Evan Nystrom
We have a new contributor! Evan Nystrom (@outlierathlete) is a strength and conditioning coach that works with riders like Derek Kelley, Freddie Noren, Chase Marquier, and more! He wants to help you on your fitness journey and share his knowledge to you fine readers of Vurb. If you have any questions feel free to reach out to him via social media or email him at [email protected].
Welcome to The OG (Outlier Guide). My name is Evan Nystrom aka Coach Evan. I’m an Exercise Physiologist with my NSCA-CSCS (Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist). I have been a professional trainer and coach for over nine years. I have worked with a variety of action sports athletes, including weekend warriors and the professionals we see on TV. I’m also the owner and coordinator of Strength & Conditioning with Outlier Athlete Development.
When it comes to training for moto, you hear of multiple things you should be doing to optimize your performance. I am here to say, this is not going to be a column telling you that if you just cycle more your arm pump will improve or the reason your back hurts after a moto is because your hamstrings are too tight. There is a ton of nuance to the body and nothing tends to be a one size fits all model. So the objective of this column is to help teach you, the reader, how to analyze your body better and sort out what will ultimately lead to better on-bike performance and off-bike health.
For our training we want to be strategic with setting a foundation with our bodies. The metaphor I have used for my whole coaching career is you don’t want to build a big beautiful house on a bad foundation. The house will look great to start, but the foundation will begin to crack and expose many weaknesses. The roof might begin to shift causing issues, door frames no longer fit as designed, and of course, many expensive things can be done to fix those problems, but without fixing the foundation they’ll likely resurface again. This is no different in the body for training. Setting our foundation in our bodies is a key factor in our health and performance.
Our bodies have multiple energy systems we can utilize, but we will stick with just the aerobic and anaerobic to start. These two systems have a symbiotic relationship where when one is heightened the other is reduced, this allows the body to work most efficiently. We can see a crossover from aerobic to anaerobic at about 75-80% of max HR. To set a foundation I have found it is a lot easier to build the aerobic system up before building your anaerobic system. A simple way to do this is prolonged training anywhere from 20-75 minutes in an HR range of 60-75% of HR max. For someone with a 200 max HR that would look like 120-150 BPM. The mode of exercise can be any. It could be running, cycling, rowing, walking on an incline, swimming, jumping rope or even a mixture. The goal is to maintain the HR over everything else during your set duration even if it means taking breaks to keep the HR in the range.
Second to training your aerobic system which would be put into the cardiovascular bucket, we need to make sure we are working on our strength and strength endurance. Strength, not to be confused with hypertrophy training, which is when we are breaking down muscle to build more muscle, strength training typically has the goal of maximizing the use of the muscle that is already there. This is important because there is a big misconception about strength training in the sport and the thought that it will make you slow and bulky. When it comes to strength training we are also not breaking up the workouts into body parts as you would see for bodybuilding, rather we will be focusing on training the nervous system which means we can do full body workouts.
The nervous system governs our bodies, muscles don’t contract without it, but the bigger the stressor the more the tax on the system. So when it comes to strength workout set up we want to put the most stressful exercises at the beginning of the workout while the nervous system is at its peak. These exercises would be big compound movements involving more weight, multiple joint movements which cause more fatigue. For strength, it is also important to know rep ranges along with sets and intensities. A typical setup can look like: 3-5 sets, 2-6 reps, at intensities of 75-95% of max load or rate of perceived effort.
By utilizing these two training methods of true aerobic training and strength training you can start to build a foundation. Try to incorporate both of these into your routine twice a week each. A foundation program can last anywhere from 6-14 weeks pending on the individual’s previous training experience and time available. I do advise if you are new to weight training that you start with low weight to master good form before increasing intensities or work with a local strength coach or myself at Outlier Athlete Development.
