Physical conditioning

[Jussy Rusit]

With the days passing by and its getting tougher and tougher to keep up with the young guns of the sport, I'm wondering what should one do during the off-days to be in competitive health.

Would like to focus more on the physical regimen as opposed to seat time and eating healthy routine

Do you spend x amount of minutes on the treadmill, stairmaster, stationary bikes?
which area should you concentrate on: Lower back, upper back, triceps... etc?
And what is the frequency: twice or trice/week?

No, I not aspiring to be in the same shape as M Schuey or Christian F... that could run an iron-man event... but rather have enough energy to last a race weekend and avoiding arm pump.

So, as a driver or couch... what do you do to be in shape for karting?

[Nick Weil]

hehe... he said a driver or couch...hehe

Personally if I could be on a couch while driving I think that would be great. I can see it now. The 2010 ProMoto Tour sponsored by La-Z-Boy. Associate sponsorship by Broyhill Furniture and Fat Matt's Rib Shack.

But seriously, upper body exercise definitely has to be a major consideration. Curls, benching, and sit-ups are definitely be high on my list.

I found also that the 'endurance' karting events are a great test of just what is working, and what isn't. After pulling (2) 45 minute sessions back to back at speed in Jacksonville, you really find out where you need improvement.

my pair of pennies...

Nick

[Stephen Buckley]

I mow our 1-1/2 acre of sloping lawn with a push mower once a week. THAT, my friends, keeps me in shape...... well, that and my sweetheart

[Terry Tilton]

I'm a personal trainer by trade. I am an ex-professional football player who has been training athletes and non-athletes for the last 9 or so years. I have been racing karts for the last 5 or so years. I have trained several kart drivers as well as a nascar driver who won his first nascar race on his first try (Winston West at Laguna Seca '01). I was his jack-man as well. You need to lift, run, bike, swim, stretch, eat right, get enough sleep, etc. I weigh 210 lbs and for my workout this morning I ran just under 5 miles and swam 300 yards, all in under 53 minutes. It was about 98 degrees too. Do you need to do that. Hell, no. You might die if you are just getting into training. Start easy, be consistent, patient, dedicated and you'll see improvement. I design programs for people for a living, if I can help you with some simple suggestions, I'd be glad to. If you want a full-scale program, we can talk about that as well. Train you entire body with weights, even the muscles you dont think you use for racing, train your heart and lungs with cardio, lose some of that gut with good eating, and it'll make a weekend at the races a lot easier.
Terry

[Drew Cleaver]

I personally think cardio is more important than muscles. If any of you have ever seen me, I doubt you thought I was a ripped 14 year old. But, with my cardio strength I can last a looooooong time. Also a week before races I go to sleep at about 10:00-11:00 and wake up at about 7:30 to get my sleep paterns the way they'll be during the race weekend and it really makes a difference. Plus, during the school year, the coaches whip us into good shape for school sports so I get to use those workouts to also benifiet my racing. But during the summer I get out of shape more than I want to but it's survivable.

Drew Cleaver www.vmaxracing.cjb.net

[Brant Williams]

I personally think that many athletic endeavors enhance the concentration skills that make you a fast, consistent driver.

Look at cycling. Time trialing is perhaps one of the most concentration intensive, painful disciplines in athletics. In this years TDF, Jan Ullrich caught and passed a rider that started (3 minutes) before him on the road. Once that rider was passed, he easily hung with Ullrich till the end, while maintaining the obligatory 10 meter gap to eliminate the drafting advantage. This rider obviously had the athletic skills to have ridden faster up to that point, but he could not concentrate hard enough to maintain that pace. Bascially he lost 3 minutes because he could not concentrate as well.

That kind of concentration can be enhanced through practice. High intensity Aerobic (not sprinting etc) excercises like running, cycling, swimming, XC skiing etc will do many things for you on the track.

1. Better concentration through practice
2. Better fitness makes it easier to maintain concentration in the presence of physical stress.
3. Better fitness means you can drive longer, and under harsh conditions before you start to fatigue and make more mistakes (lapses on concentration)
4. Finally, enhancing your concntration abilities allows you to develop greater situational awareness. What this means is you can concentrate on more than one thing...eseentially concentrate in parallel.

This is the skill of all top drivers: They hit all their points inch perfect every time...while defending position, and angling for the pass, while thinking about race tactics, and monitoring their equipment and track conditions. Nobody does this perfect.

The difference between two evenly matched drivers is the one who makes a lesser number of mistakes. Fitness may not make your qualifying lap a lot faster, but over the course of a race it definitely will.

[Terry Tilton]

Brant-
BINGO!

