Some prefer to completely isolate themselves for a time, so that their mind is free from stress and distractions. Others choose to play with a soccer ball behind garages to get their heart rate up and sharpen their responses.
Pierre Gasly is also often seen playing a reaction test with his coach; who drops tennis balls from his hand for the AlphaTauri to catch them fleetingly.
But hidden away in the pilots’ private quarters (although it’s been spotted on the Netflix series: Drive to Survive) is an increasingly popular piece of fitness technology with flashing LED lights that a host of top pilots, including champion Max Verstappen, have been using to get their brains working at their best.
The Blazepod system, with sensitive flashing lights, has been adopted by a host of sports stars, including in football, the NFL, tennis, F1, MotoGP and the NBA, as a way to stimulate mind so athletes are ready for action.
Blazepod is currently used by around 300,000 professional and amateur athletes worldwide, including an unspecified number of F1 drivers.
Alex Albon was an early adopter of this system and has been the catalyst for other Red Bull drivers like Verstappen , Sergio Pérez and Pierre Gasly to start using it.
The premise for pilots is simple. Through a series of flashing light stations, either placed on a desk or anchored to a wall, they respond to the multicolored intermittent flashes by turning them off as quickly as possible.
This Flash Reflex Training system is a great way to help pilots achieve the best “preparation” possible by exposing the body to a stimulus that then positively influences them.
In basic terms, by triggering reflexes with the Blazepods before getting into the car, the drivers’ responses (both cognitively and physically) should be optimal by the time they hit the track and start racing, not after they complete the races. first laps.
What has made Blazepods so appealing to a lot of sports (including F1) is that they are portable (pack in a small case), easy to use, and customizable so athletes can adapt. the tests to be more difficult or easier depending on the moment.
As Blazepod founder Yaniv Schneiderman , who started the company after seeing the positive results of an interactive playground, put it: “We can’t get over the fact that using this tool is fun.”
“It’s fun, and the pros love it at the same time. It’s an intense training session but you know it’s going to be fun, it’s going to be a game-like experience.”
Indeed, it speaks volumes to the benefits of the system that F1 drivers are using it on their own account: there is no official partnership with any team, nor are they being pressured into doing so due to a marketing deal.
They are being used because they work, pilot trainers know the clear benefits of being ready for action thanks to a piece of technology that is always available and cheap.
As Simon Jacobs , BlazePod ‘s head of Education and Career Development, explains to Motorsport.com: “The drivers have really gotten down to business.”
“You’re basically using mind-activating challenges to wake up the nervous system, get the brain flowing and the body ready for action. Then once they get in the car, whether it’s for qualifying or the race itself, they’re ready. to start with. They will react much quicker to whatever kind of stimulus they see in front of them.”
While it is true that looking at it from the outside may seem like a simple game, there is a much more serious element behind it. With every competitor these days chasing every little bit of profit, another one of Blazepod’s biggest draws is the information it can feed back to athletes.
With this system they can run a standard reflex test for a set amount of time, and they will monitor each response: they will be able to see their exact reaction time for each response, how many times they failed, and how their progress changes throughout the test. All data is stored to chart your progress over time.
Jacobs added: “You’re getting data all the time. You’re looking at the numbers and you can see the progression. It’s not just stopping a stopwatch – you can see what movement you’re making more or less progress on. Not making progress? Are you stabilizing here or there? ?”.
Blazepod is a relatively new start-up, having been founded in 2017, but Jacobs believes they continue to have great opportunities to improve their offerings and bring even more benefit to athletes.
“They could also be used for his strength training, for his rehabilitation or for decision-making and efficiency. If you’re driving an F1 car at those speeds, you have to react fast to cars coming at you from the left and right, you have to make decisions in milliseconds. We can help with that obviously.”
“It’s very simple, any athlete just has to take our lights and configure them for a specific goal or training: use the same lights to achieve the same result: athletes who react faster,” he concluded.
