Sport Psychology Tactics - How WRC Rally Drivers Train For Mental Stress During Competition
About the Author
Ben Foodman is a licensed psychotherapist & performance specialist. He owns his private practice located in Charlotte North Carolina where he specializes in working with athletes to help them overcome mental blocks (the yips), PTSD, ADD / ADHD and achieve flow states through the techniques of Brainspotting & Neurofeedback. If you are interested in services, use the link here! Enjoy the article below!
Introduction: The Physical And Mental Stress Of Rally
I have been fortunate to work with some of the most talented racecar drivers on the planet. Being located in the motorsports capital of the United States certainly has put me in frequent contact with these athletes such as NASCAR drivers competing in the Cup Series, Xfinity and truck series or IndyCar drivers. But one of the most unique series in all of motorsports to work with are Rally racecar drivers. This sport requires a level of psychological focus that is almost unmatched in all athletics regardless of the sport category.
I believe that many of the training methodologies used by Rally drivers have universal application to all athlete populations. So for this issue of the Training Report, I want to explore some of the training methodologies I have used with this athlete population as well as other motorsport athletes. For part I. I will discuss some of the physical demands required of Rally race car drivers. For part II. I will discuss some of the exercise psychology interventions I use with race car driver populations. Finally in part III. I will discuss a mental training strategy called Brainspotting that I use with these athletes.
Part I. WRC Drivers Are Endurance Athletes
While the physical demands are somewhat similar in Rally driving versus NASCAR or IndyCar, there are some unique aspects as well. Rally drivers will expend incredible amounts of energy during performances, and some research has shown that these athletes can burn anywhere from 3000 to 4000 calories per race. There are many factors that can affect this, but some influencing factors include the heat produced from the body hold static muscle positions to compensate for the force of the car, the heat of wearing the helmet and fire suit, and the repetitive strength needed for braking and the throttle.
Other factors that are especially unique to Rally drivers are the reaction times that they have to deal with. The road courses that they run are often different in terms of the ground composition (the course can change from mud, dirt, concrete, gravel and even ice), these courses can change in elevation (drivers can be driving up narrow mountain passes or winding roads) and these drivers are not using simulators unlike NASCAR athletes. This means that they need to have incredible memories to run the correct race line, and fast-twitch reflexes that can respond to any stress stimuli in a heart beat. So what is one method these athletes use to train and prepare for these conditions?
Part II. How WRC Drivers Use Exercise Psychology
Most sport psychologists use exercise psychology strategies to help people lose weight and stay motivated through a health crises. However, in my practice and in some of the more elite sports performance facilities, we are beginning to use exercise psychology tactics to enhance mental training outcomes. For example, one form of strength & conditioning training that actually has a exercise psychology-based application is Prehab. There are many different definitions and interpretations of what ‘prehab’ is. In the book The 4-Hour Body by Timothy Ferris the author quite simply defines prehab as ‘injury-proofing- the body. You could make the argument that all strength & conditioning is ‘injury-proofing’ the body, but when speaking with different exercise science professionals and biomechanists, most of these individuals consider prehab to be a combination of strength training with physical-therapy style focused exercises. In Mr. Ferris’s book, he provides an example of how prehab specialists think about this issue: According to Gray the most likely cause of injury is neither weakness nor tightness, but imbalance. Think doing crunches or isolated ab work is enough to work your core muscles? Think again. ‘The core, as just one example, often works fine as long as one’s hips aren’t moving. It’s when the hips are moving-a more realistic scenario-that the core starts to compensate for left-right differences.’ That’s when you get injured.
Other experts in the field provide similar content to support the need to focus on Prehab interventions. In the book Becoming A Supple Leopard by Dr. Kelly Starrett, the following excerpt provides additional rational for this type of thinking: Prioritizing spinal mechanics is the first and most important step in rebuilding and ingraining functional motor patterns, optimizing movement efficiency, maximizing force production, and avoiding injury. In order to safely and effectively transmit force through your core and into your extremities, you need to organize your spine in a neutral position and then crease stability throughout that organized system by engaging the musculature of your trunk, which is knowns as bracing. This is the basis of midline stabilization and organization. To oversimplify this, if you are a professional racecar driver and your body is in pain, aching or your HRV is not in a good state, your mental focus will be compromised and you will have a lot of disappointing performances.
