Quarto blocco: il collo

Every year one residency block gets a theme. This year the November block was about the neck. The students joked that we had spent a week on a part of the body that is two vertebrae long. It is seven, and I made them count.

Why the neck

In a kart, and much more in a single-seater, the head and the helmet are pushed hard under braking and through fast corners, again and again for the whole session. A young neck is not built for this. If it is not trained, the driver gets tired, the head moves, the eyes move, and the lap gets worse long before the driver notices. If it is trained badly, or too fast, it gets hurt.

So this is the part of the syllabus I am most careful with. Strong is good. Strong and patient is better.

What we did

Every morning began with the same 15-minute routine: the version each student will now do at home, five days a week. We built it up through the week, a little each day, so they could feel what a little means.

In the afternoons we tested. Simple tests, the kind you can repeat in a bedroom with a phone and a friend. Each student has their own numbers now, from the start and the end of the week, and the monthly call will ask about them.

On Thursday we put the neck work and the reaction drills together, because in the car they happen together. Elena Vasquez’s drills are hard enough when your head is still. They are much harder when it is not.

What I want them to take home

Not a programme from me. A programme they understand well enough to change when something hurts, or when they grow, or when their season gets busy. By Friday each of them could explain to the others why each exercise is in the routine, and what to do if it stops feeling right.

Mind and body cannot be separated, no? A tired neck is a tired driver. The students know this now. More important, they know what to do about it.