Ken Roczen Talks Diet, Training with GQ
During his 2016 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross 450 title run, Ken Roczen didn’t shy away from talking about his diet. Whether it was steak with mac and cheese or pizza and Coors Light, he made it known he enjoys eating whatever he wants while still winning.
Don’t let those quotes fool you though. Roczen trains and eats as well as anyone on the circuit. Recently he sat down with GQ Magazine to talk about training and diet.
Here is a snippet of the interview. You can read the entire thing here.
[Note: This interview was obviously conducted prior to Roczen suffering a dislocated wrist, dislocated elbow, and a compound fracture to his radius at Anaheim 2.]
I imagine it has to be pretty difficult to be out on a bike in the heat, covered head to toe in all that gear, every single day. How do you combat that?
I always have salt tablets with me. Our workouts are so intense, and it’s not like we’re in an air-conditioned gym—we’re outside in Florida during the summertime. So I really need to stay on top of that so I don’t cramp. I’m not really a big water person either, so that has made it a lot more difficult for me, but obviously you really can’t get around it. Drinking lots of water with the salt helps me to recover and actually not get as tired. As soon as I get dehydrated, I start getting really drowsy and I have a hard time focusing, so that is definitely one of the biggest things. I try not to overdo it, but I have half a salt tablet here and there just to stay on top of it. And then I like—I don’t know if you’ve heard of Honest Kids? It’s kind of like CapriSun, but it’s a lot healthier and it doesn’t have a whole lot of sugar.
I would have guessed that you’d be looking to take in more sugars, just to keep your energy levels up throughout the day.
You want to get the right sugar, you know what I mean? You cannot drink Mountain Dew or Coke or whatever. Obviously carbs are sugar, so I like to have some protein with that, because otherwise my insulin level raises and I have a huge high, but then it crashes back down.