"It’s hard to train that bouncing stuff" - Kevin Magnussen suffered from nerve pain in arm and jaw due to porpoising
Kevin Magnussen is one of the latest drivers to admit that porpoising has not been kind to his body. The Haas driver made a return to the sport at just a week's notice and admittedly, his body was not prepared for the specific physical challenges that come along with driving an F1 car. One of Kevin Magnussen’s physiotherapists, Nikolaj Madsen, revealed how the Haas driver had nerve pain in his arm and jaw after the first few races.
Speaking to PlanetF1, Madsen said:
“I talked with Kevin after, I think it was in Australia. He talked about how he had some nerve pain going out in his arm and in his jaw. I talked about it with him and we kind of saw that it was because of the bouncing. The spinal cord just pushed, pushed all the time on the nerves.”
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Madsen also revealed that the problem with such pain is that it is hard to train for porpoising since it is a peculiar kind of strain. Fortunately for Kevin Magnussen, things became easier as the team found a way to solve bouncing within the car. He said:
“We talked about it and I think Thomas [Jorgensen, Magnussen’s other physiotherapist] trained him for three hours. But it’s hard to train that bouncing stuff. I think it’s way better than now as the team has found a way to solve it.”
It's so hard: Kevin Magnussen's physiotherapist on the F1 driver's training regimen
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To help understand how specific and tough it is to train like an F1 driver, Madsen revealed an instance where he tried to train like Kevin Magnussen and ended up completely fatigued from it.
He stated:
“Some weeks ago, me and Kevin were training and I was just like ‘Okay, well let me try this [one of Magnussen’s exercises]’ and it killed me! It was so hard. You need to have a lot of stamina as well but [it’s] the specific movement when you brake.”
He added:
“You have to hold your head back and then you have to look at the apex in the turn. So you have to turn your head and then the car is moving. It’s three, four different movements and you have a lot of rotation and, and range of motion in your neck. All the time you have to hold it.”
F1 drivers often do not receive the same recognition for their athleticism as other athletes, however, they train just as hard.
Catch Magnussen at the Azerbaijan GP on Sunday, June 12, 2022.