[Mike Unger]

I agree with Terry. My brother is a trainer and I took him to the track and after seeing the kart and watching the racing he recommended alot of cardio and some upper body stuff. Mainly shoulder, biceps, and forearm work. I now work out 5 day a week doing 30-40min of weight training (higher reps) and 30-40 min of cardio keeping my heartrate in the 160 range. I've used a heart rate monitor while on the track and have seen 170 bpm in a 15 lap sprint race. I'm in fairly good shape and that kind of heart rate is similair to when I run a 5K in the 22min range. So yea kart racing is very physical and to be good you absolutely need to be in shape.

[Tim Blaney]

Any of you fitness guys have a good, easily explained neck excercise?

[Kevin Callahan]

I'm an old fart at 45, but seem to be in better shape than when I was younger. Why? Cardio--run 3-4 miles a week 5 X a week keeps me fairly fit. Wrenching and kartlifting for back and upper body development! ;-)

As for the neck, I remember doing resistance kind of exercises in football practice where another guy places resistance against your neck from different angles while you push.

I DON'T recommend trying this without having someone who knows teach you. It is your NECK after all.

Neck strength is important at the end of a long day. Especially in shifters.

[Terry Tilton]

I have my nascar driver do this. Start with a light plate, say 10 lbs, lay on your side on a bench with the plate laying on ear, do 15 full range side neck lifts, same for the other side, same for the front (plate on your forhead lie on your back) and same for the rear of you neck (lay on your stomach with plate on the back of your head) Use small towel or something to act as a pad between the plate and your noggin. There are other neck strengthening exercises, but this one is fairly easy to explain in text.

[Mike Goebel]

If you are going to do just one exercise do a rowing machine. If you don't like sitting in the gym, mountain biking will increase endurance, forearm, shoulder, back and neck strength. Shumi does a lot of mountain biking. Of course the best is to do a total body workout, but whose got time for that.

Mike G.

[Pete Muller]

quote:

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Originally posted by Jussy Rusit:
... what do you do to be in shape for karting?

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Work on the fitness.

If your kart is so difficult to drive that it requires more strength, fix the seat/pedals/steering/position so it doesn't. You should not have to hold yourself in the kart in any way. This saps a huge amount of your energy.

Afa: your neck... buy the lightest helmet you can possibly afford.

=====================

quote:

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Originally posted by Brant Williams:
In this years TDF, Jan Ullrich caught and passed a rider that started (3 minutes) before him on the road. Once that rider was passed, he easily hung with Ullrich till the end, while maintaining the obligatory 10 meter gap to eliminate the drafting advantage. This rider obviously had the athletic skills to have ridden faster up to that point, but he could not concentrate hard enough to maintain that pace.

---

Not discounting the "inspiration" of having Ullrich pass him was on Kivilev's ride, it's probably at least as likely that he did get a bit of a tow from Ullrich... and if even for only 15 or 30 seconds (looked a lot closer than 10M to me for a while). It probably allowed him to come out of the red long enough to recover and finish out with bit more speed. Kivilev had plenty of motivation to ride a good ITT, as he only had 1:20 in hand over Beloki to retain 3rd place.

(IMO)

PM

[Tim Doll]

I don't do any real sprinting now days - pretty much all enduro/roadrace. But I agree that aerobic/cardio fitness is the most important part. I'm 46, and had heart surgury 3 years ago, but last week at the IKF Road Race GN, I ran 4 one hour races. I dropped out early in one, but in the 3 races that I was still running at 45 minutes, I caught and passed a total 5 people for position in the last 15 minutes of those races. Fitness maters, and you don't need to be a jock (I'm about as far from being a jock as you can get ).
I try to "work out" at least four times a week (Ultimate Frisbee or stairmaster being typical), for at least 30 minutes. I don't do much upper body training any more (lack of time as much as anything), but if you want/need to do upper body work, just take note a day or two after a race weekend as to what "hurts", then go to the club and ask how to work those muscles.

Tim

[Brant Williams]

Hey Pete, now you can just post and no work to do!

With regards to Kivilev, Ullrich caught him at about 48 km. Kivilev finished 3:01 off Ullrich. In other words he lost 1s in the last 13 km....vs 3 minutes in the first 48. That is a pretty big disparity in performance.

UCI regs are pretty specific about the 10m gap in a TT.

I still think Kivilev's losing 3 minutes in the first 3/4 of the race and none in the last 1/4 was mostlty due to mental factors, not physical ability or drafting.

Besides, my whole point was that doing cardio right at 99.9% of the Anaerobic threshold is VERY VERY difficult to do mentally. It takes incredible concentration because it is so very very easy to just back off a little to make a good portion of the pain go away. Espcecially on the bike where at 95% you still feel like you are going FAST. This sort of Aerobic excercise is great mental practice for focus and concentration....