End of Season Review
Most racers are currently entering the off season. It is a time to celebrate the last season, relax a bit and to partake in other activities with the extra time. Enjoy this time and reward yourself for the hard work; a little deposit into what I like to call The Bank of Motivation. After some time off but before you launch into the activities of preparing for the next season you should do some reflection and review of the past season. Looking back into history can help you unlock clues that will improve your future race results!
There are three main areas that I like to focus on during this end of season review session: Training Objectives, Lifestyle Management, and Race Execution.
Training Objectives:
Before the season got underway the smart racer maps out his or her season’s training on what is called an Annual Training Plan. This plan identifies limiters that may hold you back from achieving your racing goals. These limiters in turn are used to outline Training Objectives. Training Objectives are often worded like this: (limiter: aerobic conditioning) “Make 90% of all scheduled aerobic hours by November 1st” and (limiter: corner speed) “Improve cornering technique by spending 60 minutes per week on cornering drills by Thanksgiving week” or similar.
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Your review of your last season’s Training Objectives should either confirm or deny if you actually completed the Training Objectives you set for yourself and if not, why not? Usually it stems from a lack of commitment in working what is a weakness. For your overall ability to increase your weakest ability has to be brought up to the level of your other abilities. Think about it: if you have awesome corner speed it won’t really matter if your weakness of conditioning is not improved. You may fly through the turns on the first few laps but you will just slow down towards the end of the moto and lose places. It is more enjoyable for sure to just work on what you are already good at and it is naturally not as enjoyable to put effort into areas that are weaknesses (which only compounds your weakness.) So, in short, if you didn’t make a Training Objective you need to ask yourself how bad do you want to improve and will you do what it takes to get there? Recommit to these Training Objectives and focus on the ultimate goal of improving your results.
If you did complete your Training Objectives then hopefully your limiters will be different! That is really the perfect season in terms of limiters: you identify a limiter, you achieve your Training Objectives so that the limiter is annihilated and shazaam, you have different limiters and your overall racing ability has been increased. Imagine being able to do this every season!!
Lifestyle Management:
This involves activities outside of actual training and most of it falls into the recovery process. You should be spending as much effort into adequate recovery as you do the training. Recovery is exactly half of training! Review all the aspects of your life that support your recovery and thus your improvements. This includes sleep habits, post workout recovery habits, non-training related activities, diet, and general health habits.
Lifestyle management is very important and often overlooked: achieving your Training Objectives every day won’t really matter if you blow this part of the deal as you will not recover properly and your body will not have the chance to absorb and change from the training efforts. You work very hard physically during training and put up with a lot of discomfort. Why would you shortchange yourself by robbing your body of adequate sleep or proper nutrition? As a coach, it really kills me to see an athlete working so hard during training only to deny his or her body of the only things that will allow the training to actually make changes within the body. Other often overlooked areas are general health habits; training hard can totally be hacked by becoming sick. Lots of times getting sick can be avoided by simple hygiene habits such as washing your hands before you eat, being careful around sick people, drinking only out of your personal bottle, etc. are all very simple things that require very little effort. Paying attention and doing these simple things is such a small investment compared the cost of getting sick the week before a national.
Changes in lifestyle management are low effort compared to physical training, are in reality quite simple and cause absolutely no harm or pain. In the scheme of things that you do as a racer they are very low cost in terms of time, effort, money, etc. It is again a matter of committing to your ultimate goals and asking yourself if you will do what it takes to achieve these goals. Going to bed one hour earlier or washing your hands before you eat are very “easy” things to do. Recovering from overtraining caused by lack of sleep or getting over the flu from not washing your hands are not! Commit to making these small investments in time and effort to reap the huge reward of improved race results.
Race Execution:
Review the things that you did the week before a big race and the things you did at the race other than the actual racing. This can become an extension of the Lifestyle Management section. Did you rest as much as you could the week before and during the races? Did you eat often and enough during the races? Hydration? Hygeine? You get the picture. Race execution improvements revolve around all the surrounding activities that support your racing efforts.
The week before races is called a taper week. This relative rest of week allows the energy that usually is spent during training to be spent in making changes in the body that result in increased fitness and thus improved race results. You want to arrive at the race well rested, psyched to ride, and reaping the rewards of your rest week. Make this taper week really work for you: rest as much as you can, relax, eat well, stay hydrated, etc. Avoid sabotaging what can arguably be called the most important week of training by staying up late, doing other non-resting activities like wakeboarding all day in the sun, not eating enough, etc. Look back at your past season’s taper or rest weeks and there will most likely be things that you can easily improve.
During the races, did you rest in the shade when not actually racing or did you ride your bmx bike all over the grounds in the sun, not staying hydrated? Did you eat often, the proper foods and enough? Did you do things to help you arrive at the line relaxed? Review your races last season and think about these things. Make a list of the items you can improve on while at the races and put them in your truck. Write down every little thing you can to help yourself during the races. Read them on the way to the race grounds to remind yourself of these often minor items that can make a big difference in your race day performance. Reviewing last season’s Training Objectives, Lifestyle Management and Race Execution will reveal areas in which you can apply both major focus and minor efforts into moving your program forward towards improved results. Look back to improve your future – all part of training smarter and not just harder!
Seiji Ishii is the head coach of www.coachseiji.com. Coachseiji.com provides coaching services to motorsport and endurance sport athletes. Coach Seiji works with pros like Team Solitaire’s Ryan Clark and elite amateurs like Monster Energy/Kawasaki Xtreme Team Green’s Hunter Hewitt and PJ Larsen. You can contact Seiji at seiji@coachseiji.com.
Originally published in Holeshot Magazine.