◆ PSYCHOLOGY ◆ NUTRITION ◆ FITNESS/ RESISTANCE WORK
◆ CARDIO ◆ HIGH LEVEL COACHING IN BASKETBALL
Having been a full time athlete and a part of the global working community for the entirety of my 30 year career, I have seen many changes and developments within sport, more specifically Women’s Wheelchair Basketball of which I have been gratefully linked to. I fought for the women’s team and future women to have access to support, funding and to be recognised by numerous governing bodies that were at that time overseeing our progress, it was important to me that all women were respected and valued as athletes in their own right with an understanding of the symbiotic nature of our commitment, effort and achievements to that of male athletes both able bodied and physically impaired.
My time in sport has not been without its battles, I constantly faced prejudice on every level to my engagement in sports, thankfully I was a talented athlete, this of course helped with my fight as I realised that I was part of a bigger picture and was no longer just an elite athlete I had become an advocate for others.
Having come from a family where integrity, justice, equity and fairness were qualities that were instilled in me from a very young age, I was profoundly affected by the response of a large proportion of people in a place where I believed was meant to be the most inclusive and least prejudiced on the planet.
I have relentlessly fought for equality and equity in female sport to ensure that the future athletes would have the same rights and opportunities that their respective male athletes have been given.
I always wanted to lead by example, to treat people the way that I would wish to be treated, it required constant and repetitive teaching and would become a lifelong goal to ensure that not only policies changed but attitudes and intrenched opinions were challenged at every opportunity.
I understood that this would be a fight that would occur on many different levels not only petitioning at the highest but looking at grass roots and my personal interactions in the heart of the sport. I was driven to prove that I was as good as, if not better than the men in the sport, to prove a point where if I was going to be ignored I would ensure my game did the talking. I was the first female athlete to achieve all of the domestic medals and honours in all of the respective roles within the sport that was available to me in a male dominated sport. I entered Europe as the first female to play, captain and coach male top level teams.
I was not always a Basketball athlete I competed in almost every other sport available to me and was desperate to gain as much as I could from every discipline an understanding of the integral aspects of the sports, a psychological edge and a physical memory for the complimentary actions to be completed in order to win.
I have seen the effect that sport has had not only on myself as a child but on others. My experience of the freedom, empowerment and self worth it gave me was life changing at a time where I was constantly being told that I could not do things I became a well known figure in my own right and proved everyone that had any prejudices about me wrong.
I have been lucky enough to have seen people quite literally change in front of my eyes when engaging in an activity with their peers and this has been my main reason for fighting so hard for every person not just a privileged few to have access to such a life changing experience, we should be able to share such an incredible gift with everyone, to allow people to engage in an activity that they can enjoy for life as part of a truly inclusive community.
Nutrition
Food has never been more complex yet so simple and in a world where it seems that fashion dictates so much regarding health and nutritional intake it has been a mission of mine to keep things simple yet effective for myself as an athlete that was at one point completing a twelve hour working day then three to four hours of training either side of this maintaining a balanced approach that will allow the athlete to perform at their fullest potential is a science that cannot be ignored. I enjoy looking at the biometrics of the individual athletes and their scientific measurements to enable my calculations to be put into place for them to fuel their training.
Strength and Conditioning
Fitness and resistance work can at times a complex and confusing area of elite athletes training when they have specialised in any discipline. Its important to create plans that appeal to the athletes and relate to their goals and potential outcomes, I provided complex training systems based on the individuals over microcycles and often over longer yearly and four yearly programs. The combination of working for steady athletic performance coupled with the need for rehabilitation and recovery when injury occurs is an integral aspect for the modern athlete.
Cardio
Having competed in wheelchair racing and the high speed and agility based sports of Wheelchair basketball, tennis, and most other sports I have specialized on the art of maintaining a good power to weight ratio when it comes to speed and endurance and have provided amongst others graded plans on a periodised basis for a variety of different athletes of different ages, all responsive to their individual needs.
High level coaching in wheelchair basketball
Having been a National league coach for seventeen years now I have practiced on a reflective and game by game based achievement level. I have studied the game with the highest level mentor that I currently work with regularly. Having coached at every level from development, women’s and men’s national league and European level I have an appreciation of the game and the complexities that arise from this on an international level and domestic one.
