Motorcycle racing is an exhilarating sport that demands split-second decisions, impeccable control, and unwavering focus. While skill and speed are essential attributes for a racer’s success, perhaps one of the most underestimated and crucial factors is maintaining a sense of calmness throughout the race.
In this article, Blayze coach Ken Hill will discuss why motorcycle racers need to be calm during a race. He will also cover how this trait can significantly impact your performance on the track. We will wrap up with a discussion on professional racers who have experience anxiety while racing and provide some additional resources to help you battle any nerves or anxiety you may have.
Chapter 1 – Importance of Calmness While Racing
Chapter 2 – Strategies for Enhancing Calmness in Moto Racers
Chapter 3 – Practical Application
Chapter 4 – Success Stories and Resources
Chapter 1 - Importance of Calmness While Racing
Racing motorcycles is a sport that demands physical stamina, quick reflexes, and mental fortitude. Typically, skills like speed and the ability to know when to overtake an opponent are emphasized much more than the importance of mental fortitude. But remaining calm during a race is as significant as any other skill for a moto racer.
First, it is important to understand that every athlete deals with some sort of nerves or anxiety before their performance. And not all athletes handle their nerves in the same way. What one racer does to help calm their nerves may not help another racer.
Before we dive into how to develop a calmer mindset while racing, let us discuss why it is important to develop mental fortitude (the ability to master your emotions).
Fight or Flight Mode
When we are not calm, our sympathetic nervous system is activated which is our “fight or flight” mode. This negatively impacts our athletic ability and decision-making. Learning to calm yourself and activating your parasympathetic nervous system is key to staying mentally focused during races.
Science shows that when you breathe deeply and slowly, you stimulate your vagus nerve. This is a key component of the parasympathetic nervous system – the system that sends signals of relaxation to your body. It helps to slow down your heart rate, blood pressure and promotes a sense of calm.
Deep breathing allows you to take in a greater amount of oxygen to your lungs. Oxygen is essential for the proper functioning of your cells and organs. It helps your body function more efficiently and your muscles to stay engaged and active.
Our fight or flight mode also has a massive negative effect on our visual processing on track. When our sympathetic nervous system is turned on our field of vision lowers and narrows. By using our breath to calm down and turn on our parasympathetic nervous system we not only make better decisions but our ability to look at the right place, at the right time, and be more aware of our surroundings significantly increases.
Focus and Concentration
Calmness enhances a racer’s ability to focus intensely on the race. When a rider is calm, they can better block out distractions – like the roaring crowd or pressure from your opponents. When outside distractions are blocked, you can concentrate solely on the track and your performance.
This heightened focus is often the key to gaining a competitive edge and maintaining consistency throughout the race.
Safety
Safety is of paramount importance in the world of motorcycle racing. Motorsports entail inherent risks, and the consequences of accidents can be severe. Remaining calm allows you to assess potentially dangerous situations objectively.
Instead of succumbing to panic or instinctive reactions, when you stay composed you can make rational choices that prioritize safety. This level-headedness helps prevent worsening risks and minimizes the likelihood of more severe accidents.
Precision, Control, and Performance Optimization.
Your composure as a rider directly affects your performance on the track. While racing, calmness is a catalyst for peak performance. By maintaining a composed state of mind, you can regulate your breathing, heart rate, and muscle tension (see Fight or Flight section again).
Calming the mind helps motorcycle racers achieve a higher level of precision and control over their machines. When you are calm, you can better manage your throttle, brakes, and body positioning. These are all vital for achieving faster lap times and ensuring your safety on track.
Top performance coaches for MotoGP and other racing sports use the term “mental endurance” often in their training. When you stress your body to remain at a heightened focus state your heart rate rises and when your heart rate rises your body fatigues faster which then breaks down your ability to remain focused.
Professional racers focus on their ability to remain focused but in a relaxed state with low heart rates. They achieve this by focusing on their breath before and during sustained periods of focus.
Decision Making
Motorcycle racing is an intense and high-pressure sport where racers need to make swift decisions to navigate the track efficiently. Overtaking opponents, defending positions, and adapting to changing weather conditions – these situations demand a calm and focused mindset.
By remaining composed, you can assess risks, weigh the potential rewards of each action, and make informed decisions. Rash or impulsive choices are minimized when you can think rationally under pressure, ultimately enhancing your chances of success.
Energy Conservation
Motorcycle racing demands intense physical and mental exertion, and a state of agitation can lead to unnecessary energy expenditure. By remaining calm, you can conserve valuable mental and physical energy, ensuring you can sustain peak performance over the course of the race. This stamina can prove to be a significant advantage during longer races.
Mental Resilience
Endurance is a hallmark of motorsports. Races can be physically and mentally demanding, testing your stamina and mental fortitude. By staying calm, you can maintain your mental resilience throughout the race. Composure helps ward off exhaustion, loss of focus, and negative emotions. It enables you to persevere, adapt to changing circumstances, and push through grueling moments. Mental resilience ensures that you remain motivated and at your best, even in the face of adversity.
