Train like a Driver with Jim Leo

On today’s episode, Katherine announces she’s driving for Live Fast Motorsports at the  NASCAR cup race in Phoenix this weekend. Then personal trainer Jim Leo joins to discuss how he came to specialize in working with drivers, and the physical aspects of getting race-ready.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Throttle Therapy with Catherine Legg is an iHeart women's sports
production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to this

(00:21):
week's episode of Throttle Therapy with Me, Catherine Legg. I've
been so excited to share all of my plans with you,
but I have to do it step by step and
when everything gets announced, you guys will understand why. And
having had such a great time in the ARCA car
at Daytona, I've been given the opportunity to drive in

(00:43):
a Cup race and it's a beyond exciting. So it
all happened very last minute. We were talking to NASCAR
about how I would go Cup racing, how I would
get there, what my path would be, and they have
very specific rules in place as to races that you
can do in succession. So, for example, you can't just

(01:05):
go and jump in and do a super speedway like
you saw with Elio. He also had to do the
Arca race. He also had to do a mile and
a half oval and he had to have experience kind
of going up through the size of the racetrack, so
you've got to do a short track and then a
mile and a half and then super speedway. So I
was talking to NASCAR when they were in town in

(01:26):
Atlanta Motor Speedway, and they told me that I had
to do a short track if I wanted to be
able to do the bigger tracks. And of course, I
want to be able to do all of the tracks,
Let's be honest, I want to be able to do
all the things. This is the Catherine era of doing
all the bucket list things. And so they said, you
should do Cota or Phoenix, And Cota was the very

(01:48):
next weekend, and so Cota was kind of off the table,
which I was disappointed about because I feel like it
would have been one less thing to learn because I
know the track and the format. But anyway, fast forward,
we are doing Phoenix. Never driven on a short track
like that, never driven a cup car. You have twenty
minutes of practice, so it's going to be daunting, to

(02:13):
say the least. But I've been very lucky and I've
had a lot of good friends and great people trying
to help me through it. So I'm in the process
of packing to head to North Carolina, to do some
sim work and some pit stock practice in preparation for
this weekend, so that I feel at least a tiny
bit of a level of confidence that it's not all

(02:35):
completely brand new, because it's the auxiliary stuff that you
don't know that you don't know. You know, the way
that you pit, the stages, the different things like driving
a race car on a racetrack is driving a race
car and race crack, but it's all the other things
that are going on around you that you need to know.
And when it's brand new, you're thinking about it with

(02:57):
your conscious mind and not your subconscious mind. I can
go and do it an insa race right now and
not think about leaving pit lane, not think about what
happens under yellow, not think about when to use the
clutch and what geared to be in for the restart.
Think it's just natural. I don't think about any of
it anymore. I mean, obviously you think about it, but
it's subconscious. It's like when you get up in the

(03:19):
morning and you drive to work, you don't think about
every movie you're making. I'm going to put my indicator
on now. It just kind of happens. So it feels
like that after you've been driving the same kind of
race car for a decade and when you make the switch,
you're a rookie again. Even though I have two decades
worth of experience in professional racing, I am more of

(03:40):
a rookie than the guy's coming out of Exfinity and
truck racing because they have experience on these ovals in
these kind of cars that I don't have. That being said,
I am beyond excited about it and I'm very grateful
for the opportunity. And I'm driving with the Live Fast
Motorsports and that's BJ Mclouds and Jessica Mcloud's team have

(04:00):
been amazing so getting all this stuff set up for
me so that I have driven in the sim and
GM Chevrolet have been amazing too making time for me
because I feel like, at least I'll have that level
of comfort going in. So I'm about to go back
and go and do that. But meanwhile, I wanted to

(04:22):
give you all a little bit of insight into the
training side of racing because it is such a big
part of our lives. I spend a good proportion of
my time thinking about doing and planning for training and
watching Instagram. Really my algorithm is off the charts with

(04:43):
all the training, this app workout, all that. But I'm
very fortunate that I have Jim Leo on side. And
Jim Leo runs a company called Pitfit and they have
two bases. They have one in Charlotte and they have
one in Indie and they train race cut drivers. The
specifically specialized there you go Doublin, dondra or whatever you

(05:03):
call it, I don't know what it is. And Pitfit
specialize in training race car drivers and pit crews and
anything to do with racing. So it's not that you
go to your local gym and you get a trainer
or you're left to your own devices. You actually have
specified workouts for exactly what you need. So I don't

(05:23):
know how other sports are, but I know that in
racing you need a very strong core because you're basically
sat in a very strange position where you're using your
care all the time. Obviously upper body, but you also
need to be able to get a thousand pounds of
break pressure. So it's very specific and I wanted to

(05:46):
give you an insight into racing drivers training regimens, and
without further ado, here is the man himself, Jim Lear.
This week, we are honored to be joined by the
amazing Jim Leo, the race car driver trainer of Ficionado.

(06:10):
That literally anybody who's driven a race car has been
through Jim's program or as head of Jim's program. He
has two facilities, one in Charlotte and one in Indianapolis,
but he also does a bunch of remote work, and
so literally anybody who's anybody in the racing world has
trained with Jim or Jim's people, and so I'm excited

(06:30):
to be able to pick your brains today.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Jim, Well, I appreciate it. Catherine, good to see you.

Speaker 1 (06:34):
Good to see you too. Now we go back a
long time. We probably shouldn't say how long we go
back because it will age both of us.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
I go back a long, longer way than you do,
so I'm used to it.

Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, we first got together back in the two thousands,
on two thousand and five, two thousand and five, when
you were an up and coming racer in champ Car
and I was assigned to make sure you didn't get
into trouble and get you into shape and kind of
look after you. I don't know who looked after who

(07:08):
during that time, but It was a great experience and
I learned a lot, and it was great to see
you succeed and do well and even crash barrel roll
at road America.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Fun stuff like that happened.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Yeah, famous for all the wrong reasons. I think you're
being very modest because I came over and had literally
no idea what I was doing. Right, It was my
first kind of foray into America. It was my first
full season of racing. I literally got thrown in at
the deep end a little bit. But I was very
fortunate because they surrounded me with the right people, and
you were one of them. Right Like, I didn't know

(07:41):
what I was doing training wise, I didn't know what
I had to do to achieve. I didn't know what
was expected of me. And so I feel very lucky
to have landed on your doorstep, because I will say
we did a really good job, because there wasn't one
time that I couldn't drive that race car.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
You took to it right away.

