I recently had to take a forced break from the volume of training I am used to doing. I had about 8 weeks of one thing after another happening to me. It started with covid, which took about a month to clear. Slightly worried I wouldn’t be ready to train hard, I still [...]
Yes! Another race report. Second and final triathlon of the season was on the 25th of September at the Bosbaan here in Amsterdam. It was an Olympic distance (750m swim, 40km bike, 10km run). It is always fun to do a local race, but as we haven’t been racing for a while, this race also [...]
If you are not interested in participating in competitive sport, you might look at my triathlon life and ask “Why?”. Why do you want to spend so much time on it? Why go on holiday and still train? Why do you want to push yourself so hard? On the first of August, I completed my [...]
This blog isn’t about my challenge, but that of a new friend Jane. She is a client of a colleague, and we used to just say hi in the gym until a few weeks after lockdown when I got a message from her asking about whether open water swimming was possible because the pools were [...]
A big revelation happened after watching this Ted Talk by Stacy Sims. She explains how research around sports performance is done on men because “women are an anomaly”. This means that the fact that women menstruate has led to us women being ignored by sports research. Luckily she has taken this up and done her own [...]
Recently one of my clients called me Superwoman because of my training schedule and triathlon adventures. Although I don’t think of myself quite like that, I do sometimes think I must be a bit different from others as I train almost everyday and I am driven by my race goals. On the other hand, I [...]
(Please be aware this advice doesn’t replace medical advice) One of the most common reasons people come to see me for biomechanics coaching is because they have lower back pain. After I explain to them I don’t treat pain and they are happy with that, we can start working on improving how they move. In [...]
Last year the BBC did a programme here that effectively dismissed the idea of walking 10,000 steps on the basis that you can get fitter by walking brisker 3 times 10 minutes instead. This is a good way to improve your fitness, but I was disappointed that they totally dismissed walking 10,000 steps out of [...]
(Please note: this article shouldn’t replace advice given by a medical professional) According to Volkgezondheidenzorg.info, 7.5% of men and 13.1% of women between 40 and 44 had been diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis in 2017 and the figures for osteoarthritis (artose in Dutch) are 11.7% of men and 15.6% of women. The NHS website defines arthritis [...]
You know it yourself, you do a workout and the rest of the day you are on a high and are so glad you did it. We need stress in our lives to stimulate action otherwise we would never get anything done but when it becomes too much it can influence our health in a [...]
