How to diet fast 1 week

Do people underestimate how much we have to do before we get in the car? Oh yes. No-one believes the stuff we have to do.

Formula One always will be a physical sport, but over the years the cars have become slower and slower.

People like Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher needed huge neck muscles to control their cars. Drivers coming into the sport now have much smaller necks because its not as intense.

Its massively physical, though.

Even I watch Formula One on TV and think it looks easy, but its not.

The physical exercises definitely help my concentration. Youre not only training your body, youre training your mind.

Your mind keeps you going and allows you to focus.

When I have free days I train twice a day. I run for up to two hours in the morning.

The speed varies, but we might do 4min 15sec kilometres, for example.

Thats around 14km or 8.7miles an hour (which is around three-hour pace for a marathon). I always have a heart monitor on.

Sometimes my heart-rate i s between 130 and 140 beats per minute for longer duration workouts, like a two-hour run, which are designed to burn calories.

Its 150 or 160 beats per minute if its shorter and quicker, as I try to build my aerobic endurance.

Recently I ran for half an hour at 160 to 170bpm, which was a killer, as I was working at more than 80 per cent of my maximum heart-rate.

We try to mix my exercise up, and that goes for when Im swimming or cycling, too.

Ill swim for about an hour, covering a mile and a bit.

All these exercises mean blood and oxygen get to my muscles more quickly (improving my cardiovascular efficiency).

Im a black belt in karate but I havent done it since I was about 12. I took that on because I was being bullied at school. I was about six and I said to my dad: I want to learn how to defend myself.

So I went to karate and got pretty good at it and I never got bullied again. In the gym, later in the afternoon or evening, Ill do a warm-up on the rowing machine, covering perhaps 4,000m in less than 15 minutes (around 7min 30sec for a 2km indoor row, which Sir Matthew Pinsent completed in 5min 42sec in 2004).

Former Finnish hammer thrower Antti Vierula has been putting me through my regime full time since January 2011.

He is responsible for planning my strict diet and trackside training. This included spending Christmas of 2010 snow-hiking and cross-country skiing at altitude in Colorado to maximise my cardiovascular efficiency.

We try to incorporate CrossFit into what were doing, too.

A lot of CrossFit is using your own body weight in different exercises, whereas originally I had been doing more weights, which resulted in me bulking up a little bit.

I use medicine balls to improve my core strength. I sit in the racing position and the medicine ball is thrown at me in all different directions.

I have to catch it without taking my feet off the ground and throw it back.

I also throw the ball from side to side.

We started to do that with bigger weights because the medicine ball isnt heavy enough to replicate the feeling of being in the car.

We do a lot of back exercises to help me maintain my racing position in the car for so long. I sit on the end of a weight bench so half of my body is hanging off.

Ill have a 10-kilo weight on my chest and I have to go down and back up without using my legs. We do a lot of core stability for the same reason.

You have to close the arch of your back when you lie on the floor, pull one leg up and then push the left hand against the right knee.

I do about 40 of those and then swap over.

Then I lie on my side to do crunches (pulling my knees towards my chest). To help improve my reactions I have a ball thrown at me, catch it and throw it back.

There are also these weird-shaped balls which bounce awkwardly, so I throw it to the floor and then catch it, with my left hand as well as my right.

I do sit-ups where you have to catch a tennis ball when you get to the top and then throw it back to the other side of the room.

There are also some online exercises you can do to help your reaction times.

There are lots of cars moving about on the screen and you have to watch one specific car and say how many times it changes directions.

You do that over a period of time and you get stronger and stronger, which can only help you in the car.

By Laura Williamson

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/formulaone/article-2150069/Lewis-Hamilton-exclusive-insight-Punishing-training-regime-keeps-right-track.html