Speaker 3 (07:59):
I think it showed that you were pretty hungry coming up.
You know, you didn't come with a gigantic bank account,
which we see sometimes in this business. You see some
drivers who are well funded and they come in and
it doesn't mean they're not going to try hard or
race hard or train hard. But you came in kind of,
you know, for you as every step you were taking
was a struggle, and to jump up to from where

(08:21):
you were into those cars, which were amazing cars predicted
to fail by everybody. I think that was kind of
the ongoing thought you didn't. You were very competitive. I mean,
you were running as strong as you could in that car,
you know, as far as with the team, and you
didn't embarrass yourself at all. I think that was the
fact that you were finishing races and competitive with a

(08:44):
lot of your male racers was a shock to a.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Lot of people.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
I except you. Except you, of course.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, I do believe it myself, but I still do.
I think that what people don't understand and is how
physical driving a race car at that level is. And
I think that back then even they didn't think women
would be strong enough to drive a race car. And
it's not as you know, it's not like outright strength,
it's repetitive strength. You had me literally in the gym

(09:15):
twice a day every day so that I would get
out of that race car and people wouldn't question whether
women were strong enough that they could do it.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, I mean it's obviously motorsports is a lot more physical,
and people realize there's some aspects of it that are universal.
You're going to have elevated heart rates and you're going
to have heat stress you deal with. And obviously there's
the anxiety of anxiety of driving, you know, one hundred
and fifty two hundred miles an hour.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
With various other cars around you.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
And then there's the fear factor that really can't creep
into you, which is any mistake you may could affect
your life or someone around you. But when you get
into some of the series that don't have power steering
Champ car at the time or any car, now, there's
a whole physicality aspect of it that people don't understand.
And you're right, you need to be strong, but need

(10:05):
to be able to maintain that strength for long periods
of time. You have to react quickly to a number
of different variables going on at the same time. So
you've got simultaneously you've got to worry about what you're shifting,
your breaking zones, the cars around you.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
You've got century input coming into.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Your ears from spotters, from the timing standards telling you
go to this fuel map here or do this. You're
also trying to make adjustments in the car to change
the balance of the car. All this is going on,
and yes, you're driving, you know, one hundred and fifty
two hundred miles an hour, and so it has to
happen very very quick, looking down at your steering wheel

(10:43):
for a brief moment and looking back up all of
a sudden you're the length of a football field. And
so there's a lot to process. I don't think people
understand how demanding it is. And again you don't really
get the break that you get in the car is
a pit stop, which is very chaotic.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
You're waiting, you're waiting, you're waiting.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
So there really isn't a break there to catch, you know,
it's fifteen seconds, fourteen twelve depending on what series you're in.
Two seconds if you're in Formula one, I guess, but
you have to that's your time to rest. And so
it's it's something where you have to be able to
maintain that level of all those variables thrown into play
to be successful in the car and just keep it
on the track.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
It's funny because there's been times where I've done six
laps on you tis and I'm like holding onto the
thing and the kickbacks, I'm real and it feels like
you're getting rattled around. I've done six laps and I'm thinking,
I like physically can't do this, and then you're like, Okay,
do one more ap, do one more ap, and then
you kind of get into this weird zone where you
just keep on keeping on, and I imagine it's similar

(11:44):
to other endurance sports where you just live in pain
the whole time.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
I do think that's the case that whether you're a
triathlete or a ten k runner, or any kind of
sport that you're you know, a cyclist where you're racing
against others and you just can't let up. There's going
to be points in a race of any sort where
you're going flat out, you're pushing your body to its limits,
and then there's going to be points where from the

(12:10):
standpoint of most average human beings, this is not a
rest period, but it is for you because you've been
pushing so hard that instead of running at one hundred
and eighty heart rate, you're running a one sixty. So
most people would say, well, I'm going to throw up
either way, it doesn't really matter. But for you that
brief moment at least, you know in a race car,
if you look at a racetrack like midd Ohio, you know,

(12:31):
you go into turn one and there's this decent straightaway
that oh, I get, I'm in this straight away for
four seconds, but that's four seconds where you're not fighting
the car, and then you go into the corner. Over
the course of a race, you have these kind of
points on the track where you're really working, and there's
points where you're not working as hard. And the objective

(12:52):
is to maximize those periods where you're not having to
work as hard. But if you're physically not able to
handle it, suddenly you feel like you can't even handle
the physical parts and you're barely hanging on with the parts.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
That aren't as physical.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
It's amazing when I look at a race, a driver
who will look at a race, I'll look at a
racetrack and they basically I asked them how the race was,
and they're like, oh, it's just cruising, just cruising along,
And I'm just thinking to myself, you know, you're the
reason you're cruising along is you're physically and mentally prepared
to handle that kind of stress. But the average person
there is no break in there, so they would be

(13:25):
stressed out the entire time.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Yeah, and there's nothing like doing it repetitively as training
to condition you. Like, we do all these things to
prepare us, but actually driving the race car is the
best preparation that you can have.

Speaker 3 (13:37):
We try to replicate the demands as much as possible
in our environment, you really can't.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
There's nothing like driving the race car.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
But you can prepare the body physiologically, mentally, the neuropathways.

Speaker 2 (13:50):
Of the brain.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
You can do these things that put you in the wheelhouse,
but actually driving the car is the best thing every
every driver we work with who is in a series
where there's a lot of next strength required. We do
massive amounts of work on the neck from all angles
as much as possible. But every single one of that
comes back after the first long test they at Seebring

(14:12):
and they're like, oh, my neck, I need to do
more neck and you're just like that.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
You know.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
We try to duplicate much as possible, but being in
the race cars is really the ultimate proving ground.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah, I mean I have had races because I wear
this we've put when I'm racing, Yeah, and the technologies
come on. I've had races where I've been at one
hundred and eighty beats per minute for three hours, and
to somebody that doesn't understand it, that would be incomprehensible.

Speaker 3 (14:39):
Right, Well, you're burning off, you know, three thousand calories, yeah, in.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
A race that last two hours. You know, that's that's unbelievable.

Speaker 3 (14:48):
The caloric expenditure of being in a race car is
extraordinary and people don't realize that. You know, when those
calories get low and the energy gets low affect your
performance in the car.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
Am I going to get fat when I stop racing?

Speaker 2 (15:05):
You know? That's a good question, Kat, And I think
I got to make that very much.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
I don't know. I think I would like enjoy it.
Maybe I hate I hate to actually, So how much
do you think is mental as opposed to physical? Like
I know for me, the physical gives me the mental
a little bit, Like if I have the physical side covered,
then I've got more bandwidth to deal with the mental.
But like, how much do you think if you had

(15:31):
to put a number on it, like percentage wise. Okay,
So is it fifty percent mental, fifty percent physical or
is it like ninety percent physical, like talking about indy
cars and indie lights and like really heavy cars.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
Again, it depends on the series that you're in. If
you talk about NASCAR, no disrespect, but that's not a
very physical series.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
It's hot, hot, yeah, very hot, very hot.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
You know, it does take a massive amount of skill
to drive one of those cars. We've seen some really
good indy car drivers try and do that and really struggle.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
I mean, you've gone through it.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
But I think from a mental standpoint. You know, we
have a saying here that we use a famous Vince
Lombardi quote the coach of the Green Bay Packers, called
fatigue makes cowards of us all. And I'm a firm
believer in that that when your body starts to fall,
the mind will follow. So you will have drivers that

(16:25):
can sustain their performance in the car and not physically
be that prepared. There are the anomalies, you know, the
Wan Montoya's, the Tony Stewart's, and you know those people,
and I just say, well, what if they were physically prepared,
they'd be that much better, But I would say, you know,
in a series like IndyCar, it's probably fifty to fifty.

