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Bruce Craven is an internationally recognized Sport Physiotherapist and Strength Conditioning Coach, with over 31 years of experience working with athletes competing at provincial, national, international and Olympic/Paralympic competitions. Bruce graduated as a sports physiotherapist from the University of Saskatchewan in 1988 and in 1991 received his Master’s in Biomechanics and Exercise Physiology. He then was involved in a 16-month pilot project developing a sports science program which led to the development of the Canadian Sports Centre in Saskatoon and Sport Medicine and Science Center of Saskatchewan. Bruce was part of the “Own the Podium” program for the 2010 Olympics and helped develop policies and procedures related to athlete monitoring from a health and injury prevention perspective. Looking back, Bruce says he was often the only non-doctor and non-PHD person at the table, but it was his diversity of experience looking at movement with high level athletes in various sports that has been his best asset. He currently is co-owner and President of Craven Sports Services an integrated sports services center in Saskatoon with a large network of medical professionals.
In this episode, Bruce addresses the barrier of early specialization in sport. He notes that it has been shown that Olympic athletes usually have had a diversity of sport experience in their early development. “Diversity is key to stability” and diversity of movement and skills is often learned on the playground and in exploration as a youngster and is not something that can be coached or taught. Early streamlining into competitive sport often causes an athlete to skip stages of development. A pre-adolescent needs to learn a fundamental skill set that can then be made stronger as a post-adolescent. Early specialization can also result in more injury due to over repetition of movement patterns. Further, Bruce notes that failure and success are great motivators of learning and an athlete needs to learn from the failure that comes from exploration in movement. Well-rounded athletes have learned to fail and have used this failure as an opportunity to learn.
Bruce also discusses what it takes to become a high-performance athlete. It is defined by their goal; it isn’t just striving to be the best at one competition or in your club or in your province; it is striving to be the best in your field in the world. The athlete needs to determine what the gap in their performance is and develop a set of goals and a process to close that gap. In order to be this type of athlete, they must have technical excellence that is then done at high speeds, when tired and under pressure. Often athletes early in their career lose sight of “performance versus development”. They need to determine if they are willing to sacrifice their health and development now, by being involved in a competition that is ultimately meaningless, when their long-term goal is to be the best in the world. They need to be willing to make the sacrifices required and stick with the program. Bruce asks the question, “Does high-performance need to be inhumane in order to be successful?” He says that is a question that he does not have an answer for, but high-performance athletes need to continue to push their boundaries in order to achieve that ultimate performance and physical and psychological stress will occur. A high performance athlete has the internal belief of wanting to be the best, their driving force.
Bruce concludes by noting that he often sees athletes in some of their darkest moments and he then talks to them about their “why”. It all comes back to their goal, their desire to be their very best. It is their journey and only they have the power from within to overcome their obstacles.
Connect with Bruce:
website: www.cravensportservices.ca
Email [email protected]
Instagram: @cravensportservices
Facebook: @cravensportservices
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Lauren Klukas’s father used the line “she was struck by lightning twice” to describe Lauren’s life experiences. Lauren loved sports and began competitive swimming at age 9. By age 11 she was in the pool 9 times a week, often practicing 4 ½ hours per day, showing incredible promise. But then lightening struck the first time. At age 12, she began experiencing back pain, along with other concerning symptoms. She was advised by doctors it was growth pain. However, the pain intensified, and Lauren finally saw a sports physician. Initial diagnosis, growth pains; Lauren did not accept this and told the doctor she was not leaving she had a better explanation. Within a week Lauren was at a neurologist appointment and was shortly after diagnosed with a tumor wrapped around her spinal cord. Despite being told it would be a slow recovery, Lauren was out of the hospital in a week and within 3 months won a provincial title in swimming.
