Spencer Pigot – First Week at PitFit

Indianapolis, Ind. (August 13, 2011) – Normally after a race weekend in the Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda I head home to Orlando, Fla., but not this time. After the races at Mid-Ohio last weekend I drove to Indianapolis, the home of IndyCar racing. There are so many things in Indy that revolve around racing. The majority of IndyCar teams are based here in Indy like my team, Andretti Autosport. Not too far from the AA shop there is a place called PitFit Training, which specializes in training racecar drivers. Guys like Scott Dixon, Will Power and former Team USA winner J.R. Hildebrand train there.

I’m able to train here between my races at Mid-Ohio and Road America thanks to the partnership between Jim Leo from PitFit and the Team USA Scholarship that I won in 2010. I arrived in Indy on Monday afternoon and was in the gym a few hours later. As soon as I walked in I noticed all of the unique machines and workouts they have created. There’s stuff hanging from the ceiling and things all over the walls to target the parts of your body that are worked the most in the car.

I was pretty knackered after the first night of training and I didn’t get much of a rest because I had to be in at 10:00am the next morning! Each day we have done something a little different from circuit training to boxing to strength training. It’s a lot harder than my usual workouts at home but it’s also fun because you’re always doing something different.

Another cool thing about PitFit is that they make you put on a heart rate monitor for every workout. They are wirelessly connected to the TV so you can see how your heart rate increases and decreases throughout the session. Jim puts a lot of emphasis on how quickly the heart rate recovers to resting rate because you can conserve energy when it’s not beating as fast.

It’s only been a few days but I have already learned a lot about fitness and where I can improve. I will finally get a day off on Sunday and then back in the gym early Monday morning! Thanks for reading and make sure to look for another blog from my time at PitFit next week!