Physical Exercises for Supermoto Racing

Supermoto racers who incorporate additional training workouts into their regimen can make a positive impact on their success in competitions. While practicing on a Supermoto motorcycle serves as the backbone of a rider's training, weight training and cardio workouts can provide muscular strength and cardiovascular endurance to efficiently help the rider control the bike and prevent fatigue during competition.

  1. Benefits and Significance

    • While Supermoto racing may not appear physically taxing, controlling the bike requires muscular strength and cardiovascular endurance. Greater muscular strength helps you maintain control as you make tight corners and take the bike over jumps. Training can also help prevent you from getting tired. Fatigue can adversely affect how you’re handling the bike, which can limit your performance. Fatigue can also increase injury risk because it makes it more difficult to stay mentally focused and can prevent you from reacting quickly enough to course obstacles.

    Training for Supermoto Racing

    • Supermoto Australia recommends allowing yourself three months to build up your fitness prior to competition. Before every strength training and cardio workout, take 10 minutes to properly warm up so that your body is prepped for activity. At the end of each session, stretch your legs and hips to maintain flexibility. If you’re working out on the same days you’re training for Supermoto, perform your workouts after riding so that you’re not fatigued when riding.

    Developing Muscular Strength

    • Riders need to possess strength throughout all the major muscles, but particularly the quadriceps and hamstrings of the thighs, the gluteus maximus of the buttocks, the rectus abdominus in the stomach and all the muscles of the forearms. Lift weights two to three days per week on nonconsecutive days. Incorporate squats or leg presses to strengthen the glutes, quadriceps and calves. Add straight-legged deadlifts to hit the hamstrings, glutes and lower back. Strengthen your back with lat pulldowns or rows and your chest and shoulders with pushups or bench presses. Perform bicycle crunches and front planks to strengthen your abs and obliques. Target your forearms with wrist curls, wrist extensions and plate pinches. Complete two to three sets of 15 to 20 reps of each exercise.

    Building Cardiovascular Endurance

    • Developing your cardiovascular system can help you to compete without becoming fatigued. Incorporate 30-minute cardio workouts into your regimen three days per week. Motorcycle rider Joe Lindsey of Sport Rider suggests running and riding a bike. Ensure that your training is at the most effective intensity by working out within your target heart rate range. Your target heart rate range is 65 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. Subtract your age from 220 to get your maximum heart rate and then multiply that number by both 0.65 and 0.85 to find the low and high values of the range.