Dr. Augustine is an active member of the Asterisk Medical team at the AMA Supercross and motocross races. Since he works closely with the athletes, he wanted to find out how hard they were performing during a Supercross event. He wanted to prove that it takes a high level of exercise intensity to participate in Supercross. He said, "I was tired of trying to defend our sport as a highly physically demanding one without having the proper ammunition. Anyone that is involved with the sport or who has ever raced knows how physically demanding it is, yet the average sports fan still believes that the motorcycle does all the work."
The 20 athletes that participated in the study were all AMA professional Supercross racers. Dr. Augustine said, "The study found that the Supercross athletes were performing at a high level of cardiac strain. Heart rate is an indicator used to describe the physiologic demands of exercise intensity." To conduct the study, they used a Polar Heart Rate monitor and during the races, heart rates were recorded every five seconds. Once the data was collected and analyzed they found the average Heart Rate for the athletes was 194. They looked at average heart rates for the heat qualifying races and the main events. Dr. Augustine also noted, "One important finding is that there was no real change in the Heart Rate average throughout the entire race. Supercross requires a high level of exercise intensity the entire time. I would put them in the same category as any elite level athlete".
On a final note, Dr. Augustine said he hoped this study would open the door into more investigation on how physically demanding the sport really is.