lap speed – Complete Racing Solutions

1: Practice Specific Race Scenarios

Set up your practice sessions to simulate a true race scenario (duration, track conditions and intensity levels). Skills associated with racing require that you are able to manage yourself and an environment around others with the ability to adapt to changes of pace, positioning and where decisions have to be made quickly. You have to learn how to get the most out of your performance environments by setting up the closest scenario possible so that you can adapt and improve both physically and mentally as a racer.

2: Warm Up

We all have experienced the fact that our lap times get faster as the race transpires. This is because the body is warmed up and the muscles are performing at an optimal level. The trouble is we allow the first two laps of the race to warm up our bodies which results in slower lap times early in the moto.

3: Eat a High Quality Snack

To top off your blood sugar levels, in your muscles for movement and in your liver to feed your brain for processing, eat an easily digestible snack 10 minutes before your practice or race. Through our research, we have determined that when a rider struggles to get up to and maintain potential speed it is directly related to food (quality & quantity).

4: Practice Your Speed Work Early in Your Riding Session

Now that you have topped off your blood sugar levels with an easily digestible snack and jump started your metabolic engine by warming up (ideally for 20 minutes), you can now handle higher intensity levels. The key to breaking into faster lap times is to implement your speed intervals early in the workout so that you develop both the mental and physical skills necessary to create consistent speed and eliminate late moto fatigue.

5: Break Speed Ruts

Capture your lap times for 10 lap moto as well as a 20 lap moto. What you will find is that there is not much difference in your speed no matter how long the moto lasts. This is a perfect example of a speed rut. In the world of human performance, the body should always be able to perform at a higher rate of speed for a shorter period of time; we refer to this as the inverse relationship between volume and intensity.

6: Implement Fundamentals

Instead of focusing on throwing more effort into going fast, slow down and apply the appropriate skill set to maintain speed and momentum throughout every lap. The most inefficient racer is the one that bounces off the face of everything and blows through every corner – losing momentum which results in lower lap times. If you want to improve not only your overall speed but also your endurance, focus on applying the skills developed through your riding coach that include the utilization of your break, clutch, throttle and body position.

7: Film

Every factory team films, why aren’t you? If there is a section that you can’t figure out, film the riders that did. This is helpful prior to heading out for your first practice – what is the fastest approach to a section, body position, etc.. Duplicate what others are doing to get through the section fast on your first lap verses taking four laps to get up to full speed. Most everyone has a smart phone these days with a pretty good camera, so use it! Keep in mind that the brain learns in many ways, watching and implementing are two of the most powerful to increasing your speed!

Riding fast (and for a long period of time) is within your reach—it’s not just for the genetically gifted or factory riders. Many times, the simple things hold you back: quality/quantity of sleep, food, hydration, mental outlook, proper warm up and preparation to name a few. It goes without saying – you must put in quality training (both on and off the track) to develop speed. However, many racers are surprised to learn that what they do off the track makes a big difference regarding how fast they go on the track. Use these six simple training strategies to improve your lap times.

1. Sport Specificity

You won’t become a faster racer by climbing rocks. As a racer, sport specific speed and efficiency requires two elements. First, the pattern of joint and muscle coordination must be specific to your racing. Second, you need to make sure that you are subjecting your body to the exact conditions and effort levels that you will experience on race day. Through a year-long performance program that is based on the scientific overload principle, an athlete will move his or her level of speed and endurance to the next level incrementally from week to week and month to month.

2. Work Smart, Not Hard

Make the most of every workout by working out with a purpose. Before you embark on a training program (both on and off the track), establish 3, 6 and 12-month goals to help keep you focused when the physical training becomes difficult. If necessary, consult with an online program or human performance coach (not an ex-mechanic!) to design a program that includes strength, flexibility, nutrition and mental development elements to maximize your training results in the shortest period of time. Your training plan should focus on quality, rather than quantity. High-quality training is specific to your goals and available amount of time to train. Training beyond what is necessary will wear you down both mentally and physically.

3. Vary Your Lap Times & Training Intensities

Riding the same pace day after day creates a “speed rut”. Vary your riding durations and intensity levels regularly to become a stronger, faster racer. Include skills/drills, negative split intervals, heart rate ladders, long motos and short sprint intervals throughout the week of riding. Your body will adapt to the various demands associated with these workout durations and intensity levels leaving you fresh for key races.

4. Eat Right

The only way your body is going to be handle higher rates of speed is if your body has the necessary fuel to grow and adapt to the stress you submit your body to. The necessary elements are simple: fresh fruits, vegetables and lean sources of protein. The fruits and vegetables provide your body the vitamins and minerals necessary for your overall health; an additional benefit is the high water content – this helps hydrate your body from the inside out. The lean protein provides your body the amino acids necessary to rebuild the muscle tissue that you have torn down in training and racing.

5. Sleep More

When you look at the busy schedules that racers keep, sleep is usually bounced around by either going to bed late or getting up early. This pattern of sleep deprivation eventually leads to a drop in performance, feelings of depression and frustration with training and life in general. Cutting sleep short will eventually undermine all of your fitness and race speed because during sleep, the body releases growth hormones that repair damaged tissue resulting from the stress of training. As you increase the amount of either intensity or duration, the amount of sleep must also increase accordingly to maintain balance within the body. Ideally we are looking for 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night for optimum performance on the track.

6. Warm Up Sufficiently

Riders frequently comment that they feel better at the end of a race than they do at the beginning (ironically lap times validate this feeling). The reason for this is because the body has reached an optimum performance level within both the muscle tissue and the internal systems that deliver oxygen to the working muscles and remove the metabolic waste created in the energy producing cycle (i.e. lactic acid). By warming up for 5-10 minutes with a Concept 2 rower, bicycle or a jump rope will get the blood flowing into your arms and legs along with raise your heart rate and your internal body temperature. This will keep you from using the first few laps of your race to warm the body up.

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7 Simple Tips to Find More Speed