(16:45):
I mean there's a massive amount of physicality in it,
but the mental stress of being in the car and everything,
as I described earlier, that you go through.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
This is just so much data being thrown at you.

Speaker 3 (16:56):
I mean actual data, but then also the century in
put from the environment around you and the sheer magnitude
and cars coming, maybe you're getting passed, and maybe there's
flags going on, and the track is changing the condition.
It's not like a sport where yeah, strategy exactly. You know,
they're asking you to save fuel when you're also stay

(17:17):
ahead of the guy behind you. I mean, it's just
boggles the mind. So it's probably fifty to fifty. And
the people that struggle mentally. I've always felt that there's
a level of mental toughness that a good race car
driver has, and I think that's innate. I don't think
you can coach that. I think it's just you're born
with it, and then you can make that better through
some sports psychology and there's some tricks that you can do.

(17:39):
But I have a hard time believing you're going to
turn somebody who doesn't have the mental fortitude to be
running near the front, or the desire and hypnotize them
to make them into a top level driver.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
I think you're either born with it or or not.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
And I'm sure mental training experts and sports psychologists will
argue that they can fix anybody, But in my experience,
I can pretty much within an hour or so of
talking to a driver, I can tell whether they have
the desire and the mental toughness to do it, or
they will probably spend a lot of money discovering that they.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Don't dig deep. I also think that if it's handed
to them on a plane, it's too easy, then they
don't have to fight for it. Then it doesn't mean
as much, then they don't want it as much, and
like that's a whole circle too, Like if it's life
or death to you to make it, then it's a
whole other level of fighting for it. I remember my
dad saying to me, like I would get out of
the car, like take it back to Champca days. I

(18:31):
would get out the car and I wouldn't look exhausted
like a lot of the other drivers did, but I
would feel it. And I think that some drivers put
a different level of effort in when they're driving. Someone
more relaxed when they drive, some are some are more
aggressive when they drive. And he said to me, if
you were fitter, would you have been faster? And I
always wondered that, like, Okay, if I pushed a little

(18:51):
bit harder in the gym, would I have been able
to get a tenth out of that fast corner when
I'm like turning in really hard there? Or It's like
it's fascinating to me how much difference it can make.
I mean, you look at guys like Justin Wilson, who
I always looked up to massively. He seemed to use
like the tiniest portion of his brain physically, he was good.

(19:11):
Scott Dixon another one like doesn't doesn't seem to try
very hard, but obviously is He's just got like so
much more brain they're available because he is so fit.
And I mean, you've worked with Scott for as long
as you work with me. Now, is there something that
you think differentiates the Scott Dixons and Justin Wilson's of
the world, Like what makes a good driver a great driver?

Speaker 2 (19:37):
I do believe that some of the better pure drivers
in the world are also very intelligent people, right, Scott
is extremely intelligent, can figure out anything. And I see
the ability for someone with that kind of mindset to
go into a situation and do a quick analysis of
it and determine exactly what they need to do and

(20:01):
if they need to go above and beyond that, they can,
but they also realize that going above and beyond that
consistently is going to possibly burn you out.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
And I think he's a master of someone who does.
He gets out of the car, he looks fair. I mean,
he's super fit. He's you know, has been forever. But
he's done that his entire almost his entire career. The
very beginning, he didn't when we started working together. It
was a new experience for him. But you know now
he's he's and has been for twenty years, one of
the fittest drivers in racing. But I think with him,

(20:30):
it's something where he is so efficient at the way
that he uses his energy.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
He knows what works what doesn't.

Speaker 3 (20:37):
He's seen it all, he's been there, he's done it,
and he maximizes his abilities when he needs to and
when he doesn't need to. He again it's you know again,
a driver like that will go to a track and
if he's flat out on a qualifying pace for the
whole race, no one can sustain that.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
It's very rare. Someone like Scott probably could.

Speaker 3 (20:58):
Because he has the ability to do that, but he
also knows it'll compromise his performance in the car if
he's constantly on, so he makes efficient use of his
energy systems in the car. He works when he has to,
when he doesn't need to. On a straightaway, his body,
his heart rate, you know, drops faster than the average person,
even for that five or six seconds of a long straightaway.

(21:22):
For him, that heart rate dropping four to five beats
in that short amount of time is a show of
his elite level of conditioning.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
And for one lap it.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
Won't make much of a difference. But when you're doing
that for two hours, that brief moment where your heart
rate drops, that's less energy you're using, so you've got
more at the end of the race. So it's experience
for the most part. But again he's you know, some
of the top drivers in IndyCar Scott, I mean, Alex
Rossi is extremely intelligent, really smart guy, Joseph Newgarden, very

(21:52):
very smart individual and these are winning drivers. So I
do see that trait in these drivers.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
How much do you rely on examples like Scott and
Alex too for the next generation that you're training there
coming up through, Like do you use them as examples
like this is what Scott would do and it's been
proven to be effective, so this is what you should do.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
Also, Scott's always the reference point and Alex Rossi is
a reference point. And now we're seeing drivers like Christian Rasmussen,
you know, who just put up his heaviest, his best
bench press just the other day.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
Oh what was that sixty five? Yeah, that's just just
just hit me, yeah, by like a hundred.

Speaker 3 (22:38):
Yeah, But he sees he sees a driver like that,
and he can relate to him because he's competing with him. Unfortunately,
if you tell a fifteen year old road to Indie
driver about Scott Dixon, it's now we're Scott at an
age now where they can't really connect with them as much. Yeah,

(23:00):
you know, so we have to find other examples of drivers.
So that's where Luckily, a younger driver like an Ala
Rossi who's you know, early mid early thirties, Christian who's
in his twenties, Like they've looked at a guy like
Scott and they've got to a certain level me too.
Yeah yeah, And now these younger drivers can relate to
them a Colton Herda, you know, they're they can equate

(23:20):
more with that than someone who is a legend of
the sport. We had the same thing, and we worked
with Jimmy Johnson when he made his foray into IndyCar.
He was someone that super fit. We had him do
some things he'd never done before. He must have put
on fifteen pounds of muscle to drive IndyCar.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
That's not oh yeah to do.

Speaker 3 (23:37):
He was a triathlete and so he did things. He
didn't have to work that hard for NASCAR, right he was.
He even said he was far more fit than he
needed to be.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
Genetics too, Like he obviously has great genetics, so there's
a lot of that that comes into play also.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
Right, absolutely, And some of these drivers, you know, Scott's
a good example.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
We did his vo two max.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Well this is years ago, but his Viot max was
uh seventy two millimeters per kilogram in it, which is insane,
that's insane. That was when he was probably twenty seven.
It goes down as you get older, but that's that's
like a national level distance runner, you know that, so
he could he could compete in a lot of other things.

