The Power of Attitude

By Tim Crytser


Attitude - It's a State of Mind

Chad Reed started his season on a positive note winning A1 dispite the muddy conditions photo TFS

The start of the '08 Supercross season may mean the beginning for the Pros, but for the rest of us it merely marks the mid-point of the off-season.  Most local tracks open their gates in March, so that gives you two more months to make sure you are ready when the gate drops. Have you been following the schedules and programs presented here on Virtual Trainer or have you fallen flat on your face in a pile of Bon Bons? Hopefully, you have been able to get motivated and train the way you planned back at the end of last season. If you haven't been as successful as you would have liked, maybe it's not about your training program; maybe it's about your attitude. A good training program consists of four components; cardio conditioning, muscular endurance training, flexibility, and training of the mind (or attitude). There are many articles in the Virtual Trainer archives outlining the first three; Now let's see what we can do about your attitude.

A very important step in the success of a training program is the training of your mind. If you are not 100 percent committed to training, I guarantee you will fail to meet your goals. Getting motivated can be very difficult if you don't learn how to maintain a positive attitude. Bad news is every where, and it's difficult not let all of the negative news affect your attitude. This tends to make you pessimistic about life in general and in turn your training program. A bad attitude leads to bad habits which lead to bad results on and off the track. The most important part of any training program is first making the decision that you want to become a better rider by committing yourself to a training program. Then you must learn how to develop an attitude that will keep you committed to your goals.

Life Events Shape Your Attitude?

If you tend to be a negative person, you must first identify your poor habits and remove them from your life. Pay close attention to how you interpret events that surround you. Your attitude is formed by how you interpret different situations in life. By paying close attention to how you process the information around you, you will be able to identify whether you are a positive person or a negative one. When a difficult situation presents itself, do you look at the situation as a pessimist or an optimist? Do you see the opportunity as a chance to fail or to succeed? Your attitude is shaped by the way you perceive reality and ultimately your attitude is made up of your

When James Stewart was presented this difficult situation in the first turn at A1, I gaurantee he looked at this opportunity as a chance to succeed! photo TFS

thoughts and feelings. Since your thoughts ultimately control your actions, the thoughts that you fill your head with are very important. Usually in life the quick easy way will give you instant gratification that fades quickly, while hard work and dedication have no immediate gratification but will lead to lasting success in the future. If you think negatively towards training and give into instant gratification, you are letting your negative thoughts control your actions. Instant gratification is a sign of a week attitude. If you condition your mind to remain positive, your actions will lead you down the path towards success.

A positive attitude is not simply developed by waking up one day and saying, "today I am going to be positive." Although your brain is not a muscle it acts like one in the sense that it must be conditioned over time to accept positive thoughts over negative ones. Developing positive thoughts requires a great deal of energy and time and will require you to live the lifestyle an athlete. Training, diet, riding and all of the other ingredients necessary to become a successful rider (or person for that matter) must be part of your daily life. You have to live the life of a champion to become a champion. I believe this applies to the guy fighting for a factory ride, right down to the weekend warrior. If you condition your mind on a daily basis like you do the rest of your body, eventually the positive thought process will become natural. A strong, positive attitude will replace the weak, negative one. But in order for this to happen, you have to be willing to make the commitment and work every day on your attitude.

How to Develope a Positive Attitude
In order to develop a positive mind set, you must learn how to control your thoughts and beliefs. Your thoughts and beliefs dictate what your actions in life will be; therefore it is important to learn how to develop positive thoughts and believe in the things that will lead you in the right direction. In the beginning, learning how to control your thoughts can be as simple as forcing yourself to make the right decision. This applies not only to training but all sorts of circumstances in your life. Take a simple example like your diet. The way you perceive food and how it affects your performance on the bike will dictate how you eat. If you have a weak attitude towards your diet and do not believe that eating right is important to a racer, then you will not be able to maintain a proper diet. Instead of taking the easy way out with fast food and soda, force yourself to skip the guilty pleasures like pizza and beer and eat something healthy to remain committed to your dietary goals. After forcing yourself to eat a healthy diet in the beginning, you will see the results of a healthy diet and become conditioned to wanting to eat healthy foods. Your positive thoughts and beliefs relating to food will lead you down the road to a successful diet.

