Following Schumi's neck

Formula One drivers today follow a punishing fitness regime that concentrates largely on one part of their body: the neck.

Two hours from flag off at the GP2 Asia Series — a feeder for Formula One — at the Dubai Autodrome three years back, I was revelling at the sight of blinding beauties (“pit-babes” in racing parlance) in vertiginous heels and abbreviated skirts when a bull-necked man distracted my attention. Dazzled by the humongous width of his neck and equally by his reputation — he was a seven-time F1 world champion — I decided to leave my “privileged” surrounding, to follow him around the Autodrome, for no particular reason except, perhaps, curiosity.

It was 15 months since Michael Schumacher had retired from racing after his 11-year tenure with Ferrari, but he still possessed the neck of a bodybuilder attached to a swimmer’s lithe physique. It was only later that reports came in about Schumacher still secretly following his punishing Grand Prix fitness regime. Schumacher was in Dubai that day to share technical inputs with the young Ferrari team and mainly its driver. At every pit-stop that Schumi visited around the Autodrome, it was impossible to catch the person he was exchanging notes with, especially if the other person was Schumi’s height. The exaggerated width of his neck blocked out the other person from your field of vision.

Schumacher is considered to be the first F1 driver to “take fitness to new levels”. Sachin Tendulkar, who went to meet Schumi in 2002, came back astounded with the amount of time that the legend devoted to just one part of his body: the neck. “He exercises it for one-and-half hours. Can you believe it?” he had marvelled to a friend.

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F1 drivers are some of the most “highly conditioned athletes on earth”. According to www.formula1.com, “the vast loadings that Formula One cars are capable of creating, anything up to a sustained 3.5 g of cornering force, for example, means drivers have to be enormously strong to be able to last the full race distance. ” “Loading” and “cornering” are technical terms for the pressures, measured as “g” or gravitational forces, endured by drivers zooming by at speeds up to 200 mph.

Drivers develop physical endurance to last the full distance through cardiovascular training — usually running, swimming, cycling, or roller-blading. Damon Hill, though, preferred cross-country skiing at 1,700 metres because it stimulated his red corpuscles. Since the “unusual loadings” experienced by the neck and chest muscles cannot be taken care of by lifting weights in the gym, drivers use specially-designed “rigs” that help to develop these muscles that can withstand the “cornering” forces. The objective is to create strength so that the neck can support both the driver’s head and helmet under the intense pressures.

But negotiating G-forces isn’t the only reason F1 drivers strive hard to strengthen their neck muscles; they also do it to give themselves a better and quicker chance of recovery if they were to meet a life-threatening accident like the nightmarish crash in Australia in 1995 that left Mika Hakkinen with a broken skull and multiple fractures. Hakkinen is believed to have lived to drive another day and lift the world championship in the next 1,000 days because of his extraordinary physical condition before the accident. Similarly, Ferrari driver Felipe Massa was able to wriggle out of coma in 2009 — he was struck on the head by a loose spring from another car — owing to his excellent musculature.

After coming out of his retirement last season, Schumacher had said that he had integrated football into his routine. “I jog very little because I’ve had back and knee problems since the age of 14. What is strange is that I can play three hours of football without a problem but can’t jog for 45 minutes. I also do half an hour of breaststroke a day which makes an incredible difference,” said Schumacher (42), the oldest but still “one of the fittest drivers on the grid,” according to India’s first GP driver Narain Karthikeyan.

Karthikeyan, who has worked with Balbir Singh (Schumi’s trainer of 10 years), follows a training routine prepared by Ramji Srinivasan, the current fitness trainer of the Indian cricket team. “I do three different types of exercises for cardio: cycling, running and rowing. It’s actual rowing when I’m in places like Canada and simulated rowing otherwise,” says Karthikeyan over the phone, right after driving a Mercedes safety car for a couple of laps to get a feel of the track at the Buddh International Circuit. In the next five days leading up to race , Karthikeyan will be watching his weight and looking at “not to bulk up”.

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Bruno Senna, who was one of the drivers competing at the Autodrome that day in 2008 when Schumacher came visiting, feels that it was his uncle, the late, great, three-time champion Ayrton, who really started the trend of training and sticking to a diet in the 1980s. Things had been pretty laid back until then; in fact, in the 1920s and 1930s adventurists such as the Italian opera singer-cum-race driver Giuseppe Campari downed red wine before the race started. Nowadays, drivers refrain from alcohol on race-weekends. “I think from Ayrton onwards, everybody realised they had to be fit otherwise they would not be competitive” says Senna, the Renault driver, over mail.

During off-season, Senna focusses on building up muscle and strength because “during the F1 season, especially with our very busy schedule, we lose some muscle, so it is important to start the season with a bit extra. Once the season starts, the focus shifts to neck and maintaining the body balance.

After the race, while Karthikeyan hits the physio table and “doesn’t do much on Mondays” (the day after the race), Senna, does “some nice recovery work”. “I do some light cardio to flush the toxins from the muscles,” says Senna.

Following Schumacher that day was an enlightening experience. To me, Schumi’s neck underscored the monkish discipline needed to live life on the edge.