(24:18):
Jimmy's the same way, I mean, super fit in a
lot of ways. But you know, these young drivers now,
they're they're they want to be able to look up
to drivers that are in their same in their same wheelhouse.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
In a sense, they just can't equate.

Speaker 3 (24:31):
To a guy like Scott who's you know, I think
going to be forty four. I can't believe he's gonna
be forty four coming up, but.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
I could back in the day, and I still do.
He's still the frame of reference for those of us
who have been around for a hot minute. So going
back to the genetics, how do you think you can
outwork the genetics as a racecode drive?

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Your VO two max, which is basically your VO two
max is how much oxygen your body can utilize. So
if there's a the atmospheric oxygen levels your body can
absorb and utilize a certain amount, that's very genetics. So
you blame your parents, if you know, I blame my
parents that I'm not an Olympic athlete, probably not the reason.

(25:13):
But so you can control that to a certain extent,
you can raise that to a certain level. Some are
just born with it. And I think you see these
stories in Russia or Eastern Bloc countries who are analyzing
genetics of these young children, looking at their muscle composition
and things, and then putting them into a training program
at a very young age, which is kind of scary.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
We don't do that here that I know of in
the United States.

Speaker 3 (25:39):
But you know, there is a certain level of what
you can accomplish, and then that is pretty much it.
You can raise your votwo max if you're maybe ten percent.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, I keep trying to raise mind. How accurate is
the gum and one do we think.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
For measuring your view two max?

Speaker 3 (25:58):
Yeah, well it's taking a calculation. The only true way
to get an accurate VO two max is with the
metabola cart And you've seen the testing where the hoe.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
The toes in the mouth by the way, for those
of you.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Having it's horrible, And so it's measuring.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
It's measuring the inspired oxygen and then the expire CO
two and it takes the numbers from that. So that's
the only true measurement. Things like the garment or concept
two has a test on the roller of two K.
There they're prediction equations. Okay, they're not exactly accurate, but
they're consistent. Yea.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
It gives you a frame of reference.

Speaker 3 (26:33):
It gives you a frame of reference exactly, and so
there's a lot of different tests that you could do.
Most most people get their VO two Max these days
with a prediction equation anyways, because it's because you if
you've done a VO two Max and a treadmill, it
requires a lot of equipment and it's horribly stressful on
the body.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
It's not fun.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
I did it on a bike. It was worse. I
think I would brother I have done it on a treadmill.

Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah, probably the bike is Yeah, it's really specific to
the sports you're in. I mean, Nick, I've seen a
VO two max is in the swim flume.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
You know. It's if you're an if you're an Olympic swimmer,
you want to do a VO two Max in your sport.
So you want to do it as a swim flow.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
I mean, you take a cyclist and put them on
a treadmill, you're not going to get the most accurate
numbers with the.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Race car driver.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
They really you know, you can't really do a VO
two Max in the car. I mean it's been done.
It has been done a field test years ago, in
two thousand and one, it was done.

Speaker 2 (27:25):
It's not that.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
So maybe a rower then for race cood driver, because
then you're using up a body and lower body and
it's probably more effective than a cross trainer or something
like that.

Speaker 3 (27:34):
You've got to be able to do a graded test
with the VO two Max. So it's the treadmill is
traditionally one of the better avenues because you can put
someone at a at a certain elevation with a protocol
and then just gradually build up.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
The speed until they can't go anymore. I love the back,
so you fall off the back. Yeah, So it just depends.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
I mean it's harder to do that with any kind
of machine that you have to adjust the speed yourself.
So like a rower, okay, pool harder, harder, you you
can't it's not.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Put the little slide of numbers up right right.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
And so a bike you can adjust the you can
stay at the same heart rate and adjust the tension
on the gears or whatever whatever mode.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
So but it's hard to really raise that level up.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
What interested me with the VO two mats was this
year actually I was studying it quite hard because I
was trying to get it up on my garment and
it was hovering at fifty and I felt like that
was good, but I didn't know what there was accurate,
and I'm like, yeah, but how do I get it better?
How do I get it better? And then I went
to Pike's Peak and I did some some training in
the altitude and I did those those steps there, which

(28:58):
is a killer, by the way, It was really fun,
but it was a killer. And I did some running
there and my VOTWO max went down obviously because it
is calculation, and then it came when it came back,
it came up, and then it went up to fifty
one and then like okay winning. So altitude training obviously
did have an impact. And I know back in the
day you got me do an altitude training as well.
It's not necessarily something that you can do all the

(29:20):
time unless you live out there, but that I guess
that would be an option.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
It's just one of those areas, you know, with the
altitude training, it takes seven to ten days to get
the effects, and it's not necessarily training at altitude, it's
just living at altitude. So the problem with training at
altitude for too long is that because there's less oxygen available,
you can't push yourself to the same numbers that you

(29:44):
could do at sea level, so you actually get diminishing
returns the longer you're there. Same thing with heat training.
You know, training in the heat is not as beneficial
as just being in the heat. That's just something that
the research has shown. But when you come down to
sea level, then there's the benefit.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Your body is.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
Now super for absorption of oxygen. It's very efficient for
a period of time. So that's you train high e
race low.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
That's always what they've said, and that's how it goes.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
So circling back to residssan because I'm actually blown away
by that bench press number, there is there a like
you have to be strong, but repetitive strength, but you
don't want to be too muscular because actually agility is
really important too. Like have you perfected and actually this
is like a multi part question, like you've been doing

(30:31):
this a long time now, and so you know exactly
what it takes to drive a race car and you've
been like fine tuning, Like I don't think there's any
more that you could possibly learn to find tune it anymore.
But do you have an idea of like the perfect
amount of weights and muscle and mobility and all that
kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (30:50):
Well, I mean we're as far as learning, even at
my ripe old age, like it's a constant process of
new innovations come out. I look back at things I
did ten years ago, go and realize that wasn't the
right path. There's some things that we look back at
ten years ago that my staff will say we should
try this, and I'll look back on something and say, oh, yeah,
we did this.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
I just forgot we used to do this.

Speaker 3 (31:10):
So there's always there's always evolution and went back. I mean,
it's really set in cycles. So you want to have
the ability to sustain the adequate strength for.