Now training with Aldon Baker (RC's previous trainer), James appears calm and composed in the face of adversity photo Simon Cudby

Developing a positive outlook toward your training program goes hand-in-hand with a positive attitude. If you dread doing your workouts and can't wait for the hour and a half to be complete, then you need to reevaluate whether or not you really want to be successful at MX. If you have not yet accepted the fact that proper conditioning is a very important key to becoming a champion (or successful weekend warrior), then you haven't been paying attention in class. By telling yourself each day that you don't want to go to the gym and that you don't enjoy training, you are filling your head with negative thoughts and are setting yourself up for failure. By thinking negatively towards training you are conditioning your mind to accept negative thoughts. You're in last place and the starter hasn't even turned the card sideways. By telling yourself that you don't want to train, you will most likely look for the easy way out during your workouts and become inconsistent and nonproductive. This leads to failure. If on the other hand, you are serious about your race results, you need to develop a positive attitude about training. Instead of dreading your workout, focus on how a good hard workout is going to lead to better race results. Instead of looking forward to the end of your workout, develop an attitude that your are an animal, and nothing is going to stop you from reaching your goals. Accept the fact that training is not necessarily fun and easy but difficult and grueling. By realizing this and remaining positive you are conditioning your mind to be mentally tough and able to cope with negative events. By getting through a tough workout and realizing that you didn't give up, you are conditioning your mind to be mentally tough and soon a positive attitude will become natural.

Paying the Price in Gym Leads to a Payday at the Track
Developing a tough mental state is part of a good attitude. By training hard and pushing yourself to your limit each workout, you are conditioning your mind to deal with pain and adversity. The next time you are working out and feel like you can't go any further, condition your mind to accept the fact that you can continue on and work even harder. This mental toughness will carry over to the race track and keep you digging for more as the moto wears on. When your arms feel like noodles and your lungs are on fire, you will be more likely to keep charging as the rest of the pack gives in. Because of your positive attitude and tough mental state you will be able to endure more pain and adversity on the track than your competitors. Proper training, and a tough mental attitude will not necessary make you faster; but it will make you faster longer.

The great thing about motocross is that it is an individual sport. Whether or not you fail or succeed is totally up to you. So, as far as your physical training goes, if your arms lock up and your legs give out with two laps to go, you only have yourself to blame. Don't confuse this article for a bunch of rah-rah feel good hype. Like I said before, this is tough work and I'm just telling it like it is. I'm not trying to paint a picture that you have to live your life like Beaver Cleaver; all squeaky clean and perfect. Life is simply not that way. In a world that gets more and more competitive each day, a good attitude and tough mental state are absolutely imperative if you want to be successful in the game of life. 

S:http://www.racerxvt.com

How to Practice Motocross

by Aldon Baker

One of the biggest mistakes I see amateurs and even pros make is that they do not know how to practice. Most people think practice is just going to the track and riding for a couple of hours. That certainly can't hurt, but unless you have time to burn going to the practice track without a plan can be a waste of time. This is especially important for the weekend warrior who may only have one day each week to practice. An effective practice session should consist of more than just pounding out lap after lap. Having an good plan before you reach the track is critical. Most amateurs think that the pros, even though they get to ride almost everyday, just ride once they hit the track. This couldn't be further from the truth, at least with my guys and in this article I will share with you some of the things that we do once we get to the practice track.
Evaluate Your Skills
The first step in having a successful practice session is to evaluate your strengths and weaknesses from the previous race week. It is extremely important to determine your weak points so that you can highlight those during practice and work on improving those areas while maintaining the things that you do well. All aspects of the previous race need to be replayed in your mind to determine what needs improved. Everything from corning, braking and jumping, to speed, endurance and mental preparation must be examined to develop a good plan for the upcoming week. Other key factors that are often overlooked in developing a good plan is the terrain of the next race track (sandy, hilly, hard pack, etc.), the upcoming weather (forecast for hot, cold, wet, or dry), pre-race preparation details (is your gear ready), and travel (when do you have to leave?). Once you evaluate all of these aspects of your racing, you can then formulate a clear plan of action for your practice session.

Make Flexible Plans
Once you hit the practice track it is important to maximize your time on the track. Even though you laid out a plan prior to leaving, you have to evaluate the track conditions and situation once you arrive at the track. If you are lucky enough to ride on your own track or the track of a friend, make sure the track is prepped and ready. Having your own private track to ride on can be an advantage, but can also be a disadvantage if the track does not get prepped to race day standards. Practicing on hard pack dusty conditions will do you no good if on race day the track is groomed with soft dirt that develops deep ruts. If you practice at an open facility, evaluate the number of riders on the track along with how long each session will last to determine which skills and drills you can work on. And don't skip a practice day just because the weather is not perfect. Chances are you will have to race more often than not in less than ideal circumstances so use these days to improve a skill that you may otherwise never work on. With this information you should be able to take your initial plan and adapt it to get the most out of your practice session.

