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By: Jason Giacchino
Email:
offthepegs@atvsource.com
Mental Training In The Off-Season
The following is a true story, at least as well
as I care to remember it anyway: It was a pleasant
68 degrees Wednesday morning. By Wednesday
night it was 27 with high winds and two feet of
quickly accumulating snow fall. One of the
few reasons to live in New York is four well rounded
seasons per year but this is too much even for us!
As such, with winter making its intentions clear
so early this year I thought you, the readers, just
may benefit from a little reality lesson in terms
of retiring to the television for some ATV-riding
stress relief. It turns out that watching
your favorite Quad DVD’s is an effective means of
training during the off-season. I know it
sounds far fetched, but please read on before making
any judgements.
In short summary my advice is to take the following
10 steps to enjoy maximum benefits in veging out
from your easy chair without the guilt associated
with doing so:
- Watch as many riding DVD’s as humanly possible
during the off-season to enhance mental awareness
through the example of riders much faster, crazier,
and dirtier than you are.
- Pay special attention to the videos that
contain race footage of the pros, notice how
easy they make this all look? Yeah its
not really that easy, must be a camera trick.
- Try to avoid watching your videos with others,
especially members of the non-riding population.
It’s not that I discourage sharing our great
sport with others, it’s just that eventually
one of them is bound to ask if you can ride
like the pros onscreen. Regardless of
whether or not you can, you will answer “yes”.
- Have the mute button on your remote control
on standby. Yes apparently video footage
of a gracefully arcing quad in flight with its
rider floating several feet above the seat goes
hand and hand with screeching guitars and pounding
drums. In order to accomplish step 3,
its probably going to be late at night when
you will finally get an opportunity to have
the TV all to yourself unless you live alone.
Which if you don’t find the mute button quick
enough, will be the case before you know it.
- Never and I repeat never, eject the DVD
and in its place attempt to watch a video of
yourself riding. Never will you appear
slower, goonier, or more unskilled. As
is the case with step 2, the camera has a way
of making you look a lot slower than you feel
you’re going. If the camera adds ten pounds,
it subtracts 10 miles per hour.
- Be careful of the snacks. Yes, watching
riding videos may help sharpen mental awareness
for the upcoming season but gaining 30 pounds
due to chips and Coke will offset any such mental
gains.
- Get cozy, but not too cozy. Sure the
couch is soft, comfortable, and warm under that
heavy blanket but be cautious not to get too
comfortable. All the video footage in
the world can’t help you when you’re unconscious.
- Do invite fellow riders to the viewing.
You will never have laughed so hard as when
they attempt to brag by convincing you they
can ride like that. But be forewarned:
They will laugh at you when you try to convince
them of the same.
- Note the determination of the leaders, the
speed and natural skill they possess.
This is where any training or education will
be found within these videos. If you’re
like me however, you’ll also notice the trophy
girls, and the excitement of the beautiful woman
in the stands wearing the little red tank top.
- Alternate between watching race videos and
reading my columns here at ATVSource; it takes
a very healthy dose of BS to believe this counts
as training.
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