Speaker 2 (31:19):
The duration of a race. The way to do that
is you want to get.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
As strong as possible, which is important because you want
to build us up. Right now, we're in a kind
of off season bulking phase where the drivers are getting
very big, they're putting weight on, they're getting very strong.
Once we get into January February, we back down the
heavier weight and we focus more on muscular endurance and
we don't do that with more and more reps of

(31:45):
lighter weight, which can actually be dangerous to the joints.
We don't want to do twenty five reps on a
bench press because they can rip up your shoulder. We
do a lot of things called clusters. A lot of
our cardiovascular equipment is upper body specific, so we'll go
out and invest in things like upper body the upper
body bike. We have several of those skiometer skiers are

(32:06):
great fan bikes, and we just use the upper body everything.
So it's really building around that's that kind of strength,
and then we'll challenge them with the clusters that are
basically set up that you'll go a certain distance in
each one of these machines, and we have probably ten
different clusters, and then you'll do that. It might take

(32:27):
you ten minutes, eleven minutes straight and you're pushing, pushing, pushing,
and then you rest five minutes and then do it again,
rest five minutes to do it again. We take your
average of those three sets and that goes as your score.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
We have leader boards.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
How competitive are they Unbelievably Yeah, I can imagine I
would be too, but it's beneficial.

Speaker 3 (32:50):
You know, we're trying to push them to the maximum
levels as much as possible, but then you want to
be able to recover and then go back and do
it again.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
So it's a matter of cycling things through.

Speaker 3 (32:59):
Like with any athlete, you want to have a period
where you're bulking things up, getting stronger, but you don't
want to carry that kind of mass into the season.
The leaning pit part comes into the first of the year.
By the first race, they're ready to go, and then
it's a maintenance face the entire season.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Which isn't easy. By the way, that's not easy because
the demands on our time. But you can run anywhere,
right there's gyms. You can do random stuff in the gyms,
but to do this specific stuff that you do, it's
not easy to be consistent with that and keep that level.
Because when you're in the gym twice a day in
the off season, it's easy to get to that level

(33:35):
because that's what your focus is. But then throughout the season,
when you're doing a sponsor event and a race and this,
that and the other, it's harder to keep that momentum
going well.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
We focus on making sure the drivers are as strong
as possible at the start of the season because as
the season wears on, they're less able to train, but
they're still going through the stresses of being in the car.
And you see some drivers that are in the past,
We've seen them that are really good up to dy
and then they just fall off. And you see that
every year. I can run through a list of drivers

(34:06):
who I know are not doing the right kind of training.
You know, they're doing what I call euro training, which
is they ride their bike all the time.

Speaker 2 (34:13):
You know, it's a big thing. They run all the time.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Try that too.

Speaker 2 (34:17):
It doesn't work and it's.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Okay for the first part of the season, and then
you get into the meat of the season where you're
racing every two weeks and you're traveling and you have
tests that kind of thing. Your body starts to break down.
And so if you don't have that, by the time
our driver's bodies are breaking down, they're kind of at
a level that they're still.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Able to drive the car properly.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah. I think it's.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
It gets hotter, yeah, and if you can, if you
can tolerate, we do a lot of heat training as well.
We have infrared saunas, so we incorporate infrared saunas, cold
plunges We have a lot of neurocolligative equipment, spend a
lot of money on that that we do as part
of it, with protocols that they follow with progressions. So
it's all kind of it's very structured the way it
set up with the drivers.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
So how important do you think that that is that
reaction training as well, Like do you think that that's
key or do you think that that is something that
they have naturally? Anyway?

Speaker 3 (35:12):
I think drivers innately, the good drivers are have a
level of reaction time and the ability to process things
very very quick and switch tasks above the average human.
I don't think we realize it until you see one
of them do one of these drills where it requires
them reading off numbers or doing a math equation while

(35:34):
moving as fast as possible to hitting dots, but not
just hitting dots, but hitting the center of the docks.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
We measure the accuracy. You can't just randomly flail around.
And they do this very very quick.

Speaker 3 (35:44):
And you see someone like you know, to keep throwing
Dixon and Rossi out there, but they'll do these drills
and if they're calling out certain things on the screen,
they're basically doing it at a rate that it sounds
like they're just having a conversation with their friend.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
It's very casual.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Whatever other drivers are just they're you know, they're they're
they're sweating, they're hitting, they're frantic, and that's usually how
they drive as well. But it's a matter of the
drivers feel there's a benefit to it. If we can
if we can train the neurocognitive pathways that become more efficient,
then it's a win. Now, we can't put them in

(36:19):
a car, so we can't actually have them taking input
of data like seeing a breaking zone and reacting to
it like a car turning in front of you, like
the physical stress during We can't do that.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
They have to be in the car to do those
kind of things.

Speaker 3 (36:35):
But what we can do is make those neuropathways more
efficient so that when they take the data that comes
in from there raising day, the body's already done this
in a sense. It's just kind of refining the data
that's coming in. But the pathways are so efficient that
it processes things quicker. The drivers have told us that
they feel like things move slower on the track the

(36:57):
more they do this.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
That that's kind of the they've told us.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
So it is almost like a muscle that you can
train the reflexes.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
It's absolutely training, absolutely, and it's not just it's not
just reacting quick, it's reacting quick correctly right now. Because
reacting quick is easy. You can just impulsively do something
and then you make the wrong decision.

Speaker 2 (37:18):
And there you go.

Speaker 3 (37:20):
But it's a matter of being able to do it properly,
and that takes experience. You know, young driver's not going
to be the experience of a driver has been around
for a while, so that that kind of thing is
a learned Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
I feel like that is a subconscious versus versus conscious
thing as well. Like somebody likes Scott out thinks not
to keep throwing them under the bus here, but I
feel like they do that subconsciously, whereas some of these
younger drivers coming up through are doing it consciously. Therefore
it's more frantic, I guess, because your conscious mind can't
work as fast as your subconscious mind. So the more

(37:52):
it can be subconscious, the better it is.

Speaker 3 (37:54):
Yeah, and some of the lessons they've learned, these older drivers,
it isn't their subconscious and they can pull it up
and they can analyze it quickly, make a decision, apply
it and then go to the next one. They talk
about multitasking, you know, which is physiologically impossible. You can't
do two things at the same time. It was the
same efficiency. It's impossible. And I'm a man and I'm

(38:18):
not going to I'm not going to argue that at all.
But what you can do is you can take a task,
take the data input, process it, make a decision, and
then motor skill perform what you have to do, and
then quickly go to the next one, then go to
the next one. And that's the efficiency of somebody who
and that's not just race car drivers. You look at
a Steph Curry. You know, Steph Curry is dribbling down

(38:41):
the basketball court and he has so much going on
in his mind that he has to You look at
some of the things that these Lebron James or some
of these you know Tom Brady. They have experience and
they're at performing at a high level, and they're very smart.
They can process things and make the right decision. There's
also players at the same experience level that aren't as

(39:05):
good still make mistakes. There's just something innately with those
individuals that they've kind of put the whole package together
and that's why they're great, and that's what you see
in racing.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, And I think it's also something that you get
from being really young. Like I think that the subconscious
way that you've trained those pathways to work when you're
nine and you're racing at gokart is by far more
valuable than if you're twenty nine and you're trying to
learn it for the first time. For sure.

Speaker 3 (39:31):
I mean, try to learn a language right now in
my age or your age, it's just not going to happen.

