GHIT 0066: Physical Fitness for Faster and Safer Racing

Racing is both physically and mentally challenging, even at the beginner and intermediate levels.  For this week’s episode, we were very proud to have Trey Shannon as a guest.  Trey is located near Charlotte NC and is helping many high level drivers and teams with their off track preparation both physically and mentally.  The discussion will go over many areas that you can focus on and improve not only your best lap time, but also improve your consistency over many laps.  The degradation due to fatigue can lead to not only slower laps, but also the demands can lead to loss of focus and increase the likelihood of driver errors and potential damage to the car and driver(s).  

During this episode we discuss:

1. Physical preparation
2. 1. Anaerobic and Aerobics
3. Mental Preparation and acuity
4. Cardiovascular fitness
   1. Diaphragm vs chest/shoulder breathing
5. Breathing exercises and breathe control
6. On track relaxation strategies and techniques
7. Neck, Shoulders, Hands and Core Stability
8. Eye exercises and hand eye coordination
9. Sleep
10. Diet and Nutrition, especially on race day and race weekend
11. Hydration
12. Off season preparation, Pre-race, at the race, during the race, and post-race options
13. Training periodization and improving well rounded fitness for all aspects of life
14. Cramping and cramp prevention
15. Heat and Cold management strategies
16. Outdoor training ideas and options
17. Improving proprioception and other driver “feel” capabilities during the race
18. Pre-race warmup techniques to get you in the zone in the first few seconds behind the wheel
19. Cognitive ability degradation with fatigue is easily quantifiable and very significant

This is critical when you are looking to compete in an endurance type of racing where the ability to be at or near your fastest consistently could dramatically improve your overall performance by many TEN’s (10’s) of seconds, not just the usual TENTH’s (0.1’s) everyone pursues.  It not only affects your overall speed, but the quality of the decisions and skills on the track, especially over time. 

If you are interested in improving in this area of your driving, please feel free to contact Trey at: 

Podium Performance Fitness in Cornelius North Carolina (near Charlotte) or on the website at PodiumPerformanceFitness.com and follow them on Instagram and Twitter.