The Sport Wales Advent Calendar!

The Sport Wales Advent Calendar!

This is an advent calendar with a difference; one that will feed the mind rather than the stomach this Christmas!

We'll provide you with lesser known facts about Welsh athletes, one for each day of December (Well, that is until the 23rd as Sport Wales will be on our Xmas holidays!) culminating in a quiz to test how much attention you've been paying!

Day 22

Did you know that between now and the 2012 Paralympic Games, table tennis star Sara Head will hit approximately 663,000 balls?







Day 21

Did you know that hockey star Sarah Thomas recently starred in an advert for Cadbury’s, which also featured lots of her family and friends?








Day 20

Did you know that sprinter Christian Malcolm was encouraged to take up running by his school teacher, whose husband turned out to be Olympic long jumper Lynn Davies?






Day 19

Did you know that wheelchair basketball player, Claire Strange, broke her back in a horse riding accident and a year later was playing for GB at the World Championships in Sydney?






Day 18

Did you know that Commonwealth Games silver medallist and GB number one, Frankie Jones, left home at just 16 to pursue her rhythmic gymnastics dream?

Day 17

Did you know that wheelchair rugby player David Anthony is also a coach to disabled football in Neath Port Talbot?

Day 16

Did you know David Roberts only took up swimming to help with his physiotherapy? He’s gone on to win 11 Paralympic gold medals!






Day 15

Did you know that gymnast and Olympic hopeful Lizzie Beddoe spends 35 hours of her week in training; on top of her school work?!






Day 14

Did you know that just ten days after undergoing major surgery, Paralympic archer Pippa Britton, lifted silver at a European Grand Prix?








Day 13

Did you know that World Champion triathlete Helen Jenkins married her coach Marc at Disney World in Orlando?

Day 12

Did you know that up and coming discus star Brett Morse is joint coach/manager of Penarth Town U11s football team?

Day 11

Did you know that Taekwondo star Jade Jones received the nickname ‘The Headhunter’ for always kicking opponents in the head during training?!

Day 10

Did you know that World Championship silver medallist, Andrew Selby, had to box friend and training partner Khalid Yafai to secure his place at the London 2012 Olympic Games?

Day 9

Did you know that Mark Colbourne is stamping his authority on the world of Para Cycling. It was only in 2009 that he broke his back in a Paragliding accident at Rhossili beach.

Day 8

Did you know that cyclist Nicole Cooke became the first woman to become the road race World Champion and Olympic gold medallist in the same year?




Day 7

Did you know that Olympic gold medal-winning rower, Tom James, only took up the sport after he was forced to give up running due to a knee injury?

Day 6

Did you know that Aled Sion Davies used to be a life saver before becoming a World class discus star?

Day 5

 

Did you know that World Champion and Commonwealth gold medallist Dai Greene once scored a goal against Real Madrid youth team when playing for Swansea City youth?










Day 4

Did you know that two Welsh sailors have already been selected for London 2012; Hannah Mills is set to make her Olympic debut and Steve Thomas is set to make his third Paralympic appearance.

Day 3

Did you know that Olympic gold medallist Geraint Thomas has ridden over 20,000 miles already this year; that’s nearly a round-the-world the trip!

 Day 2

Did you know that World Champion javelin thrower Nathan Stephens competed at the 2006 Winter Paralympic Games as part of the GB sledge hockey team?

Day 1

Did you know that Commonwealth Games silver and bronze medallist Jazz Carlin, swims 37.2 miles a week; more or less Cardiff to Swansea!

have you ever tried to take a picture in a closet...that's what i felt like i was doing!!  our house was built in 1950 and so our bathrooms are tiny!!  i have no idea how photographers take pictures in bathrooms....it's impossible.  but you get the idea.  before my bathroom was just a painted box.  there wasn't anything wrong w/ it....it just wasn't me.  so over thanksgiving, i convinced my dad to stay a week and help make my bathroom pretty.  now, i can officially say "it's me".  we added wainscoting and that made a huge difference.  it made the bathroom feel taller and brighter.  it was a quick, inexpensive way to get a big impact...dad had the wood up in about 2 hours....then it was just painting (3 coats of white) that made it official.  the next step was wallpapering.  dad has wallpapered numerous times so i was just the assistant.  it's kind of fussy work but wallpapering is one of my favorite things to add to a space!  and b/c we used the wainscoting, it cut down on how much wallpaper i actually needed.  the wainscoting was $115 for all the materials and then it was just the cost of the wallpaper....we used about 3 single rolls.  the wallpaper is quadrille/china seas java java in navy on white.   and i love her.  thanks for y'alls sweet comments and a huge thanks to my dad for being the best handyman a girl could have!!

The Work of Strength and Conditioning in Improving a Boxers Performance

Joe Hewitt, Strength and Conditioning Coach at the Sport Wales Institute, the elite performance function of Sport Wales, explains the vital role of strength and conditioning in developing the boxing stars of tomorrow.

Incorporated into a wider programme of work with the Welsh Amateur Boxing Association, I’ve spent the last few days working to identify talent and assess the levels of physical ability amongst some of Wales’ most promising boxers.

Built into an assessment camp which has seen boxers from all over Wales put through their paces, mock strength and conditioning sessions have been giving them a taster of what could become a regular part of their boxing training and routine.

Working with up to eight boxers at a time, I’ve been putting on short, simple sessions which allow me to assess their body weight exercise techniques and feedback the physical ability of each boxer to the National Coach and Performance Director.

Once boxers with that raw talent and potential have been identified it will be my job to then help them perfect and clean up their body weight techniques before introducing external loading to their sessions; the kind of work that I do with Commonwealth Games gold medallist, Sean Mcgoldrick.

Boxing is all about repeated explosive effort, effectively the length of time that a boxer can sustain a level of force and so the sessions will expose them to the level of strength that they will need for nine minutes in the ring.

We’ll introduce the type of exercise techniques typically associated with strong man competitions, so carries, drags and lifting weight to develop their structural strength. The ultimate goal is for them to be able to deal with the physical demands of their sport as well in the third round as they do in the first; to take a hit and to not be rocked by it.

We can often move on to the external loading work relatively quickly so once we’ve held next weekend’s camp in North Wales, a couple more in Cardiff and one with our female boxers, we’ll be able to start getting our future boxers into the Sport Wales National Centre and put these techniques into practice.

Another Simple Food Weight Loss Experience

Whole Health Source reader Sarah Pugh recently went on a six-week simple food (low reward) diet to test its effectiveness as a weight loss strategy, and she was kind enough to describe her experience for me, and provide a link to her blog where she discussed it in more detail (1). 

Consistent with the scientific literature and a number of previous reader anecdotes (2), Sarah experienced a reduction in appetite on the simple food diet, losing 15 pounds in 6 weeks without hunger.  In contrast to her prior experiences with typical calorie restriction, her energy level and mood remained high over this period.  Here's a quote from her blog:

Well, it looks like the theory that in the absence of nice palatable food, the body will turn quite readily to fat stores and start munching them up, is holding up. At the moment, the majority of the energy I use is coming from my insides, and my body is using it without such quibbles as the increased hunger, low energy, crappy thermo-regulation or bitchiness normally associated with severe calorie restriction.

I can't promise that everyone will experience results like this, but this is basically what the food reward hypothesis suggests should be possible, and it seems to work this way for many people.  That's one of the reasons why this idea interests me so much.

Read more »

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