Speaker 2 (39:37):
You know.

Speaker 3 (39:38):
I'm trying to learn to play the drums, and it's
I wish I would have done this thirty years ago,
forty years ago. It's like pulling teeth to do that.
But at nine years old, you can take a kid
and immerse them for a month in a French speaking
community and they're fluent. You know, they pick up on
it right away because it's their brains and their their minds.

(39:59):
Research is like around age thirteen is up to there
is when you're most efficient at learning new tasks. After
that it's downhill.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
That's a long time.

Speaker 3 (40:08):
Yeah, I mean that makes you think about your immersing
kids and different activities.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
That's true, Sonna. I'm gonna circle back to the very beginning,
like what made you choose this path for your life,
and like what developed your passion in all things health
and fitness and focused on racing. Well.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
The health and fitness thing was because of a girl.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Always because of a girl, Always be of a girl.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
I was going to school in Cincinnati and studying pre law. Wow,
I didn't not intention of being a lawyer and going
in the FBI. And a girl that I was chasing
talked to me to doing a duathlon, which is a
run bike run event. I fell in love with it,
and I discovered quickly that that's what I wanted to do.

(40:54):
So that got me in that path. I changed everything,
which is cool for longer, and moved and went to
school up in Michigan and got my undergraduate and started
to get my master's degree, and then started this company.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
So I just bailed on the masters.

Speaker 3 (41:09):
And I had a teacher actually tell me not to
get my masters because you can just hire somebody with
the masters.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
And that's what we've done. All my staff have master's degrees.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
I feel like we're blessed that we do have that
thing that we're really passionate about that we can be
focused on that we've like that's given our life direction
to there.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
It is nice, and you know, I was very fit
and doing all these things, and then began working for
a Roger Penske at Detroit Diesel Corporation with a corporate
wellness program and started working with the IndyCar team back
in ninety end of ninety three and then a full
program in ninety four. And I would travel back and
forth to Writing, Pennsylvania like every month and set up

(41:47):
a gym for them and would send them programs.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
And at that time I had no idea really, I
was just experimenting.

Speaker 3 (41:53):
This is before the internet, believe it or not, or yeah,
well before and so it was a lot of trial
and error. There wasn't anybody doing it at all in
North America. I don't know of anybody that was really
doing this. And I just wanted to please Roger Penske.
That's like my only objective was to just sign in
his eyes. And then what I realized soon enough is

(42:14):
that I was gaining more and more knowledge and more
and more people were reaching out that this is an
opportunity to not just work with a team, but to
branch off and I kind of broke off and did
my own thing, and that went from there. The motorsports
thing was just kind of random. I was obviously working
for Roger, but not in motorsports. And then my grandfather

(42:37):
sent me an article about Rusty Wallace's pit crew doing
sepaerobics to get faster in pitstops, and I kind of
put the two together reached out to Roger and that's
how the connection. And then the more it fed into it,
the more growth. I realized that I didn't know what
I wanted. I just knew there was something out there,
and I was dumb enough and young enough to just

(42:58):
blindly chase this without any fear of failure, without any
concern about anything except making Roger happy. You know, I
broke off from Roger, and you know, I'm sure he's
happy with my decision. But it just grew from there
and more opportunities arose, and drivers sort of come over
from Europe. There's an Already's and the the Farrians and
the Blundell's and the Gougelman's, and they were coming over

(43:21):
super fit. You know, they would come over and it
was very well. I mean over there there were already
physios and trainers and Senna had been training and over
here nobody was doing it. So initially it was kind
of a beating my head against the wall. I mean,
I God love him, but I was assigned to make
Allen Sir Junior more fit by Roger and that fun

(43:43):
al called me and he was all excited and all that,
And then they called me a week later and he said,
how would you like to come on and go? Someone'll
beiling with Motley crue. That's fitness, right, And kind of yeah,
it didn't. It didn't transpire, but I knew that, you know,
it just wasn't accepted.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
At that point. But the driver's coming over here and
doing well.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
I've definitely motivated the American side to say, wait a second,
this is something to this, and now you know you
know this. Everybody's there's there's trainers and physios, and everyone's
an expert on Instagram and he already wants to be
an f one trainer and all that stuff. It's there's
more and more people, but there's some a core group
of really good trainers, physios experts who we all know

(44:24):
each other and kind of rely on each other.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
It's just more it's out there more.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
Yeah, I mean you actually touched on a very good point.
The crews and their mobility and fitness and strength is
also key. You know, it's not just about the driver.
Is a team sport, and you also train them to
be as good as they can be in as fast
as they can be at doing pit stops and being
able to be on their feet and doing all the

(44:50):
physical stuff all day every day, because they are long
days at the racetrack too, And so I don't think
people realize that because you look at some of the
crews and they don't look like they're in shape necessarily.
Some do, obviously and some don't, but they're all pretty strong. Well.

Speaker 3 (45:06):
I think it's something that Devald and I think NASCAR
kind of kicked it off with their understanding that pit
stops can win races.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
They use athletes.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
NASCAR is a whole different level or NASCAR they fly in.
They have former college athletes, you know, doing these pit stops.
It isn't a mechanic. These are athletes that just change tires.
And then some of the bigger teams will have a
number of these athletes and they firm them out to
other smaller teams. Who don't want to hire IndyCar. For
the longest time, was this guy that's forty five years old.

(45:39):
It's been turning wrenches for twenty years. He's also the
outside rear tire changer. I mean, if he's fit, great,
but I'm going to work on the car till two
in the morning maybe and then get up.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
And go to the track and also do pit stops.
That went on for a long time.

Speaker 3 (45:51):
Now you're seeing, at least with IndyCar, they've taken the
NASCAR model, and so the teams, the bigger teams, Ganassi, McLaren, Penske,
and they've hired someone to be their strength conditioning coach.
They'll hire a pit stop coordinator. Like there's more money involved,
the more money it drives it. You're seeing that model
moved over to IndyCar, where you still have the mechanics.

(46:13):
Though you still have the mechanics doing all the tire changes,
and so it's a wellness program as well for these
these athletes.

Speaker 1 (46:21):
It is. And there's more and more women going over
the wall now too, which is great.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
They're crazy, yeah, and it's I think it's fantastic.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
I think that because they're heavy, heavy, how much do.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
They weigh absolutely.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Fronts I think around thirty two thirty five pounds and
their rears about ten pounds heavier, and.

Speaker 1 (46:39):
You're going to throw it on with one arm, and oh,
it's it's.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
It's wild, it's That's how I learned how to do
pit stops when I went to Penske Rick Rhineman, who
is now retired with Penske Forever. He set up at
the race shop, set up a station for me, gave
me an air gun, and I set a clock and
for thirty minutes, I basically glee took tire off the
station for thirty minutes straight. I just kept doing this
cause I didn't I didn't know you had to do

(47:06):
this to understand it, and I could move. The next day,
I was so sore, so sore, they're laughing at me.
But that made me realize that, wow, this is the
physical activity and it's done lightning fast. So you there's
a lot of stress on the pickers as well.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
I mean just jumping off the pitwool, honestly, like a
lot of people, caldn't do without blowing me out, let's
be honest.

