MX Winter Training: Why/why not MTBing during the winter?
Winter is coming. The titles have been divided, the battle has been fought to the end. But what do we do with the coming period without competitions?
Now a period of complete rest is approaching for most motocross riders, the winter break. But how do you survive this period? Everyone has heard it said: “You win the championship in the winter” or “I had a good/bad winter”. What do they want to say with that? Is it true that you can win a championship in the winter?
Of course you can't win an outdoor championship in the winter. A motocross race or championship must always be ridden. There are numerous factors that can throw a spanner in the works and cause you to miss out on the opportunity to win a title, such as an injury or engine failure. However, you can easily lose a season in the winter by not preparing yourself properly. In the next series of articles you will learn all kinds of tips from Physical Coach Yente Dourte (Coach at X Performance and Energy Lab) to ensure that your winter preparation runs optimally.
During the winter months we see a lot of motocross athletes out on their mountain bikes. Every weekend there is a mountain bike tour here and there that you can participate in and you usually bump into a familiar face from the motocross world. But what about now? As a motocross rider, should you ride a mountain bike during the winter? Are those training sessions not too intensive or can I train intensively every day during the winter? This article explains everything about intensive training, enjoy reading!
The intensive endurance or the yellow-orange zone as some of us also know it is a very important zone during cycling. If this zone is not sufficiently developed, we will have a greater chance of completely acidifying too quickly during cross-country skiing. Of course, we must always take into account the period we are currently in. During the winter it will be especially important to perform sufficient basic training in combination with an intensive stimulus 1 to 2 times a week, depending on your training volume in that week. How do you best determine when you can perform such an intensive training and how do you build it up?
– Blocks
The structure of an intensive training often consists of several blocks. The first block will almost always be a warm-up where the intensity builds up slightly but feels easy. After warming up, you can apply different ways to shape your training. An example is the pyramid system, 1:1 system, 2:1 system, 1:2 system, 1:3 system, ... As you can see, numerous systems that you can fill in with all possible volumes. Below I give some examples:
Pyramid system: 3 min. Zone 1 1:2 system: 5 min. Zone 4
3 min. Zone 2 10 min. Zone 2
3 min. Zone 3 5 min. Zone 4
3 min. Zone 4 10 min. Zone 2
3 min. Zone 3 … (1x effort, 2x rest)
3 min. Zone 2
3 min. Zone 1
As a final block, I always recommend a thorough cool down so that the muscles feel less heavy after training.
– 80/20 ratio
Especially during the winter, we try to plan an 80/20 ratio in the training program of motocross athletes. This means that they will perform 80% of the training in zones 1 – 2 (green) and 20% in zones 3 – 4 (orange, red). This ensures that the athletes build up good basic endurance during the winter, but are also not rocked to sleep too much and occasionally have an intensive stimulus.
– Zones
The last and probably most important part of an intensive training is knowing your heart rate or power zones. These zones can be determined in different ways, some examples are quickly listed here: Exercise test with lactate measurement, exercise test with oxygen measurement, maximum exercise test, field test or similar formulas that theoretically determine the heart rate zones. Nowadays you can easily have such an exercise test performed by the doctor or a certified exercise coach. Many coaches use different ways to determine their zones, which is why not every coach/trainer uses the same number of zones. Below is an example of what training zones can look like.
In short, can you go MTBing during the winter? Yes, as long as you perform enough gentle training during the week to build up your basic endurance. Remember the 80/20 ratio!
Have fun with your intensive training! For more information about this article, you can always send an email to: Yente.dourte@motocrossmag.be
text: Yente Dourte
photo: Dieter Jans
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