So what exactly does Prehab have to do from an exercise psychology perspective? Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialists and exercise physiologists follow the principle that all athletes should train using sport-specific movements. When we think about the physical demands of Rally drivers (and all motorsport athletes), prehab would be an ideal training methodology because the body will inevitably suffer from compression forces in the car, creating bilateral and unilateral deficiencies. However, I believe it is important to consider the psychological component of these driving stressors, because when Rally drivers and other motorsport athletes enter the cockpit, they will need to have their mind focused on the race line and course demands to achieve peak performance outcomes…not unwanted pain that is experienced in the body. But there is an additional mental training approach that these athletes should use to offset the negative outcomes of motorsport competition: Brainspotting.
Part III. Racecar Drivers, Brainspotting & Mental Training
Brainspotting is a brain-based psychotherapy technique that utilizes the client’s field of vision to identify unresolved psychological issues. In Brainspotting we say ‘where you look affects how you feel’ and through this process clients have the ability to access the parts of their brain that traditional psychotherapy approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy are unable to do. This results in clients being able to directly address the true ‘underlying’ issue (which we refer to as a Brain Spot) that has created conflict allowing individuals to move from needing to constantly cope, to not needing to cope at all. Brainspotting can be used to help anyone who is dealing with mental blocks, the yips, psychologically traumatic events, chronic pain issues from injuries, as well as individuals who are trying to access deeper levels of creativity or cultivating mental flow states. When we think about the potential issues that all racecar drivers in every racing series deal with such as concussions, TBIs, car crashes, witnessing colleagues crash, sport humiliations, sports-injuries, out of sport trauma (e.g. car accidents, interpersonal relationship issues), it can be easy to see why this intervention pairs perfectly with this athlete population.
The goal of all psychotherapy interventions are to help clients move from dysregulation to regulation. For instance if you are a racecar driver and you have been experiencing mental blocks such as increased pre-performance anxiety or fear responses, this can be considered a state of dysregulation. Because almost half of the brain is dedicated to vision, we use the client’s field of vision combined with focused mindfulness to help engage the regions of the brain that are responsible for regulation and bypass the regions that are not! This physiological approach can help clients achieve their desired psychological outcomes. When athletes work with a sport psychologist who uses Brainspotting, they will first identify what the issue is that they would like to resolve. These issues can range from experiencing pre-performance nerves in sports, to having decreased response times during driving performances. Clients discuss the issue in-depth and then the sport psychologist invites clients to have their eyes follow a pointer that the clinician will move in certain directions to identify the eye position that is relevant to the topic that the client is looking to resolve. Once the eye position is identified, the client will hold that eye position for either several minutes up to two hours potentially until the issue is resolved. Racecar driving is inherently dangerous and there will be predictable and inevitable stress outcomes induced on the body. Rally car drivers need to mentally train to stay ahead of these issues and Brainspotting is the perfect intervention for this!
Note To Reader:
If you are an athlete reading this segment of the TRAINING REPORT, hopefully this content was helpful! I put the Training Report together because I felt like many of the discussions on issues such as the Yips/mental blocks, strength training & other subject matter on athlete performance concepts were really missing the mark on these ideas (e.g. how trauma is the direct cause of the Yips). If you are interested in learning more, make sure to subscribe below for when I put out new content on issues related to sport psychology & athlete performance! Also, if you are looking to work with a mental performance specialist, you are in the right place! USE THIS LINK to reach out to me to see if my services are the right fit for your goals!
ARE YOU ON THE LIST?
Make sure you’re signed up to Ben’s mailing list to receive news & updates on new strategies in sport psychology, upcoming workshops & products. Don’t wait, sign up now!
Check Out The Previous Training Reports!