Speaker 3 (47:28):
And then there's a fear of getting run over and
drivers overshoot their pits, so you got to adapt to
the whole thing, and.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
You can't move and you can't see because you got
a helmet on and you're restricted in a race there. Yeah,
it's not easy. I have a lot of respect for those.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Guys, Absolutely top level people for sure.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
So as a holistic health and wellness plan, not only
for the drivers, but for the crews and everything as well,
how important do you think that nutrition and supplementation and
that aspect.

Speaker 2 (48:12):
Of you know, I mean use the analogy.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
You wouldn't put inferior fuel into your race car, you
know it won't run properly.

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Same thing with your body.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
You've got to take a nutrition seriously, You've got to
Hydration is critical, especially on race weekend. Your lifestyle not
just at the racetrack but outside of the racetrack is important.
So we have dieticians that work for us, that work
with our drivers. But you can't work around a bad diet.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
It's kind of one of the I know, I've tried here.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
I've tried it in ice cream and drinking beer and training,
and you can't outwork about that.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
It gets tougher as you get older, believe me, you know, that.

Speaker 1 (48:51):
So are you old school and nutrition or are you
like you believe in qito? Are you like thirty thirty forty,
like if you were telling a driver obviously it has
to be not processed and whole foods and et cetera,
et cetera. But do you believe in mostly protein to
build that muscle or are you still like you have

(49:13):
a cycling of carbs before you work out?

Speaker 2 (49:15):
What do you do?

Speaker 3 (49:16):
Yes, pretty standard nutrition information you've got. You've got a
balanced diet, excessive amounts of protein. It's a poor source
of energy. So if you're just bulking up on protein,
you're not going to have the energy for your training.
If you're just eating carbs, you're not going to be
able to recover a build amount of muscle that you need.
You've got to have some fat in your diet. You know,

(49:38):
we were fed for years that that was the horrible thing.
So we're gonna, you know, we're going to make low
fat everything and then while low and behold, we discover
that fat's actually good for you. But really a big,
big problem now is the standard of processed foods. Yeah,
that's a huge component. And so the more natural you
can eat, the better the keto diet can help you

(50:02):
drop weight short term, but it's not a long term
fix by any means. And I'm not a diet tish.
I'm just telling you my experience and we kind of
adhere to but a balanced diet sixty percent carbohydrates somewhere
along there, your fat and your protein level depends on
what you're trying to accomplish. Our protein intake is important.

(50:22):
Most people don't get enough protein in their body, and
so we sit down and look at their diet. The
dietician looks at their diet and see we'll look and
see what they're eating on a regular basis, and based
on that and their needs, then kind of adjust their
diet accordingly. So, you know, we have drivers that are
having to eat one hundred and fifty grams of protein
a day.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
It's a lot of work.

Speaker 1 (50:44):
It is a lot of work.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
I mean, it's a lot of work, and it creates problems.

Speaker 3 (50:48):
I mean, you're you're you better have some additional fiber
in your diet because that'll that'll stop everything.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Yeah, yeah, no, it will, it will.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
I think the kind of cobs for me, it's the
kind carbs. Like if I get carbs from like fruit
and vegetables and things like that. It's much better than
having bread and pasta. Like I had to cut out
bread and past it because I love it, but it
just it wasn't doing me any favor and I couldn't.
I couldn't drop the weight. But I think it's having
a general understanding. But now it's so easy to track everything, workouts, food,

(51:22):
but it's also so easy to get false information. Like
if you scroll through Instagram nowadays everybody's an expert on
fitness and nutrition. You're like, ooh, I'm going to try
that new variation of a squat and like you throw
your back out, and so it's really hard to discriminate
between what's real and what's not real, which is why
somebody like you is so important, because you've built everything

(51:44):
on really solid foundations and you know what works, and
you will try the new fads and everything else, but like,
let's start with the this is absolutely non negotiable and
build from there.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
The fundamentals in any form of anything in life are critical.
To do the simple things properly, and if you just
do that, you'll probably be ahead of most people. Literally
everything in life. When it gets fancy is when you
can get into trouble, but that doesn't mean you should
dismiss something new because it's new. It's exhausting and a

(52:17):
little bit of information can be a dangerous thing. So
someone can be an expert because they read something, or
they're an Instagram expert or you. But then again, there
are some people that don't have college degrees that I
know that are brilliant in their field because they just
are very intelligent and they've gone above and beyond in
certain areas. So a degree doesn't necessarily mean that you're

(52:38):
an expert on something. It just means you were able
to get a degree.

Speaker 2 (52:41):
Right.

Speaker 1 (52:41):
The research is key, like having good quality research.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yeah, peer approved research is critical.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
I don't know everything and I learned a very young
age to get rid of ego and it's better to
seek out the best you can find and time. People
want to help. That's a great thing. People want to help,
They want to be involved in racing, which is great.
So we have David Ferguson, who is a PhD from
Michigan State who's done a probably done the most research

(53:09):
on motorsports human performance in the last eight years, and
anybody in the world. We have dietitians, two dieticians we
work with. We have a sleep coach, we have mental
training experts, Like we have all these people that we
can rely on and send our drivers to. And the
fact that if you try to be multi dimensional, I
mean you'll be like I joke around, is kind of

(53:30):
like one of those multi station printer facts, scanners, clothes washer, whatever,
Like they're pretty good to get the job done, but
if you want a really good ability to print something,
then you need to buy a color printer that's specially
designed for that same thing.

Speaker 2 (53:46):
Jack of all trades, master of none is really not
the way to go. So it's better to be specified,
find the best people.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
Yeah, you got to specify, and if you can't do it,
they need to send your people, your client to the
best people that's that are available.

Speaker 1 (54:01):
Yeah. Another element that was very important for me coming
up through and I think it's the developing drivers. That's
what molds you, right, that's the key point in time
that is important. Like once you get into a rhythm
of things, I feel like it's much easier because you
kind of know what you're doing, good, bad or in different.
You've picked a lane and you're going down it when
I was coming up through, one of the keyer elements

(54:23):
was the support element, and so being surrounded by people
that you could call if you had questions and just
you know, you weren't feeling great about something, or you
wanted to moan about this, or'll be really excited about that,
and so having you and the community that was at
pitfit was really important. How it's a multifaceted question because

(54:45):
you've got that element, You've got the farther and parent
element of the drivers, and then you've got the team
element of the drivers, Like how important is that support
network that they're supportive enough but not too supportive and
you get some element of control of them and you
support them and like steer them, Like how much do
you have to take control over their environment? I guess

(55:07):
is the question to get the results that you want
out of them.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
The support system is important. And as a race car driver,
the higher you go, I think it's with anybody who's
in the public eye, the more people want to be
involved with you, want to help you, and they may
not have the most honorable intentions.

