How do BMX Freestyle cyclists train? Find out from the top riders
U.S. Olympians Nick Bruce and Hannah Roberts and two-time Australian national BMX freestyle champion Sarah Nicki tell Olympics.com about their training routines on and off the bike.
Cycling BMX Freestyle
When the world's best BMX freestyle cyclists take to the Huangpu Riverside venue during the inaugural Olympic Qualifier Series 2024 in Shanghai this week, they will get just 60 seconds to perform the best run they can each time.
Months of hard training and competition preparation will have gone into a run lasting just one minute. But what does that hard training consist of?
What is a BMX freestyle rider's life like away from competition – do they spend all their waking time at the skatepark riding? We asked two-time Australian national champion Sarah Nicki as well as Tokyo 2020 Olympians Nick Bruce and Hannah Roberts of the United States.
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On the bike: Structured training
Nicki says that she's normally on the bike for "two to three hours a day, just on the bike riding structured training."
Structured training?
"You do half your training, rinse repeat, rinse repeat, the tricks you already have," she explains. "Then you go and you practise all the new tricks, you go on the foam pit and you take it out on the foam pit trying to do the harder tricks."
That routine changes for the 17-year-old, who was Australian national champion in 2022 and 2023, when a competition approaches.
"When it comes to like three weeks to comp, I just go (with) whatever tricks I have consistent. Those are the ones that I'm using, I'm not going to go send something crazy that I've never done before in a competition run; I'm going to do something I'm consistent with, but still looks good while trying to still fit in pushing the higher level skills."
But there's something about bikes that Nicki can't stay away from. "I'm always riding on the weekends, I feel like. I'll get back to training and, everyone will be like, how long did you ride on the weekend this time? I'm like, oh, I was at this skatepark for four hours, I was at that one for six hours…"
In the gym: Cardio and strength training
Off the bike, there's lots of work to be done too.
"There's at least an hour, hour and a half that I'm in the gym a day," Roberts, the women's silver medallist at Tokyo 2020, shares.
"As long as my riding's done for the day, you know, I ride for three or four hours a day and then go to the gym for an hour and a half. When I'm in the gym, I do a little bit of everything.
"I do a lot of cardio. I think I do three days of cardio, three days of strength. Cardio and light conditioning, that kind of stuff is probably most important. You know, you can go out and lift 400 pounds one time, but that doesn't equate to riding, you know, a minute run. You need the endurance.
"You need the muscle stability and the lung capacity to get through a 60 [second] run at full strength. So I try to focus a little bit more on cardio, whether it's steady state if I'm injured, or just like random HIIT (high-intensity interval training) workouts or anything like that."
Her Team USA teammate Bruce agrees that gym work is crucial.
"I see my friends and some colleagues that don't even go into the gym, and I'm like, 'How do they survive on a minute around the course, a minute run during the competition?'," he says somewhat incredulously.
"I know I work my butt off doing sprints or a lot of squats or a lot of explosive plyometric stuff, do a lot of stuff in the gym. On top of that, I try to do yoga at least once a week just to keep my body flexible and fresh.
"I feel like you have to do a lot. I mean, because of the demands of riding, the impacts of landings, it's really hard on not only your joints, but your muscles. So when you see someone not have the power in their run, [it's] because they just need more strength."
Recovery: Cold plunges and ice baths
Nick Bruce, it turns out, is a fan of using ice baths as method of helping his mind overcome challenges.
"It's crazy because cold plunges and ice baths started as a recovery tool for me," he shares. "Just the endorphins it gives you, it just makes me a happier person when I'm doing the cold plunges." So far, so normal. But there's more to it than just recovery.
"Now they've transformed into this overcoming [discomfort] process, which is all riding is," Bruce lets on. "Riding, you're constantly like trying to get comfortable at the uncomfortable, or trying these new tricks, or performing a new trick on a new ramp.
"Jumping in probably a one- or two-degree water tub, Celsius, you're sitting there like, 'I don't know if I want to jump in this thing', especially in the wintertime when I'm breaking a thick layer of ice about to jump into it.
"I feel like it's just practising, like, 'Okay, there's no risk here. I'm just going to be uncomfortable for two to three minutes.' So I get in there and it just really helps me mentally when I get on to the bike, because I've trained off the bike so much of getting uncomfortable.
"It's just a really nice tool for that."