After kindly being asked to contribute to the two-year anniversary celebrations for Crossfit Nickel City’s incarnation, I was delighted to be warmly welcomed by a group of enthusiastic amateur athletes. The topic of the day was recovery and I presented a short introduction...

One of the biggest factors in pre-season is balancing the needs & anxieties of the coaching staff, the ideals & demands of the conditioning staff & the health & well-being of the athletes. A certain amount of over-load is required but there is a fine line between pushing hard...

The weekend is nearly over & before I get engrossed in the proceedings of the week ahead, I want to review the presentations on sleep that I was privileged enough to attend on Friday. Johan Terpstra set the tone for the afternoon, introducing the basic concepts behind...

After some last minute itinerary shuffling, schedule revision & some sharp logistical planning, this afternoon will see Johan Terpstra & Cheri Mah presenting to the UK Athletics support staff, coaches & athletes on the effect sleep has on performance & recovery. Johan is...

It seems a while since this topic last came up, but this week my attentions have turned back to the question of sleep quality, quantity & subsequent effects related to performance. I'm not really sure why my mind was jogged back to the subject - maybe it was with many of the...

Now that a large number of the athletes that consider Lee Valley as their regular training base have hopped on the plane to South Korea & several others have decided to shut down for the season with a view to starting winter training with a renewed vigour, there is somewhat of...

In a study appearing in the July issue of Sleep, Cheri Mah, a researcher in the Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic & Research Laboratory, has shown that basketball players at the elite college level were able to improve their on-the-court performance by increasing their amount of to

Back at the airport again but this time no team travel. Despite a rather frantic start to the day as my alarm clock didn't go off (no idea why other than my Blackberry is getting very temperamental) & I woke at the time I was supposed to be heading for Heathrow, it is a lot mo...