“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…

‘Records are made to be broken’

Could this increasing pressure be driving athletes away from the sport and subsequently, due to rising standards could more athletes be developing injuries as a result?

‘But that’s part and parcel of being an athlete…’

For athletes in Olympic and Paralympic Sports, high calibre performance represents the pinnacle of what they hope to achieve (Henrickson et al, 2017). Granted, pressure is a very open term, whilst many athletes will experience worries and stress …

📸 by Jodi Hanagan

Living with athletes may come as a no-brainer to some, to others it might be their worst nightmare. Just like anything, it is important to consider the pros and cons, with these differing from person to person. Drawing on honest first-hand experiences/opinions from a number of athletes, this article will look into the pros and cons of living with athletes or not.

My experience of living with athletes has been pretty straightforward, I can't lie. For someone who loves all th…

Featured Image: GB Athletes Kevin and Naomi Metzger

It’s Valentine's Day; a time to celebrate love and romance. But what if you have to be up for training at 6 am tomorrow? Or what if you’re suffering from DOMS so painful you can’t “put on a show” on the big day?

The dating game can be a challenging one, especially if you decide to play it as an athlete. Early nights, strict training programmes and those “sorry for the slow reply, I was training” texts can really get in the way of a healthy …

📸 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…

📸 via Team GB

Right, let's get straight into this one. So how did I get into running? Well for me it all started way back when I was little and in school. I was into a lot of sports, like basketball, football and running, but in that order. I watched the NBA a lot and played in my school team, I also played football for my local club and tried to see how far I could get with the skills that I thought I had. As much as I liked running I never did anything about it. I didn't watch any running a…