British racing car driver Pippa Mann is poking fun at her job in a social media post. Mann, 40, shared a video of herself wearing leggings and a tank top, sipping from a mug while enjoying the fresh air in her yard. “Grown up job? ❌ Consistent income? ❌ Future planning? ❌ Financial responsibility? ❌ BUT I GET TO DRIVE RACE CARS!!! ✅ (Kids. When your parents tell you to get a real job, they’re perhaps not wrong… 😂😂😂),” she captioned the post. Here’s what Mann’s intense training regimen looks like.
Mann wants people to know how hard it is to control a race car. “Training to stay in shape for racing requires much more time and effort than I think anyone in the normal population realizes,” she told OrthoIndy. “The running joke about race car drivers of course is that we’re just sitting down, and how hard can it be? The first thing to understand is that you have a continuously elevated heart rate throughout the entire race. Think of the heart rate of someone running or cycling a two to three hour race and how fit his or her cardiovascular system needs to be to cope with that continued exertion. Then you have to add in high heart rate spikes to the equation.”
Mann does lots of cardio to keep herself fit for the track. “Under these trying conditions it is vital that you are able to cope, react and make good decisions in fractions of a second to try and give yourself a good outcome,” she told OrthoIndy. “We do a lot of endurance style cardio training and sprint interval cardio training. Adding in reaction or balance work right after these big sprint cardio intervals is one of the ways we help teach our brains and bodies to react while our heart rates are spiking.”
When she’s not spinning around a track, Mann enjoys taking her bike out for some exercise in the sunshine. “Beautiful weather today in Indy. Took myself on a little Easter Sunday bike ride for some ice cream! 🍦,” she captioned an Instagram post.
Weight training is an important part of Mann’s training, as it takes significant strength to drive a racecar. “I train at PitFit Training Indianapolis where we have weighted steering wheels, cross core trainers, a surge 360 machine, tractor tires and battle ropes to pound up and down until our shoulders feel like they are going to explode and our arms feel like they are going to fall off,” she told OrthoIndy. “We also work on grip strength and neck strength fairly regularly as these are both very important muscle groups for drivers.”
Mann uses kettlebells as part of her strength training workouts. “Today’s #MondayMOOD. Brought to you by ‘People of the internet’ 🤣,” she captioned a post mocking society’s expectations for women’s workouts. “Hard work deserves to be rewarded 💪,” a fan commented.