Burnaby, BC - The Simon Fraser University Strength & Conditioning program travelled to Southern California earlier this spring with the Canadian National BMX team, to learn and assist the Canadian athletes.

The strength and conditioning staff began working with the Canadian National BMX Team in January 2013, and has seen significant gains with the strength, power and speed improvements quickly transferring to their racing.

The group of three athletes has now grown to seven National Team athletes, with the team moving from other parts of Canada to be a part of this high performance training environment headed up by Head BMX Coach Ken Cools.  

The Canadian National BMX Team's training camp was held in Southern California, providing SFU's program staff with their first real exposure to the competitive world of BMX.  

The camp lasted seven days and ended with a USA Nationals race in Bakersfield.

The team stayed in Murrieta with training occurring at multiple venues in the area each day to work on different skills, and training at a wide variety of places including the Olympic Training Facility in Chula Vista, Pro BMXer Derek Sipkoi's backyard track, Bundy Canyon Trails, the Supercross Factory track, Perris BMX track and the Orange Y track.

There are no specifications for tracks and, therefore, the variability has to be reflected in their training sessions; riding the same track repeatedly would make you great at riding that course but limit the growth of skills needed to handle the variability of other tracks.

With the high volume of riding the team was doing during camp, SFU strength and conditioning provided recovery sessions, light pool workouts and stretching and rolling routines, and pre-competition workouts for the athletes.

Following the training camp the group travelled to Bakersfield where there was a USA National race.

Every athlete has three “motos”, heats, each one with a different randomized group of riders, and whatever position they finish in corresponds to the number of points they get.

For example, if you finish in 8th you receive eight points. At the end of the 3 motos (there is approximately an hour and forty-five minutes between each one) the sixteen athletes that have the fewest cumulative points move on to the semi-finals.

Once in the final, the format is similar to the start of the day; there are three races and the rider with the least amount of cumulative points at the end wins.

On day one two canadians made the finals: Jim Brown who won the race, and James Palmer who came in sixth.  

Day two saw Corey Walsh make the final and come sixth in his first pro race.

This camp experience gave the staff a greater appreciation of the intricacies of the skills and strategy needed for the sport, before returning to Canada to focus on work in the gym and planning the next few blocks as the team moves into the thick of their competitive season.