Speaker 2 (55:26):
That's just the way things are. So it's good to have.

Speaker 3 (55:29):
I think you look at this with any elite athlete.
They have this core group of people that they've been
with them since the start. That's important that you can
rely on. It's difficult, but if you can find the
right people and then we try to give that we
pull the driver in here. It doesn't matter who you are.
I mean, you're getting treated the same. We give your respect,
we want you to work hard. We give you as

(55:49):
much respect as you give us. And if you don't
want to participate, then you know, move on to somewhere else.
That's kind of our safe haven. The beauty of the program.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
And do you have to cool them away from the
cutting dad syndrome. You have to like say, okay, it's
enough listening to your dad now because he doesn't actually
know what he's talking about.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Kind of do I've pulled many times that brought drivers
in here.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
Who will they're not taking the program seriously and the
coaches will tell me they're wasting time.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
You know, they want to talk.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
It's a social event for them, So what should take
somebody an hour to finish their training session? There for
two hours because they're just talking and it's disrupting the
program and it's just rolling down a hill.

Speaker 2 (56:29):
Kind of a thing. It just gathers steam. And so
I pulled drivers in many times.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
I've already done this this year many times and just say, look,
you need to stop talking, or I'll just go out
on the floor and talk. I seem to have this
fatherly presence because I'm older once I get there, and
I'll get on the coaches too about it, like you've
got to step up. So there's that component of it
that we want them to take this seriously because everybody
else is so just because you have a lot of

(56:53):
money or you just won, you know, a race, doesn't
mean you've made it. The people that are good continue
to push the boundaries and do the right thing. The
parents are another story. We don't have a lot of
problem with parents because we come from a position of authority.
We will tell them this is what we need to
be doing with your kid. If they're not responding, well,

(57:14):
I've talked to parents many times and just said, you know,
this is the problem we're having with your kid. Or
I'll do a powwow group meeting with everybody and just
say we don't need your money. We got enough drivers
in our program. Like our biggest advertisement is our drivers
their success. The way they carry themselves and so posting
on Instagram, you.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Know whatever, that's cool.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
But if you're not doing the job, then you're going
to need a reputation for being difficult or a problem.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
There's drivers we won't let in the program.

Speaker 3 (57:41):
The team element can be challenging because it depends on
who's paying for the program. Sometimes a team will pay
for it sometimes so there's accountability to the team. Sometimes
the drivers paying and the team wants information on the driver.
In all fairness, I can't give out this information because
is than that bond of trust.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
We lose that bond of trust. So it's a challenge
to balance it all. Most of the times they understand it.

Speaker 3 (58:08):
But a couple of times I've had teams want me
to basically bad mouth the driver and tell me that
they're not doing the work because they're not performing in
the car, so they're looking for a reason to act them.
I'm just honest and tell them what's happening. I've had
all sorts of situations over the years with teams and
drivers and parents.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
But at the end of the day, the biggest thing.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
That we provide to our drivers is we provide a
level of trust that everything we're doing is in their
best interest no matter what, and we will uncover any
stone to do that. Then that transparency has been in
our program from day one, and we've got a lot
of success.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
Well, trust and.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
Well, it's just I think, Catherine, I think that's that's life.
Do the right thing, be honest, be ethical, you know,
I mean, that's that's just me.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
One.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
I want I get one on one, you know, follow
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (59:01):
I'm actually very faith driven, and you know there are
certain things that with God that I look at the
virtues with my faith and I say carry that over
into life.

Speaker 2 (59:12):
But it's common sense things. And so if we can
get the driver to be a better person, we're going
to try.

Speaker 3 (59:18):
And do that.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
That's amazing. Do what you say you're going to do,
which not a lot of people do these days, which
drive me absolutely body. But all right, last question. You
have always been very fit and very strong, and so
you are a beacon of light at the top of
the program. How much of it motivates you to be
a good example and to keep that strength and that
fitness and be able to do everything that you're telling

(59:41):
them to do, like practice what you preach, Like is
it that you're driven to be that shining light or
you don't want to be not able to do it.
Like what keeps you motivated to stay so fit and strong?

Speaker 2 (59:54):
It used to be I just wanted to beat the
drivers and everything. When I was younger and I could,
I could pull it off. I'm strong and fit and
all those things.

Speaker 3 (01:00:02):
As time has gone on, I've realized that I can't
be the strongest driver, and I can't. You know, when
Scott Dixon started to beating me in triathlons, when I
was beating him forever, I just realized that this is
a superior animal and I have to take a back
seat to that. At the end of the day, though,
I still want to be as competitive as possible with them,
and I think it's just an innate thing with me

(01:00:22):
is that I'm competitive. I want to look good, I
want to feel good. I know it's my kids have
grown up seen me always training being fit. It's just
something I love the way it makes me feel, and
I don't think that's ever going to change. But I
do realize, as you know, it's I think I told
you I got a new hip. I know that I'm
not able to do the things I did when I

(01:00:43):
was twenty five and thirty. But I can still compete
with a lot of the drivers and a lot of things.
So it's just I think it inspires the drivers to
see me continuing to do these things.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Even though I'm a little older. I may not have
some of the.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
Attributes that I had at a younger age. I sit
behind a desk a lot more than I did back
when I trained with you. I was able to do
all the things with the drivers. But I think it's
important that they see that as a company, we aren't
just preaching this, we're actually doing it. So I'll continue
to do it and be pissed off if I get
beat on something. But I've accepted the fact that I'm

(01:01:20):
getting higher up there in age and I can't be
as competitive as I once.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Was at the same level.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
I mean, you'll still fitterer and stronger, and you still
look better than the average person in the twenties. So
whatever it's doing, it's working, and I aspire to it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
I appreciate it. I appreciate it. You're very gracious of you,
and whether you're telling the truth or not, oh, I
appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Honestly, was an inspiration to me to see you and
Scott do it back then. It was something that I
aspired to, so I think that it's important good. I
appreciate anyway, I've taken up enough of your a very
precious time. I appreciate all the wisdom and insight that
you have imparted to us on the podcast today, and
I will continue to follow the programs that you gave

(01:02:02):
me back in the day and what I feel works
for me. And I love that I have a You know,
when I broke my legs in COVID, you were the
first person I reached out to. Like to have somebody
that you trust that knows what they're doing, like, Okay,
how do I do? This is invaluable. So thank you
for that, Thank you for trusting us, Thanks for listening

(01:02:25):
to Throttle Therapy. We'll be back next week with more
updates and more overtakes. We want to hear from you.
Leave us a review in Apple Podcasts and tell us
what you want to talk about. It might just be
the topic for our next show. Throttle Therapy is hosted
by Katherine Legg. Our executive producer is Jesse Katz, and
our supervising producer is Grace fuse. Listen to Throttle Therapy

(01:02:49):
on America's number one podcast network, I Heart, open your
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