Generally in sport there seems to be a bigger emphasis on who the winners, medalists or top runners are. This can be seen across many sports, with track & field being no exception. This emphasis can create difficulties for those who are one-step below the top guys, with feelings of inadequacy being one that hits close to home for myself.

My name is Jacob, I’m mainly a 200m athlete. At youth and junior levels I regularly made finals in the 200m at the English Schools’ Championships and the Eng…

1. Introduction

Everyone knows the last few months have been stressful - and it’s been different for all of us.

On one hand, you see some people are on top of the world; athletes in Dubai at the NAS complex, living life, soaking in the sun, getting some top class training in. 

On the other end of the spectrum though, you see a group of athletes travelling over an hour from Cardiff to Aberdare just to get 40 minutes of hammer throwing in the books.

How can you stay level headed - regardl…

For the sake of being concise, I’ll start my story in 2017. That year was the high. I'd gotten married, I’d won my second British Masters M35 title over 200m with a lifetime PB, and then gone on to the European Champs later that summer – where I’d picked up an individual bronze and a relay gold.

It felt like vindication; for all the training, for all the hard work. But, most importantly, it felt like a victory over my mental health – that I could accomplish something despite the all-consuming d…

Let me start by saying, not a single professional athlete on the planet is healthy. Is it healthy to put that much stress through your knee every time you jump onto a high jump bed? Or the amount of physical pain you endure training for an Olympic 10,000m? Or bending your arm into all sorts of wacky positions to ping a javelin 90m? None of this, in the long run will make you any healthier. It does however mean, that we, as athletes, are the fittest people on the planet, and this is a distinction…

“Will I ever run again?”

It was the first question I remember asking when I woke up from a week long coma.

My name is Emma. I’m the athletics programme manager at Loughborough University and used to be a half decent sprinter. I made it to a few British Championships finals, picked up some medals along the way, and competed for England and GB U23s back in the day.

Photo by Nigel Farrow

In July 2014 I was 29 and winding down from high level competition. I’d moved from Loughborough to Card…

📸 by: @Sakurasportsmedia

What is RED-S?

RED-S stands for ‘Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport’. RED-S is caused when an individual’s dietary energy intake is insufficient to support the energy expenditure required for everyday health and optimal function once the cost of exercise has been considered [1]. In simple terms, energy expenditure > energy intake to a point where physiological function is impaired in the body’s bid to save energy (metabolic rate, menstrual function, bone health, imm…

Credit Image: FatCamera/Getty Images

Rest-day fuelling has become somewhat of a taboo for many athletes out there. Being bombarded with science of what you should and shouldn’t do, cutting on carbs, forgetting the fats and worrying about protein in case you lose all your gains – we’ve all been there.

It is important to stress that how we eat on a rest day can actually impact the upcoming sessions, strength and endurance. Whilst exercise and training are essential for performance, rest is jus…

📸 by Jodi Hanagan

Recently, @The Athlete Place conducted a survey on Instagram asking whether athletes would travel to America for University. The result of this was a 63% majority for the ‘yes’ party. As a follow-up, we attempted to get some answers from athletes on the pros and cons of moving to America to further your training, however, the majority of this feedback was negative, which creates an interesting debate. This is a follow up to the article by Catherine Reid who brilliantly detai…

Just like 2020, sport can be very demanding and push us to our limits. Adversities, or any negative events, are inevitable in sport. Athletes may experience failures, mental health problems, injuries, homesickness and overtraining [1]. When dealing with these challenges, athletes are often told to just “get over it” or “move on.” We are told that in order to be successful, we must bounce back from adversity, be more resilient, and learn from our failures [2]. Yet these behaviours are not simple …

What’s up people, I begin this piece by sending peace to everyone reading this and introduce myself - my name is Daniel Oderinde and I am a former national and international medallist at the youth/junior level (AAA’s bronze medallist and FISEC International Catholic School Games 100m champion). As you can tell by my writing in the past tense, I have stopped pursuing a career in athletics, that was due to having suffered from an on-going chronic knee injury called patella femoral pain syndrome. W…