First of all, I'm not a doctor and I don't say that you should do what I did: I'd just like to share my experience. The first times I went to a track, some of my muscles, expecially the quadricepses, ached, so I trained them and they didn't ache any more. However, there was another problem: the more I rode, the more my concentration eased off and until the previous year, I didn't know what to do to remedy. Then, I found out the theory of Riccardo Ceccarelli, who trained some famous F1 drivers, like Kubica and Trulli. Listen to him in this video from 2:44 till the end: Have you seen the test result? The brain of his trained pilots were economical and so they were able to perform well for a longer time. So, how much energy does a human brain use? Well, read here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thinking-hard-calories/ «Although the average adult human brain weighs about 1.4 kilograms, only 2 percent of total body weight, it demands 20 percent of our resting metabolic rate (RMR)—the total amount of energy our bodies expend in one very lazy day of no activity.». They also said that when we are thinking intensely our brain doesn't consume much more than when we are resting, but the 20 % of our RMR is already much. Here a professor says the same, from 1:50 to 2:28. View: http://vimeo.com/53492659 There is also another point: the heart rate. That doctor said that an F1 driver can reach high heart rates: 150 on the starting grid and something like 180 or 190 during the race; it sounds odd, but watch these videos and read the article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/0/22488580 «Dr Sean Roe, from the CentreforBiomedical Science Education at Queen'sUniversityBelfast, explains what causes the heart stress and some of the factors that influence the results. "The heart is controlled largely by two centres in the brain," said Dr Roe. "The sympathetic 'fight or flight' response or the parasympathetic 'rest and digest' response. "On occasions that require extra cardiac output the sympathetic nervous system kicks in, which speeds up the heart. Cardiac output, which is the amount of blood put out by the heart every minute, increases allowing the additional demands to be met. "Alternatively when someone is relaxing, the parasympathetic nervous system is to the fore, reducing cardiac output by reducing heart rate, and increasing blood flow to the digestive system, taking it away from the muscles. "Anything that increases fight or flight, such as exercise or emotional stress, will increase stress on the heart." (...) "It is important to train to certain zones to be within 160, 170, 180 beats per minute. Train your heart to the particular zone you're going to be in when you're racing," explained Alastair Seeley, who won the feature Superbike race at the North West 200 in 2012. ». Some days ago I went to a supermoto track and I used my heart rate monitor: in the warm up laps I reached more than 140 bpm and more than 170 after some laps! Why does our heart “revs up” so much? Why am I so tired after a track day? Apparently, racing is much more stressful than you could think watching it from the outside. I already used to go running, but what I did to be more alert is this exercise: every 4 days I keep my heart at 140 bpm using a stationary bike for an hour and, simultaneously, I play with the “Superbike 2001” videogame, to train my brain under stress. The first times I did it, it was very difficult, but now I can play almost as well as when I'm not pedalling on the bike. The results are: -a feeling of much more clearness of thought while riding my Husky on the track (I haven't checked the lap times yet), -better performance while running; it seems that I can bear more fatigue. PS: referring to this thread: http://www.cafehusky.com/threads/motocross-not-a-sport.20209/. Motocross IS a sport!!
I can't say I read all your post here, but being a ex-runner, I'm 100% aware of heart rates and what the heart rate training means. Running is about as pure and disciplined a sport out there. I use the word discipline because when training or completing, all you gotta do to ease the pain, is to stop. Takes real discipline to keep going through the pain. A cyclist can coast his bike and keep going as an example of resting in another sport. There are specific ways to get the heart beats mentioned above and I'm not gonna go into them here, but the heart beats per minute is the only way to really measure how much 'work' or how hard a person is really 'working' to achieve a goal. A heart rate monitor is the way to check your HBs per minute. I'm doing some ride testing between 2st and 4st bikes on another thread here and was gonna bring up this angle when I post the results. -- I never see 'heart rates' a rider is riding at mentioned much but ET3 did say in an article I read, that he thought he spiked his heart rate and lost time in the Indy race(?). He then calmed down and picked his pace back up ... -- Runners often say they are trying to 'relax' as they are running ... This keeps the heart beats down and helps the body to get rid of the lactic acid that causes muscle pain.. If you over-exert yourself and the bloodstream fills up with lactic acid, the cure is to slow down or stop and relax... -- Theo, if you are not in very good shape, your heat rate is gonna go way up easily and probably stay up even after you have stopped ... A guy that is shape will have a much harder time getting his heart rate up ... And then, his should come back down pretty easily if he stops pushing ... We have to learn to let the bike do the work and 'relax' while we are riding or we will MAX out our heart rate, fill the bloodstream up with lactic acid, and be forced to stop or slow down to stop the pain. Our bodies are probably in a 'oxygen-deprived' state to some degree when exercising, and I guess that is why the brain is having a hard time functioning correctly. -- I like the mountaineers idea .. They make a plan before they go up into the thin air and DO NOT change it after the brain has been exposed to low oxygen levels during a climb.
I acknowledge that it was not very concise... I agree: I read, on a scientific magazine, that our brain consumes half the oxygen and a tenth of the glucose of our blood! So, in other wors, it needs those energy sources.
Our brain is a oxygen hog! It was just alot of reading to consume at once... I saw the heart rate stuff & felt at home with it as I used to live that stuff. Lots of people (like me) over-train ..causing injuries and stifling their improvements ,.. That heart rate monitor made me slow down on my recovery\easy days so my body could rebuild. Then on my hard days, it showed me the correct level for that days' training ... -- I always try to start my rides with about 10-15 minutes of something not to difficult so not to elevate my HR (heart rate) too high, too quickly, and then I take a small rest before I put my tinker-toy plastic hammer down!