Chapter 2 - Strategies for Enhancing Calmness in Moto Racers
Walking out to your bike before a race can often be an exhilarating and nerve-wracking experience. You may have butterflies in your stomach and your mind might be anxious about what to do, what not to do, and a bunch of other mixed emotions.
Being able to calm your nerves before a race will help you in maintaining your mental fortitude throughout the race.
Pre-Race Preparation
Dion gives you all some great insights on how to calm your nerves before a race in this Race Weekend Prep and Routine. He gives you in-depth insights into breathing techniques and creating a routine before the race.
As a recap, here are some ideas to help calm your nerves before a race.
Deep Breathing
Deep breathing is a simple yet powerful technique to help calm your nerves. Try taking slow, deep breaths, inhaling through your nose, and exhaling through your mouth. Focus on your breath. Notice it entering and leaving your body. Allow your breath to bring you back to the present moment. Deep breathing sparks the body’s relaxation response, reducing anxiety, and promoting a sense of calmness.
Visualization
Visualizing success and mentally rehearsing how you want to accomplish during the race can help stop pre-race jitters. Close your eyes and visualize yourself executing your skills with precision. Think about the line change your coach wants you to make and what that will look and feel like when done right. Or think about what it will feel like to extend your brake zone deeper into the corner.
Try and engage all your senses through visualization. Imagine the sounds of the track, the sights you may see, and the feelings you get when you are successful. Through visualizing positive outcomes, you can build your confidence and lower your anxiety.
Positive Self-Talk
Every athlete deals with negative mental chatter. That’s the voice in your head that’s saying, “why are you even doing this? You’re not good enough!” What the best in the world excel at is their ability to notice that the negative chatter is even happening and then direct their focus away from that and towards something useful.
Directing your thoughts to the things you want to execute or just directing those thoughts to something positive can be immensely powerful.
The power of positive self-talk is, well, powerful! When you replace negative thoughts and self-doubts with positive affirmations, you help to remind yourself of your strengths and skills. Repeat phrases such as “I am prepared,” “I am confident,” and “I know I can do this.” By consciously directing your thoughts toward positive statements, you shift your mindset and calm your nerves.
Create a Pre-Race Routine
Develop a pre-race routine to create a sense of familiarity and control, reducing anxiety. Design a routine that works for you. Incorporate activities that help you relax and focus. This may include stretching exercises, listening to music that calms you, meditating, or going through your previous driving data. Do this routine before every game to signal to your mind and body that it is time to enter a calm and focused state.
Listen to Music
Create a playlist of calming and soothing music that resonates with you. Before your race, listen to this playlist to help relax your mind. Focus on the melodies and rhythms. Allow the music to transport you to a peaceful state. Music can serve as a powerful tool to distract you from negative thoughts and put you into a positive and relaxed mindset.
In-Race Techniques
When you have trained yourself to be calm before races, you will be able to go out on the track and fall into an intuitive state of driving. Meaning, your body knows what to do. If you continue to focus on your nerves, you then start to become a distracted rider and not an intuitive rider. A distracted rider is a danger on the track.
What do you do when you find your nerves are coming back during the race? How do you get out of your head?
Focus on the Present Moment
When anxiety arises while you are racing, one of the best things you can do is focus on the present moment. Concentrate on the next reference point ahead. When you hear a pro rider talking about how they “just hit their marks” that means they were in the zone just going from one reference point to the next.
Stop replaying past mistakes or potential future outcomes. You cannot control the future or change the past. But you can control your mental state in the present moment. By directing your attention to the present, you reduce anxiety and enhance your ability to make quick decisions on the track. Trust your skills and training and stay in the present moment.
Travis Thomas, USMNT coach, mentions that when you can remove emotion from the situation, then you can clear your head and focus on what matters. Even the best athletes in the world get nervous. What separates them is their ability to accept the nerves and refocus their mind on the one or two in-game actions they need to focus on executing to drive a good outcome in the game.
Thomas suggests taking a few moments to breathe and clear your head, allowing you to remove those nerves and anxious thoughts. When the nerves are calmed, then you can refocus your mind on what you need to focus on. Proper initial throttle application points, smooth brake releases, decisive overtakes, and more.
Your goal is not to be perfect; your goal is how quickly you notice that you are distracted so you can refocus your attention on your intentions. How quickly can you refocus your thoughts to where you know you will be effective.
Focused Breathing
Focused breathing, also known as diaphragmatic breathing, involves consciously directing your breath to deepen and slow down. Unlike shallow chest breathing, focused breathing engages the diaphragm. This type of breathing promotes relaxation, oxygenates the body, and calms the nervous system.
