Most of us do not engage in the kind of extensive high-speed driving that professional race car drivers do. As a number of recent movies and television shows have reminded us, driving a race car is a sport like any other, and it’s one that requires drivers to be fit and healthy to do their job. While most of us are not careening around corners at absurd speeds (hopefully, that is), there are still plenty of things we can learn from how drivers stay fit and free from pain.
One big one has to do with neck pain. And, as the Associated Press’s James Ellingworth reports, some people dealing with “tech neck” are finding that the same exercises that help elite drivers are also useful for staying more comfortable.
“[T]he healthy foundations are the same for the normal person and for the driver. Where you would start is exactly the same,” performance coach Antti Kontsas told the AP. This does not mean that people concerned about the effect of looking at screens on their posture should take a page from, say, this Lando Norris workout, which resembles a medieval torture device as much as it does a modern gym.
The experts Ellingworth spoke with pointed to a different set of practices: namely, being mindful of your neck when doing core excercises. Body weight excercises were one particular area these experts emphasized.
A Hack for Getting Rid of Neck Pain and Headaches
It’s simple, cheap and takes seconds. We explain.“The most simple thing is lying on your back on a bench with your head hanging and then holding your head in a complete horizontal line,” Kontsas said. “You’re holding your head still and seeing how long you can hold that.”
There are other exercises one can do to address “tech neck” beyond that. NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center’s Dr. K. Daniel Riew recommends motion excersises, as well as aerobic exercise to relieve pain. “That could be jogging, swimming, walking at a brisk pace, or using ellipticals or recumbent stationary bicycles,” he clarified in a 2025 interview. Not all fitness tips are the same for competitive drivers and people who spend a lot of time on the computer — but the overlap is well worth studying.
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