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Trainer Talk with....Mike Alessi, Tony Alessi, and Trainer Jay Hammond |
6/18/09 |
The next part of the interview was with Mike's dad and endurance trainer, Jay Hammond. First up is Jay.
So Jay, tell me how you fit into the Alessi core of trainers?
Jay Hammond: Well for the most part, I guess you could say I have been Mike's endurance trainer for the past three years. Some people call it cardio training but we like to use the term endurance training.
In talking with Tony the past couple of days, it sounds to me like he employs multiple trainers. Do you set the endurance program up, is that something that Tony does or is a collaborative effort?
I basically set up the endurance training program. I set up all the heart rate training, the zones, the times, specific exercises, etc.
What is your role in Mike's training now that he has an injured knee? Do you oversee what the Doctors are telling you to do or do you have your own rehab program?
Umm, a little bit of both. I follow the doctors instructions as far as what the limitations of the injury are, when he can get back to certain exercises or load bearing on a certain joint. Unfortunately in the past year and half I have done a lot of it (laughs). His shoulder scapula injury and then the broken leg right after that and now we are onto the knee. So I have actually become pretty good at rehab.
Earlier, Tony was telling me that he employs a vast array of trainers from swim coaches, to strength training coaches, you for endurance, riding coaches and more depending on their needs. How do you all end up working together and coordinating your efforts?
Well, I guess Tony just likes having experts in each field handling their portion of the training. I guess you could say I am the expert on endurance training. My background is in cycling. I know some about strength training but not as much as others. So we have just found people who I guess you could say are experts in each individual discipline. We actually communicate quite a bit. Our swim coach is a close personal friend of mine who is a tri athlete. The strength trainer is a long time weight lifting personal trainer. So we all collaborate together.
So your background is in cycling. Were you a professional cyclist or are you still a pro?
Yes, I am just tapering down from being a pro mountain biker.
The Alessi's certainly have a reputation. Some would say good and some would say bad I guess depending on whether you are a fan. Tell me what its like to work for the Alessi's? Tony can be a pretty intense guy.
Well, the three of them are definitely a package; Tony, Mike, and Jeff. There are definitely three distinct personalities. Mike is an extremely focused hard worker. He will do anything I ask him to do at any time and put forth 100% effort in doing it. Tony, without a doubt, his main goal is to make both Jeff and Mike as good as they can be. We don't always see eye to eye on everything but I know that behind everything his goal is to make those two the best they can be. Jeff (long pause) has a much different personality. He looks at things a little differently and doesn't take things nearly as serious. But, man I wish that he would. Underneath it all, I still feel he has enormous potential. He just hasn't actually realized what his true potential is yet. But once he does he will be a factor once he decides he really wants to push himself.
Yea, I agree and I think it's kind of funny to hear that because bottom line, Jeff is one of the fastest guys in the world. He just finished 11th at High Point and in my book that qualifies you as one of the fastest guys on the planet. In NASCAR, the guy who gets 35th is a hero. In motocross unless you win, you're considered a chump. Kind of messed up!
I agree and for the people who have been around Jeff and truly know him, they feel the same way. I agree about the NASCAR thing too. Heck, even if you just qualify for an outdoor national is quite a feat.
Who handles their nutrition?
I handle that as well.
Are you guys really strict when it comes to diet or do you follow the clean eating mantra?
You could go with the latter. It's a very clean and healthy eating type diet I have them on and we have a specific race day diet and stuff like that but nothing too complicated. I am always reminding Mike that he isn't a body builder or anything like that. He is an endurance type athlete. It is a very endurance athlete focused diet.
Many guys in motocross like to use supplements like Cytomax, Endurox, and Muscle Milk now that they have come onto the scene so strong. Do you have the Mike on any supplements like these?
You know there is a term that Tony and I use to describe Mike. We don't use any supplementation with Mike. We like to say that Mike's jetting is better stock than with other stuff put into it. As soon as you deviate and we have tried supplementation with him, it just doesn't work. He is a natural athlete and focuses much better without it.
In doing some research for this interview I was looking at Dr. Armpump's website and saw a MonaVie logo. I am a big supporter of MonaVie and think that it is a good supplement for motocross. Do you guys us it?
Yes we do. That is the one supplement that we do use. But I don't really think of MonaVie as a supplement. It is just a natural juice that is healthy to drink. There is nothing weird in that at all.
I like the MonaVie Active since it has glucosamine in it for your joints.
Yea, I like that as well. I am 40 years old so the glucosamine helps me as well.
Since you have such a strong cycling background, how is Mike as cyclist?
