Fitness training plays a major role in the everyday life of, luxury car brand, BMW works drivers, particularly in the off-season and the current situation. As well as training alone at home, they now also have the opportunity to regularly fine-tune their fitness together – online.
That is because Dr Riccardo Ceccarelli and his team at Formula Medicine are offering a special group training session via video conference three times a week for the BMW works drivers, a service that is being embraced.
“We had never tested this before but we had the idea due to the current situation and it works very well,” said Dr Ceccarelli. “Everyone is very professional and they do their exercises, but it’s extra motivation to train live together with the others and to give the very best. It’s fun to train together and to see each other on video, so it’s not only physical training, but it’s also a great team building.”
The BMW works drivers do not need a lot of equipment for the digital training sessions, which last about one hour. They train using their own bodyweight – all they need is a mat for the floor. For each session, the people at Formula Medicine develop different training programmes for strength and endurance. The service also includes mental training via video conference.
The group online training is working so well that they could continue in the future. “I always say ‘every problem can bring an opportunity’,” Dr Ceccarelli explained. “So we are already working in our facility to implement it and to have more options to work with webcam and video conferences to maintain this after Corona. During the season, the drivers are on the road a lot but with one or two training sessions per week on free days, we all can keep connected and exchanging. And if a driver, for example, has a question regarding a specific exercise, we can easily connect via video, no matter where he is.”
The plan is to continue training anyway until the season resumes. Three times a week, the BMW works drivers and BMW Junior Team dial into the meetings from their homes and go at it full-throttle for an hour.