Do not let conditions like this deter you from practicing

Warm-up

Just like on race day, it is extremely important to warm-up before you start to practice.  There are several ways to warm up, several of which have been covered on this website, so figure out what works for you and make sure you are sweating with an elevated heart rate before you hit the track. Do not rely on a few laps of practice to warm-up. Not only does this waste valuable time on the track, it's ineffective. A complete warm-up should take at least 15 minutes and involve stretching exercises. How are you going to stretch while on the bike if you are relying on riding to warm-up? Once you do hit the track, take a couple of siting laps to be sure the track is in practice condition and take this time to determine how you are going to implement your plan.

Warm up and Stretching
Stretch to the Top
Race Week Prep and Pre-Race Warmup

The Plan
Even though it is tempting to start busting out laps right of the bat, I feel that a more effective way to practice is to split the track into sections. By doing this you can work on each turn, jump and straight away perfecting those areas before moving on. This will also give you a chance to work on the areas that you feel are deficient by slowing things down and allowing you to concentrate on those areas. Unlike race day, practice is a time to be analytic about your riding focusing on improving your riding technique. Good quality practice (and repetition) is the only way to develop proper skill through reflexes and reactions. Practice makes perfect unless you are practicing the wrong technique in the first place! The focus in this portion of practice is to limit mistakes. Once a portion of the track has been mastered, you can then move on to the next section until the entire track has been mastered.

Once you master each section (20-30 minutes at most for a section) take a break, and then come back and start putting laps together. If you have multiple days to practice, use the early part of the week to work on speed by doing short, fast motos. If your motos are 15 minutes long, then you should concentrate on 5 minute motos early in the week. Maybe 2 or 3 laps at most. Keep doing short sprint-type motos until you can complete a moto mistake free. If you are having difficulty with a particular section, cut the track back into sections and work on mastering that section. If you have multiple days to ride, build on what you did the previous day by adding time to the moto and increasing the number of motos. The emphasis is still on smooth, fast, mistake free motos. Once you can complete a moto mistake free, you can move on to longer motos up to the time it takes you to complete a race on race day.
What Time is It?

If you can learn to wrench like a pro, you will gain a huge advantage over other riders...even those more talented!

One of the best ways to evaluate improvement is with the use of a stop watch. Have your parents, girlfriend or buddy time your motos. You not only want to time complete motos but individual sections as well. Timing is a fool proof way of evaluating if your performance is improving or deteriorating. Consistency is key, so start out perfecting 1 lap before moving on to lap two. String laps together to make a moto. Set a goal of maybe 5 or 6 laps mistake free. If you get to lap three and make a mistake, start over at lap one until you reach your goal. Recording your times and analyzing them are one of the most important ways of determining if your practice session was successful. Timing different sections of the track (whoops, sequence of turns, etc.) is the only way to determine which part of the track is giving you trouble and where you need to improve.

Perfecting Skills
Perfecting skills that you are weak on is the only way to become fast on all parts of the track. Take a whoop section for instance. The only way to master the whoops is to practice going through the whoops over and over again. Breaking the track into sections and even smaller parts like whoops or turns will allow you to perfect small parts of the track without having to conquer the entire track at once. Again, having someone hold a stop watch on you is the true measure of improvement. Concentrate on perfect technique and before you know it your lap times will get lower and lower; guaranteed!  Starts are another area of practice that get overlooked. The start of the race is the only chance you have to pass every rider on the track; it doesn't get any more important than that! Starts are hard to practice due to the increased wear-and-tear on the bike. It's hard enough for the pros and even harder for weekend warriors. Practice starts at the end of your practice session for at least 20 to 30 minutes. If you are serious, you can simulate starts by buying an individual start gate and be sure to ride through the first turn. Again, it is very important to time your starts and log your results.

Learn Your Bike
Part of every practice session should also be committed to bike setup. Pros have mechanics, so you will have to learn this skill on your own. One of the biggest advantages the weekend warrior can gain over his opponent is in bike setup. The place to learn is at the practice track NOT on race day. Experiment with the suspension settings, different tires and tire pressures, handle bar positions, jetting, etc. to learn how each adjustment effects the handling characteristics of your bike. This is important to learn so that on race day you can make intelligent adjustments to your bike as the track changes. Along with physical training, bike setup can be a huge equalizing factor for the less skilled rider.

Whether you get to practice 5 days a week or just one, having a clear plan of what you need to work on in practice before you get to the track is key. If you put these few simple techniques of developing a plan, practicing skills, working on sections, and learning bike set-up, I am sure your lap times and performance will improve on race day. If you want to be faster than everyone else, not only do you have to train harder than them, you have to train smarter as well. Cheers for now!

 S:http://www.racerxvt.com