Whilst sat having breakfast on a Saturday morning it was great to hear about the success of This Girl Can on the news. Check out their new video that was showed this morning on BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/get-inspired/39083475

This Girl Can is a organisation set up by Sport England to encourage getting more women active in sport and activities. They aim to show that it doesn’t matter what age or ability, everyone can get involved in sport some how.

There is a huge variety from Athletics, American football and even Roller Darby.

Being a big golfer I’m thrilled that This Girl Golfs has been inspired by the This Girl Can campaign. Both organisations have seen numbers of participants grow and grow which is a fantastic step towards more fit and healthy lifestyles.

Keep up the great work everyone and remember This Girl Can!

Eating enough protein through the day should be the base of any diet. Your body needs protein to feed your muscles for growth and repair, process white blood cells to fight infection and also as an energy source. Every meal should contain at least 20g of protein and this winter warming Kipper salad has just that! Along with seasonal veg such as beetroots it’s full of great nutrients and colour. I got 125g of kippers for just 90p, so including lots of protein in your diet doesn’t have to be expensive either.
To cook the Kippers simply bring a pan of water to the boil. Take off the skin from the Kippers and place them in the pan. Remove after just 5 minutes and add to a salad of your choice. The more different colours in your salad, the more nutrients there is.
If your following a training sessions you’ve earned yourself some lovely wholemeal toast to go with it! Enjoy!

With many local running events coming up during the next couple of months many of you will have been packing in some training miles. Whether it’s a local Park Run, The Great South Run, Winchester Half or Bournemouth Marathon running can cause strains and stresses to your body. This is why it’s really important to not only train well and make sure your ready for the endurance of the event but also recover well to remain injury free following the event.

When training for races of course you want to be putting in some time and miles gradually building up to the event length. However its not all about the miles we have covered, we also want to make sure we are strong and stable enough to deal with the increased distance and length of running.
Try adding in some strength training that can easily be done at home into your training a couple of times a week. The following exercises are designed to increase leg strength, hip mobility and core stability.

Clock Lunges (forward, 45 degrees and side lunges) 3×18 (9 each leg)
Squat jumps 3×15
Plank hold 3x as long as you can

We’ve all had days when walking down the stairs becomes so painful following a running session. There are now many techniques beyond static stretching to enable us to recover from lengthy runs. Foam rolling is one of the most beneficial for both muscle recovery and mobility. It’s a simple technique where you just roll the roller under the body, exploring the whole leg from calf, ITB band, glutes and quads. Just a couple of minutes on each muscle (both legs!) is enough to give great benefits following your session and you’ll be running up and down the stairs all th

For the past 13 days I’ve been glued to the BBC in the car, on runs, in the evening and then catching up in the morning when I’ve fallen asleep to see yet more medals have been won over night. Team GB have shown so much courage, determination and talent to currently be lead 2nd in the medal table as I write this.

The Olympics is a great way to experience so many new sports to the usual ones we see covered. Various martial arts, canoe and kayak sprints and slaloms, equestrian, diving, BMX and the list goes on. Whatever the sport the participants are all true athletes, they dedicate their life to training and competing. Watching the triathlon yesterday Alistair Brownlee mentioned in his interview after winning his 2nd consecutive Gold Olympic medal that he wakes up every day with tired legs but still trains as hard as he can. Mo Farah commented that he has done a variation of training everyday for the last 4 years to say he has given this Olympics his best effort. He certainly wasn’t going to let a trip up stand in his way, quickly returning to his feet and flying past the rest of the field taking another gold in the 10,000M.

Next week I shall write another post to sum up the great 2 weeks of Sport however we still have an exciting couple of days ahead with many medal chances still available. GO TEAM GB!

During this past week Ant and I were very fortunate to go on a Porsche track day experience at Silverstone. The set up and facilities they have there are just fantastic, including the Human Performance Center which provides in depth fitness information through analysis and training for racing drivers and endurance athletes. As with many sports some people may not realize the importance behind drivers fitness and how their athletic state can effect their driving performances.

Whilst at the Human Performance Center these athletes will be taken through a series of tests to analyse their current state and see what areas can be improved for optimal performance. Some of these areas would include:

Reaction time – Needing to react to other drivers, obstacles, road conditions and corners throughout a race is of huge importance to the drivers. They are tested on a Batak machine over 30 & 60 seconds with a final test of 5 minutes. The later tests there reactions over a long period of time which reflects the end of a race when fatigue is starting to creep in but you still need to maintain a high performance.
Posture assessment – Obviously throughout a race the driver is sat down which has effects on tightness of some muscles and joints along with weakness of others. This test will monitor the drivers alignment and mobility to ensure good postural habits and mobility are always maintained. Neck mobility is also key to make sure the drivers have as much vision of other drivers around them as possible.
Weight – Car manufacturers go to extreme detail and technology to get the car as light as possible, so the last thing they want is the drivers to be carrying a little unnecessary weight to weigh it down more.
Cardiovascular – Through exhilaration, performance and tension drivers heart rate can raise up to 80% of there maximum heart rate throughout the race. With some races lasting up to 3 hours this pushes their CV system to extreme lengths in order to cope. Drivers, just like endurance athletes, need to train there CV system prior to in order to prepare it to deal with these demands throughout the race.
Strength – Injury prevention is paramount for any athlete of any sport and it’s no different for drivers. Their body needs to be able to handle the forces put on it from the car and impacts from other cars or obstacles. Core strength is also key to allow them to stay stable in the seat, races are fast with lots of twists and turns, the more solid the body and car stay the more control they’ll have.
A very impressive test they spoke about was to monitor drivers sweat to allow the correct hydration and nutrition ratios. Every persons body works differently and at different intensities so by monitoring this allows bespoke drinks to be made to keep optimum hydration for each individual athlete. Finally they are able to help athletes train at extreme temperatures. Whilst wearing numerous layers of protective clothing its not a cool environment and with races globally temperatures outside the car add to the heat intensity. To allow drivers to acclimatize and train all the above in extreme temperatures means their body will be ready to deal with the extra elements when needed.

This was a brilliant experience to see how much importance all these individual aspects have on the sport and just shows once again top performance doesn’t just come from training on the track, course, court or range. Time outside of the performance field is vital for the best performance on the field.