5 Driver Fitness Tips to Win your Next Race

So here’s the top 5 areas you should be working on for your driver fitness:

• Endurance training

• Body weight strength

• Diet and nutrition

• Reaction times training

• Sleep properly

Endurance training

So the first and most important aspect I’ve been always told to work on was Endurance training.

And that’s because endurance training builds stamina and stamina allows you to endure longer during a race.

Having a great Stamina makes you way more lucid and focused at the end of the race.

And you won’t run out of breath either!

This is how you can go about doing endurance training:

• Riding a bike. This one’s great for your legs and also keeps your reaction times trained since you’ll have to stay alert while riding in the forest or on the road. If you’re concerned about cycling on the road, you can then buy yourself a standing bike or a Pelothon and ride the hell out of it! No excuses.

• Running. If cycling isn’t your thing then you have to start running because running on a daily basis will increase your stamina and your Vo2 Max like crazy. Don’t believe me? Check this video below then!

• Swimming. Swimming is one of my favourite, if not my favourite, endurance training you can do. The awesome thing about it is that you will make your whole body stronger and leaner since while swimming you practically use every single muscle you have. Especially your shoulders and forearms which are crucial for your performance on track!

So here’s the list of activities I like to do to get my endurance training to another level.

I promise you it works.

You just have to stick with it consistently on a daily or weekly basis.

You can’t believe how successful you could get by getting physically fit.

Body weight strength

The other very important area you should focus on for becoming a pro driver is to work on your body weight strength.

That means working on cross training exercise to build some muscles and make you stronger overall.

Of course you don’t wanna overdo it since you’re aim isn’t to becoming a body builder.

Hence you don’t want to focus on building too much muscle mass.

You just want to get stronger by maximizine the muscle tone you’ve already got.

There’s no need to drink several protein shakes or train like a body builder..

Check this video out to get what I mean.

You should implement Push ups, Pull ups, Squats and Crunch exercises in your daily routine and cross training program.

You should then focus on your neck strength.

That’s because your neck goes through a tremendous amount of stress during a race due to the high lateral and longitudinal G forces.

Here’s what I’m talking about.

Diet and nutrition 

The next best thing to do is to eat properly.

Not only during the race weekend but also when your away from racing.

What I mean is to eat proper food and not junk food sich as burgers, candies or sugary drinks like Fanta and Coke.

Now, I’m not a dietician but I use common sense.

I would never eat or drink those things during a race weekend because I know they will negatively impact my performance.

And nutritionists and sport specialist I’ve been working with all told me to stay away from those things.

The focus should be to eat plenty of fruit and vegetables and to stay perfectly hydrated.

You do that by asking the team manager to buy some groceries for you or doing that by yourself.

I remember the first thing I used to do back in Formula 3 and Formula 2 was to look for the nearest groceries store to the track so that I could buy some fruits and healthy snacks to eat between sessions.

You obviously don’t wanna overeat but you don’t want to have low energies either!

So find the right balance for you and make sure you stay nicely hydrated.

Reaction times training

Okay so we’ve talked about physical strength, endurance and nutrition. Is that all we need to know?

Nope. We’ve still got two important areas to focus on.

And the first one is reaction times training.

That’s really important so that you can take quick decisions without losing time on track or even avoid a crash in front of you.

You can train yourself by playing tennis or doing some exercises with lights wich most driver coaches tend to do.

I like playing tennis a lot since it will not only improve your hand eye coordination and reaction times but also increase your stamina levels.

Moreover it’s a really good mental training exercise since you’ll have to stay cool and work on your emotions in order to beat your competitor which is really similar to racing.

Sleep properly

Last but not least you really wanna focus on sleeping properly at night.

Being well rested will make you so much more focused and fit for driving than if you’ve had trubles falling asleep or even worse, nightmares.

That’s because it’s really been tested that having less than 6 hours of sleep per night will severly decrease your reaction times and ability to focus which isn’t a great news for racing drivers.

Hence you should focus on creating a proper sleep ritual so that you stay away from electronic devices and plan to get in bed by 9:30/10 PM during the race weekend.

That’s because you really want to give your body the chance to recover and prepare for the upcoming day.

Make sure you really focus on this in order to get an upper hand on your competition.

Driver Fitness Conclusion:

Congratulations! You’re now a Go Kart Fitness Expert.

You should have learned about all the tips and tricks you need to know in order to become stronger, faster, and more competitive racer on the track.

Now it’s time for you put your knowledge into practice so that when it comes time for your next race or competition, you can take home first place.

Make sure you follow these fitness tips in order to win your next race!