Muscles, Tendons, Ligaments and Formula 1
Are athletic sports tougher on the body than driving a Formula 1 car? This is a question that arises in many minds when they compare other sports to Formula One racing. It is not just running and moving that affects the body and its muscles. The way a Formula
1 car affects the body is so unique, that the training the drivers go through is not less than the training required to fly a fighter jet. Bettor.com takes a look at a few myths and statistics from a different angle.
An average F1 driver looses nearly 4 kilograms in just one race, which includes two to three litres of water. For this, they have an on-board drinking bottle installed which also contains minerals and salts to make up for the lost fluids. This is all because
of the amount of battering the body takes at the hands of the intense G-forces acting on the driver, including the intense temperature of the cockpit. These G-forces can be so extreme that when an F1 car brakes, the deceleration forces can be compared to hitting
a wall at 300 km/h.
“There is nothing quite like driving through a high-speed corner in a Formula 1 car,” according to former Formula 1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya. “There are so many sensations: the speed, the grip levels and the physical forces pulling on the body. If you’re
not used to it, the lateral g feels like someone is trying to rip off your head!”
The repeated lapping for almost 2 hours in a race can be compared to a professional boxer beating a body tied up in a sack. If an unprepared person drives the car with the same intensity as the drivers in a race, then the G-forces can end up tearing the
muscles and snapping a tendon or two. Therefore, drivers not only need to have strong muscles to sustain those forces, but also a huge stamina bank to be able to repeatedly sustain the forces. There is so much adrenalin being produced in the body that it allows
F1 drivers to maintain their heart-rates between 150-170 bpm for a complete race distance.
The forces can be so variable that a driver cannot be specifically trained for one portion of the body. Footballers, for example, mainly focus on their legs and stamina while boxers need upper body strength and so on. An F1 driver however, needs to train
every muscle from his neck to his toes - even those muscles that are not even used in other sports. The neck for example normally bears about 6 kg which includes the helmet. For a grand prix, however, the neck has to be trained to handle up to 24 kg due to
the high G-forces while taking corners.
Additionally, apart from the muscle power and the stamina to maintain that power, an F1 driver also needs a huge amount of flexibility of his joints to be able to bear the twists and turns of various body parts without tearing his tendons or muscles. We
can compare that to gymnastics training. But driving is not just about the upper body and arm movements. It also involves a great amount of stress on the spine, hips and legs, as the braking forces of the car require very strong leg muscles to maintain good
control over the pedals. The braking also causes the back and hips to naturally fight back the G-forces which, if not properly trained, can result in disastrous strains or injuries.
"Formula 1 drivers are special athletes,” according to Gerry Convy, trainer for Montoya. “The physical requirements placed upon them are huge, particularly when you combine the g-forces with the heat that they experience at the hotter races. In Malaysia,
for example, the cockpit temperatures reach more than 50 degrees Centigrade and the humidity can be 80 per cent, which is extremely demanding.”
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