt a rider’s confidence if they believe they’re deficient even though the comparison is inaccurate.
The Study
One summer afternoon a few years back I slouched down in my lawn chair after a solid twenty five minute session out at Gopher Dunes, Canada’s toughest National Track, and thoughtfully remarked to my riding buddy Al, “Do you think there is anything else in the world harder than trying to go fast on motocross bike”. I asked. The Dunes were particularly whooped up and dry on that hot summer day and Al replied without looking up from the goggle strap that he was meticulously adjusting. “No…No I don’t think so” he said. So there you have it. I felt I had been vindicated. I reached into the cooler and pulled out a cold one, as I was done riding for the day, and contemplated. My thoughts drifted back to the 70’s when ABC’s Wide World of Sports would televise motocross once a year. The USGP from Carlsbad, California. I would mark it on my calendar as it was a big day in our house-hold and I vividly recalled that every year, like clockwork, announcers Jim Lampley and Sam Posey would reference some study which supposedly claimed that motocrossers were, next to soccer players, the fittest athletes in the world. The conversation would always go something like this.
Jim: These motorcross racers are tremendously fit aren’t they Sam.
Sam: Yes Jim they certainly are. In fact studies have shown that next to soccer players they are the fittest athletes in the world.
Jim: Is that right.
Sam: Yes it is Jim.
It was at about this point in the show that Dutch Dentist Gerrit Wolsink would dispatch which ever young American upstart had been leading for the first twenty five minutes and motor away to his umpteenth USGP victory. Years passed but the results of this mythical study stayed with me and I must say I have quoted them many times. You all know the scenario I’m referring to I’m sure. Some joker you work with is questioning you about moto. He says something ridiculous like. “Well how hard can it be? You’re just sitting on the bike and riding around”. This is when you use the study results as your standard go to and reply. “Actually it’s quite difficult. As a matter of fact studies have shown that next to soccer it’s the most physically demanding sport in the world”. At this point the tool that you work with always looks at you in total disbelief. “Whatever” he replies and shuffles off. These encounters have always left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied. So much so that I try to avoid them whenever possible. Why, you may ask. Firstly, because I was starting to think that there never really was any study at all, and secondly how the hell can soccer players rate higher than motocrossers. Even in an imaginary study.
The lack of concrete study results continued to haunt me. That was until I stumbled across an old interview that Brad Lackey did. For those of you under the age of forty Brad Lackey was America’s first World Motocross Champion. He toiled away on the GP circuit for many years, instead of racing the US Nationals because he believed that’s where the best riders in the world raced. His years of hard work finally paid off in 1982 when he won the 500cc World Championship. In the interview Bad Brad actually claims to have been part of what may or may not have been the study. According to Lackey the The National Athletic Health Institute in Inglewood, California conducted extensive testing on a group of pro motocrossers which included him in the early eighties, as part of a comparative study of the cardio-vascular, muscle endurance, and flexibility fitness of athletes from various disciplines. Professional athletes from the worlds of track and field, NFL football, NBA basketball and professional soccer among others were supposedly tested. While I have never actually been able to find the specific results of this study, according to Lackey the moto guys blew the researchers away. “They just thought we were a bunch a yahoos” states Brad but after all was said and done “they ranked all of us at or near the top of any sports athlete in the world. We had the endurance of a marathon runner and the strength of a gymnast!” Not too shabby. Especially when you consider the fact that Brad wasn’t at his physical peak at the time the tests were administered. “It was the off-season for me, since I was finished with the GPs in August and I had been lying around since then, getting fat and stuff, so I wasn’t really in the best shape.” Geez. How would he have fared had he been in tip top shape. Dare I say better than any soccer player?
After reading the interview I felt as if I might actually be getting somewhere with this whole thing. Of course those of us that do it know exactly how demanding motocross can be. It sure would be nice however to be sitting at the table at a diner party with a bunch of know-nothing armchair quarterbacks or even out at the bar with the boys after hockey and when the subject came up just to be able to pull that study right out of your proverbial back pocket and say here it is. Read it and weep folks. Motocrossers are the best! Of course I would never actually do something like this but wouldn’t it be nice to know that you could if the situation required it.
