Neck Strength And Motorsport
Performance and protection
Unlike many sports, something unique to racing is the stress and forces that are placed upon the neck. While some contact sports such as rugby, American football, boxing, MMA will have neck strength demands and forces placed upon the neck, none have these forces sustained for anywhere near the duration or forces that are consistently as high as those experienced within racing.
When it comes to racing neck strength has two fundamental roles: Performance and Protection, let’s look at both of these and why each is important.
Part One: Performance
Let’s kick off at looking at the importance of neck strength on performance and how training the neck can maximise performance in the car.
For racing driver a major component they have to deal with in the car is G-force. While the extent of these forces will vary depending on the category or racing it is present in some form at all levels. Every time a driver hits the brakes, accelerates or goes through a corner they are subjected to G-force from multiple directions, in formula one as an example these forces can reach 5-6G (5-6 times the force of gravity) when braking and cornering. For context here tour standard road car will be able to manage just over 1G. In addition to these forces the drivers head is subjected to a significant amount of buffeting and vibrations from the car.
So what do these numbers mean? A driver being subjected to 5-6G of force means that during braking and cornering their head will end up weighing 5-6 times what it would normally. The weight of an average humans head and racing helmet combined is roughly 6kg, which means each time a driver hits the brakes or corners they are therefore having to fight against their head weighing 30-36kg. They wont just have to do this once, but anywhere between 10-15 times per lap for 50-70 laps…a significant load over a race distance.
Without building up the required strength and strength endurance to be able to cope with these forces the neck will fatigue pretty quickly. As the neck fatigues not only does it become uncomfortable but it becomes increasingly difficult to hold the head up, keep the head stable to spot braking and turn in points, apex’s and to maximise the lap time and performance behind the wheel. The fatigue and discomfort also provide a distraction that impacts on decision making, co-ordination and reaction times.
The stronger we can make the neck and specifically the stronger we can make the neck to withstand and resist forces from multiple directions the better we can cope with these forces and minimise the impact on performance.
Part Two: Protection
The second big area that neck strength impacts upon is protection and prevention of injury. With the driver tightly strapped into the car limiting the amount of movement of the body the head, arms and legs still have a level of free movement. Before the introduction of the HANS device which helps protect the head and neck in the event of a severe impact force we used to see incidents of severe concussion and unfortunately deaths from the whiplash and extent of the whiplash forces causing severe concussion, impacts of the head and in some cases broken necks.
While the HANS device helps to significantly reduce a number of these factors a stronger neck helps to add another layer of protection against injury in the event of an accident or heavy impact where we can see a spike in forces. There are incidents where peak impact forces in motorsport have been seen as high as 60-150G.
Strengthening the neck and increasing neck stiffness will not only help to resist against these forces but there is also a growing body of evidence coming from both motorsport as well as rugby, NFL and combat sports showing a positive impact on helping to prevent concussion. Some of the areas of note that have come from this testing are:
For every 1 pound increase in neck strength, odds of concussion decreased by 5% (Colins et al, 2014)
"A neck that is stronger, thicker or aligned in a forward posture with the ears ahead of rather than aligned with the shoulders may reduce the amount of energy transferred to the brain during an impact, thus reducing the risk and severity of injury," (Carrie Esopenko, assistant professor at the School of Health Professions)
Dr JT Eckner at the Concussion centre (University of Michigan) has found that a stronger neck significantly can reduce head acceleration following impact lowering the incidents of concussion.
The final element to it is a degree of research suggesting that the increased muscles mass associated with increased strength helps to reduce impact forces by providing a larger volume of muscle for the forces to be dissipated through, this would play a role in reducing the acceleration of the head found in Dr Eckners research too.
Therefore the stronger we can make the neck and the more we can increase neck stiffness the greater the ability we have to reduce acceleration of the head and absorb the forces generated in an impact, therefore reducing the risk of suffering from concussion.
Practical Implications:
With the obvious benefits that come with increased neck strength and stiffness how can we go about developing these parameters to aid in performance and injury reduction.
Tools and methods to strengthen the neck, these vary and differ depending on access to equipment and space. However the basics go from using your own hand as resistance, external resistance applied from a coach, resistance bands or external weight resistance and the addition of harnesses. While using your own hand as resistance or a coach to apply external resistance is the simplest method this can have some limitations in terms of not accurately being able to determine the force applied. Resistance bands, tools like the gatherer system or harnesses and external weights are more complex but allow often for greater load to be applied and more accurate measurement of the forces applied.
All of these methods above allow for forces to be applied in multiple planes and directions to strengthen the whole neck, and should be gradually built up and overloaded in the same manner we would when building strength in any muscle. However we need to be even more vigilant of form in order to ensure that the relevant safety is there and to prevent injury. There are a few other factors that we can also consider to maximise neck strength work and make the process as efficient as possible.
Target large movements of the neck (flexion and extension) in multiple planes of movement first. This will allow the larger muscles groups such as the upper trapezius to be worked first. If these aren’t up to the task and strength then the smaller musculature wont be able to cope and become significantly more fatigued increasing the risk of performance drop off an injury.
Use lower loads and build up a level of strength endurance and refine form for neck strengthening exercises first before building in significant load for all out strength.
Use loading systems where as close as possible you can replicate the time to peak force and absolute peak force experienced in the car and be able to do this in multiple planes of movement. The closer we can get to the rate of force development needed in the car, the more transferable the strength work completed in the gym will be.
The final element is then to build in some buffeting and dynamic change in direction of force once there is sufficient strength there in the large musculature to stabilise and support the head. Building this in will increase the ability to tolerate and cope with the vibrations or buffering that will be experienced in the car.