I have been involved with sports since I was a kid, first as a swimmer at the primary school and then competing in canoeing at high school. This is when I have gained most of my knowledge and habits of sports, training and competition. Training for canoe racing I learned the basics of weight training, endurance, anaerobic training etc. Canoe training is very much focused on upper body strength, using a variety of specialized back exercises with medium and heavy weights, and in its sprint version on pushing the anaerobic threshold as high as possible. Besides this specialized training I have always practiced variety of other sports, such as skiing, cross-country skiing, squash, hockey and so on.With my entry to university and later on my first employment I have lost the consistency and drive in my training but instead I have picked up several new sports, such as tennis, mountain climbing, cycling and later on in-line skating, making me even more versatile. Versatility in doing many very different sports has since become my strong preference, most recently adding dragon boating to the repertoire and returning to canoe racing since I moved in to Singapore about a year ago.

This is when I met Sandy, who has re-designed my training and helped me get back on track towards improvement not only in in-line skating but in overall fitness improving my performance in the whole range of sports I am involved in competitively. Sandy has helped on two levels – in the gym and in in-line skating specific training. In the gym, Sandy’s key contribution was to bring me back to the basics of weight training and introducing more elements of Olympic style weight lifting into my routine. In my canoe racing days I have learned my gym routines to be focused around upper body isolation exercises aimed at growing strength and endurance. In his approach, Sandy stresses the importance of basic compound exercises of Olympic style, such as squats, dead lifts etc. These exercises together with re-shuffling my weight-training schedule helped me gain strength, but most of all explosiveness which I was lacking so far. The training had measurably improved my performance as I could see when I did some strength tests I used to do in my racing days. In terms of in-line skating Sandy has helped me get onto a new level, again by going to basics and advising on proper skating technique, complementary exercises, endurance training etc.

In summary, Sandy has helped me start using the right tools and my improvement has raised also my motivation for training and self-improvement, which is more than I can ask for.

Motto: “You can always do more, and be better at it.”

Jan

Manee