Well now you can. Finally researchers at the University of Florida HSC - Jacksonville and Jacksonville Orthopaedic Institute have completed a study in which they examine the physical demands of motocross and supercross. The researchers state that prior to this study very little scientific investigations of professional off-road motorcycle racers has been performed. Yeah no kidding. With the aid of very official looking graphs and tables basically what the study tells us is that the cardio vascular strain of motocross is extremely high and that a motocross racer must be able to maintain this elevated heart rate for a significant period of time. For a professional over 30 minutes twice a day and for us amateurs 15 to 20 minutes, usually four times a day as most ride two classes. Their findings were that the HRmax of a professional motocross racer is greater than that of even a professional cyclist and that a motocrosser will maintain this max over a longer period of time than any other athlete. Including soccer players! This coupled with the strength required to balance and control a 220 lb motorcycle at speed pretty much reinforces what Brad Lackey told us years ago. “Motocrossers are the baddest dudes around.”
I’ll leave you with this. I came across a quote from Dr. Jeff Spencer. For those that don’t know Spencer is a former Olympic cyclist and worked with Lance Armstrong during his Tour De France victories. He is now heavily involved in training motocrossers and his list of clients has included Ricky Carmichael and Chad Reed among others. “Motocross by far requires the highest level of combined fitness of any sport on the face of the earth, bar none.” States Spencer, “I’ve spent 5 tours (Tour de France) with Lance Armstrong and Lance is no slouch. But Lances’ overall general fitness doesn’t even compare to the overall fitness of a motocross racer.”
Click on the link to see the study.
http://www.racerxvt.com/virtual_trainer/Dr_A_heart_rate.html
My one buddy put it this way: Riding MX is like trying to play an entire Paganini violin concerto as fast and accurately as you can while you're bull riding.
Of course, there are exceptions, but that one doesn't quite fit the average moto guy.
Pit Row
For football, your legs have to be in a good shape, the rest of the body does not ahve to be really strong. It is mainly about tecnique.
Cycling is similar, but you need a lot of endurance.
Handball, for example, is a really tough sport. Your whole body needs to be in a excellent shape, you need to run for 30 minutes non-stop, always have to be concentrated on the ball and still be extremely precise!
Mx combines all of them in my opinion. You need the muscles all over your body, legs, hands, arms....., always be concentrated on the track and your opponents, already a small mistake can cause a huge crash.
And you need to do all that for 30 minutes +......
Here's a link to the interview Trainer talk with....Dr. Jeff Spencer
I'd put rugby, triathlons, track cycling, basket ball and a host of other sports above MX in terms of fitness.
Please don't kid yourselves just because you are a MX fan.
Soccer is super tough for sure, cycling (racing) also really tough (the TDF is crazy) but the only thing that really tops MX is Triathalon. Especially at Ironman distance. Combining all the skills needed and add the psycology needed to push yourself that far and it must rank at or near the top of the heap.
I think MX deserves particular note simply because if you get it wrong, the price you may pay is far bigger than any of the other sports mentioned and therefore requires the greatest overall package of skills and fitness to be successful.
I´ love this sport, but lets not try to toot our own horn too much.
MMA, boxing, triathlons, cyclling, I could go on forever....
That doesn´t mean mx isn´t a physically tough sport, but lets try to keep our feet on the ground in search for recognition
An 'Einstein' in our sport I'd argue would be a rider who knows how to manage his situation to consistency and dominance. RC would qualify as that guy. I'd bet he could work with the entire team to produce a rider/bike package that'd win even when the odds were against him. And, he did. His numbers show it.
Now, whether on average a dirt bike pro has to be more intelligent than a biking pro? Dunno. Maybe Spencer was hinting that loading an idiot with PEDS can produce dominance in the bicycling world....lol.
Passo Stelvio, Col de Granon,and numerous others.I also raced mx as a pro and the muscle groups involved are so different. Sure in road
riding your lungs seem taxed more along with your legs,but in mx during a 35 min moto your whole body along with your lungs gets hammered. You also have to add in the mental part of mx which can seem to help or hinder your physical being depending on what is going on during the race,winning,loosing,battling etc. No real mental game pounding out circles other than blocking out the pain. Pretty hard to really make a comparison of the two... JMO!!!
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