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‘The Athlete Afterlife’ – how high performance environments allow a simplistic and successful transition to the world of work.

“Guidance for athletes to maximise potential in high performing environments”

It isn’t uncommon that athletes struggle to accept that sport doesn’t last forever. What feels like a lifetime of success is usually only 20 years on average^[13]. What happens after that? The fear of entering the real world and realising hours of pushing your body and mind to it…

📸 by Naomi Ogbeta

In some ways, being a semi-professional athlete is a thankless job. You train just as hard as those at the top do, but the rewards aren’t reaped until you make that critical breakthrough to the “elite” level. This is not a complaint about our lot, but rather an observation of fact. We are often told to stay motivated by keeping in mind our goals and focusing on the end result. However, especially due to the times we are in, these can seem rather remote. I think that’s why it is …

Following a late call up to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, where I was a spare and had to lose 12kg in 7 days to make weight, I returned home as part of Team GB and with a certificate saying I was an Olympian. A dream I had worked for since I was 6, having watched the 92 games in Barcelona.

As I'm sure we can all appreciate the time, effort, discipline etc that goes into what we love doing and being the best we can be. While also the honour of representing our country. 

One thing that …

With us well into lockdown 2.0, I thought it would be a great time to look into the adaptations that some of us have been making to our lives and training. There has been a lot of disruption recently, closures of facilities, limitations to how many people we can see or train with - but it’s not all bad.

The thing I like most is having to be innovative, to make changes to the "tried and tested" things we do every day. Most of us have been able to find ways to work around this, with peopl…

On your marks, set *BANG*

Down, set, hut

*Whistle*

These are all different cues that let an athlete know that it is time to lock in, all sending the same stimuli through the body…

Getting ready to compete.

Through this piece, I want to have a self-reflecting debate about the differences in mentality between rugby, American football, athletics and football.

I have managed to be fortunate enough to be a national age group champion for 60m and 100m, as well as playing academy football, academy/profession…

If you know me, you will know I try to be a positive person - easier said than done in 2020! With all that life throws at us we humans have to figure out a way through. Sometimes we can manage this alone but often we could do with a bit of help from others, even if it is just a pointer or kick up the bum. We’ve all been through ups and downs, to some these may be a minor bump in the road but to others, they are something more. I am extremely lucky to have had supportive people around me in both …

Everyone has their issues in life, athletes are no different.

It may look like we live great lives with little going wrong. That is all people see, they rarely get to see the bigger picture into what is bubbling under the surface. Athletes are human beings at the end of the day: when things begin to go wrong in life or you have a bump in the road, often we need help to overcome it.

I was a relatively established junior athlete, …