Tips and tricks to help you relax…
Apr 7th, 2010 by Leo
Why do you need to relax? If you get sore arms or back or legs, chances are it’s not because your riding muscles have atrophied (it takes very little strength to ride a motorcycle – if you’re doing it right)… But we naturally tense up when we’re doing something we haven’t done in a while, or when the pressure is on (which is why MotoGP riders struggle with this too).
Now you’ve heard this before: Relax! But how can you relax when you’re tense? It’s easier said than done. Here are tips and tricks…
1. Flap your wings… Or your elbows. Yes I know it sounds silly, but it helps a lot of folks at the Keith Code Superbike school where it’s one of the drills. Shake/flap your elbows to remind yourself to keep your arms and hands loose on the bars. Don’t put any of your body weight on the bars. You only need to push the bars momentarily to initiate turns. Otherwise, just hold the grips lightly… Especially after braking, turning or shifting, or over bumps, physically remind yourself to keep your grip and your arms loose.
2. Also, along with that first one, steer with just a couple of fingers on each hand. And steer with just one hand. If that doesn’t undo any arm-pump death grip, nothing will…
3. Crouch, even when you don’t need to. Slide all the way back in your seat as far as you can (or to the backrest), and put your head way down until your chin is almost touching the tank. Get a feel for the full crouched position, even if you’ll never need to get down that low. Think of it like stretching. To go from your regular sitting position to a full crouch and back undoes a whole lot of tension.
4. Stand up on the pegs (if only for a moment). Pretty much the opposite of getting into a full crouch, but to similar effect.
5. Change up your foot position. Go from having both toes on the pegs, to having one foot forward, then the other. How your feet are positioned changes up how your entire body is lined up and supported. So change it up from time to time.
6. Lift the inside foot on turns. A couple of seasons ago Rossi started taking his inside foot off the peg and scraping the ground with his boot before turning-in. Casey Stoner and a few others started doing this too. It’s hard to know where you’re putting your weight sometimes. What lifting your inside foot (or keeping it light on the peg) does is it makes is certain where the weight is, and keeps the other leg loose.
7. Do 1 thru 6 and change up positions frequently for the first half hour of the ride or whenever tension becomes an issue.
Got any other tips and tricks to help relax while riding? Share the wealth in the comments section. Cheers!
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Good also to concentrate on the feelings one experiences on the bike, keeps the brain in the right hemisphere where spacial skills reside.
Cool – never thought of that…