By practicing focused breathing, you activate your body’s relaxation response. This triggers a state of calmness and reduces the production of stress hormones. This technique can be practiced anywhere, at any time, to alleviate stress and promote a sense of calm.
Practice focused breathing outside of your races so that you know which technique works best for you. Experiment with box breathing, 4-7-8 breath, or alternate nostril breathing. Then when game time hits and you feel nervous while racing, you can quickly focus on your breathing and reset your nervous system.
When we consciously focus on our breath, it provides us with a focal point for our attention. This can divert our focus away from stressful or intrusive thoughts and redirect us to the present moment.
Attention Control
Attention control is the ability to sustain focus on specific stimuli while also filtering out unneeded information. In motorcycle racing, we need to be able to focus on where we pick up initial throttle and how aggressively we ramp up to full throttle. How much brake pressure we want in any corner, where we want to apply the brakes, and when we want to release off them. In addition to that we want to focus on our tip in points, tip in rates, and how quickly we can reduce lean angle at corner exit. This will give you a competitive edge.
In high-pressure situations, riders must learn to direct their attention selectively. You need to identify specific cues that are crucial to your performance and focus only on those. When you filter out unneeded distractions you can maintain a clear mental space that allows for optimal decision-making.
With little to no breaks in motorcycle racing, riders need to be able to sustain their attention and focus. It is hard! Most sports have a half-time, but racing does not. Learning to increase your focus and attention control takes practice.
Chapter 3 - Practical Application
Training and Practice Incorporation
To stay calm during races and develop a stronger mental fortitude, you have to practice your calming techniques before race day.
One of the best ways to practice breathing techniques is right before bed. As you are lying in bed, focus on your breathing. Start by breathing normally. Then deepen your breath and slowly exhale. Go through the various types of focused breathing techniques (previously mentioned) and see which one you like the best. Focused breathing will also help you sleep better!
Use your calming techniques before training. If you have to practice being good at overtaking other riders, then you should practice being good at developing a calm mind. Create your calming playlist before you train and try out the songs. If anything sounds strange or doesn’t help, remove it from the playlist. This way you are ready to go for race day.
Chapter 4 - Success Stories and Resources
We have repeatedly stated that typically all athletes suffer through bouts of anxiety or nerves when it comes to performance. This also includes professional motorsports drivers and racers. Many of your favorite pros still suffer from nerves or anxiety issues.
This is not a full list of professional athletes who battle their nerves or anxiety issues, but it is a great start in helping you understand that nerves can get to you at any age and any level!
Professional Riders
Bobby Fong
Professional motorcycle racer Bobby Fong has been open about his struggles with nerves and stress on the track. “I find my mind can perform the best when I have been taking care of myself physically.” He trains year-round to maintain peak fitness and works on training his mind to ignore negative thoughts or obsessing over small details of a race.
Fong likes to meditate before a race and uses music to facilitate the process. He listens to EDM, trance, or house music to help him get into the right headspace. But he does follow a distinct race weekend routine and is strict on following the same schedule every time. By following the same routine, it helps to trigger his mind to get into focus and stop any nerves or anxiety about the upcoming race.
Valentino Rossi
A newly retired Rossi recently spoke about how most riders are typically scared at the start of any race. “There is the fear of making a mistake, of getting off to a bad start, of making a mistake at the first turn of falling. You’re scared because it’s also dangerous, especially at the beginning of the first corner when we all arrive together, at that moment you are afraid.”
He advises other riders to find coping mechanisms that help them to push the fear aside and focus on the race. He states that with practice, you learn to harness fear into focus. Accept that you have the fear, nerves, anxiety, or whatever, and know that everyone else does too. This will help you to block any outside distractions.
Resources
A great resource for anyone who would like additional help and information on anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues is the Road 2 Recovery Foundation. The non-profit organization joined forces with motocross industry leaders to provide mental health resources through the Max Matters Mental Health Initiative.
The Max Matters Mental Health Initiative focuses on bringing awareness to the broad spectrum of mental health disorders, like anxiety and stress, and provides resources and programs in one easily accessible place. Road 2 Recovery also helps professional riders with financial assistance with injury and other health resources. Both organizations are donation based. For
other tips and help with fighting off your nerves try the Mind.com website for breathing exercises, meditations, and more.
Conclusion
Mindfulness in motorcycle racing can have a multitude of benefits. Although it may seem counterintuitive in a fast-paced, high-stakes environment, being present and mindful can lead to better performance, improved safety, and enhanced enjoyment.
During the race, anchor your attention to the present moment. Let go of any past mistakes or future anxieties. Preparation is also a crucial role in helping you develop calmness and mental fortitude. Get in your training so your skills and techniques are sharp.
Learn More With Blayze!
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Learn one-on-one with the best moto coaches on the planet with Blayze! Become a Blayze member today and start working with your selected coach for just $29 for your first 30 days. Check it out here.