Mike is actually quite strong. That is one form of training that he really enjoys. He really looks forward to going on road rides and he is pretty good.
How often are you with them? Do you train and travel with them?
Pretty much when I am with them I am doing the workouts with them. I am very hands on with them. But it varies from week to week depending on their travel schedules, testing schedules, and what ever else they have to do but we pretty much take advantage of every opportunity we have to train.
Does Jeff train much with you and Mike?
Yes, as much as he can. He follows the same schedule.
And what about Tony? Do you ever get him out their riding with the boys (laughs)?
You know, a couple of years ago, Tony used to follow us around on a bicycle and do some of the rides with us.
And that was a bike without a motor right?
Yep, he would pedal around (laughs).
Well, Jay it seems like you have a real good handle on things over at Camp Alessi. Thanks for taking some time to talk to me. I really appreciate it.
No problem, Tim. Here is Tony.
Hey Tony are you ready to talk a little training and the role you play in this whole deal?
Tony Alessi: Sure.
Well to start with, tell me a little about how you set the boys programs up and the history behind how you started looking into hiring help on the training side of things?
After the first year of riding the outdoor nationals, I realized that we had a fitness problem. And it wasn't a lack of effort or riding or anything like that, we just didn't know what we were doing. We trained like amateurs. We went out and rode everyday and went to the gym everyday and did everything. All we did was we ran ourselves in the ground every day. We had no endurance because we were blown up most of the time.
Yes, I know exactly what you are talking about. That is precisely what the Virtual Trainer website is all about; trying to educate riders that beating yourself into the ground day after day isn't necessarily the correct way to train. You have to go hard, but you also have to go easy sometimes and recover and all that. Sounds a little strange, but I'm glad to hear you say that and that you guys learned your lesson.
For sure. It's the amateur way of training and we just didn't know. When you are racing amateurs, you race for 5 laps and it's a sprint to the finish. 12 to 8 minutes is all it takes. So we just rode everyday and went to the gym everyday. Anyway when we finally found out how stuff works and we started to look at some of our numbers and found out things like our anaerobic threshold was something like 140. Well we realized that once we were educated that that number is bad. Basically they said when they first looked at those numbers with us, I think they used the words, 'your cooked.' (laughs) Then they educated us on how to do it and it was a matter of dropping down all of the high intensity and lowering it to more endurance training. So once we moved most of our fitness training to endurance training we brought the anaerobic threshold up to something like 195 or 198. Mike's base is gigantic now. It's like building a whole pie with the endurance training and every time we do intensity days, it's like taking a piece out of the pie. But then we fill it right back up again when we endurance train.
Sounds to me like you guys have learned who to periodize your training?
Well I don't know what you want to call it but we have it pretty organized. But there are still one or two guys out there that have more in their tank than us. I don't know where it comes from because we do such a good job of training. Everything that Mike does every single day is documented. How many calories he eats, how much sleep he gets, how his rest was, his heart rates for each specific exercise. Every little thing gets documented so if something is to go wrong somewhere down the line then we can track it. For example at one time someone suggested we use these Omega-9 fish oil pills and we were like, Ok we'll give that a shot. Well three weeks into it, we started to get arm pump. We were all looking at each other saying where in the hell did this come from? So we went back through all the logs and traced it all the way back to the day we started taking those pills. We were like, Oh my Gosh that did it right there! If we didn't have our log book, who knows. We would be lost in space trying to figure out where it came from.
Log books are powerful indeed.
Yea, we found out from that that Mike's body works best stock. His body malfunctions if he eats too much bread. He is a stock running guy. Hardly any supplements or anything for Mike. He runs best on the right kind of nutritional food and the right kind of training.
How do he and Jeff compare when it comes to training?
Well, Jeff has the ability to do the same program as Mike but he chooses to do an abbreviated version. Because he doesn't want to work that hard, I guess. I mean the program is there, he knows what to do, and he chooses to run a more abbreviated schedule.
What were some of the misconceptions you guys had coming up through the amateur ranks that you do differently now?
Well, the main thing is we choose our high intensity days. We keep those to a minimum whereas when we were amateurs we just went as hard as we could all the time. Now we are all about building a base.
What is a typical week of training like for you guys during the outdoor nationals?
We usually ride the motorcycle two days, bicycle three days, and strength training is usually one day.
Well, Tony I know you guys are very busy today and I feel like I have taken up enough of your time so I better let you all go. Thanks again for taking the time to talk a little training and share your thoughts on what it takes to be a champion rider.
Your welcome. No problem Tim.