Lauren shares, unfortunately, she never quite recovered to her previous competitive level, so upon completing high school she transitioned to coaching and coached her sport for another 10 years. Then the second lightning bolt hit while she was pregnant with her daughter. She continued to work out but noticed at about 16 weeks she was having strange heart palpations. She had experienced these palpations once before, prior to being pregnant, but thought that it was because she wasn’t as in shape as when she was competitive swimming, despite working out 5 days a week. However, this time the palpitations continued. Three weeks after tests were run, she received a panicked phone call telling her to stop all activity and come immediately to the hospital. After another week of testing, she was advised that they felt she had Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy (ARVC), a condition where the right side of the heart breaks down because of a defect in the glue that hold the muscle cells of the heart together. After genetic testing, her diagnosis was confirmed on August 20, 2013. Endurance exercise is one of the factors that contributes to the disease onset. There is no cure, only interventions, and Lauren had to give up all exercise indefinitely.
On this episode, Lauren talks about her journey through her diagnosis and forced change in lifestyle. When her daughter was 8 months old, Lauren had a friend who had lost a son, ask how she was really doing. Up to that point, she indicates she had just been surviving and she was now angry and bitter. Her friend voiced that those emotions were expected and said to Lauren that she was grieving. This was a break-through for Lauren and allowed her to start wrestling with her grief and to recognize she was on a grief journey. She voices that having self-compassion and allowing herself to be “okay, not being okay” helped her on her healing journey. Lauren also indicates that finding a community of supporters that allowed her the space to grieve but also pushed her when she needed was key. Finally, she notes as an athlete it was important to recognize her identity was not the sport she was involved in; that was just a piece of who she truly was.
Lauren also discusses that she is now involved in bringing awareness to the idea that health and wellness are complex. There is so many more complexities to health than just exercise and food. She states that such a limited view of health can bring shame to people in a very unhealthy way.
Contact Lauren Klukas:
Instagram- @thecompleteplate
Website- www.thecompleteplate.com
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Jillian Gallays learned to overcome adversity in multiple arenas and went on to become a Commonwealth and World Championship medalist and an Olympic athlete in wrestling. Diagnosed with dyslexia at a young age, Jillian did not love things academic, but she excelled and loved all sports. In high school she participated in multiple sports including soccer, curling, track and field and wrestling, however it wasn’t until university that wrestling became her number one sport. The wrestling community fit her “mold” of a little quirky and felt like family. Jillian shares had it not been for her wrestling community in university, she may not have lasted past her first term. Her wrestling coach and mom helped keep her motivated the first couple years as she learned to manage university with dyslexia.
In this episode, Jillian shares that simply loving to compete and having fun at every competition helped her to mentally stay relaxed. In 2006, in her second year of university, she attended junior nationals and won. She did not really understand what this meant, until she got pulled aside with a group of wrestlers and was told about their travel schedule leading up to attending worlds. Treating every competition the same, helped her stay relaxed at the important competitions.
Jillian further discusses how wrestling, being a weight class sport, impacted her relationship with food. Early on in her career, she always had to add weight. Later, as she matured and maintained more muscle mass, she had to learn to cut weight. This involved dieting weeks in advance of a competition and then doing drastic things to lose water weight just prior to competition. Wrestling was not an Olympic sport in 2012 and was reintroduced again in 2016 with different weight classes. Previously Jillian competed in the 55-kilo class, and now the classes were 53-kilos and 57-kilos. Jillian felt to be successful, she needed to compete in the 53-kilo class. Trying to maintain her weight at 53 kilos, resulted in her developing negative attitudes towards food and food ruled her life for the next three years. Following the Olympics, she retired from wrestling and went on a two-month extended vacation. Jillian notes that it was this holiday that helped her return to a better relationship with food as she was focused on her travels and food was no longer the reward following a competition.
Jillian had to overcome numerous injuries throughout her career including 4 knee surgeries, dislocated elbows and unhealthy discs in her back. In 2014, Jillian finished with a bronze medal in the World Championships. Three months prior to the Olympic trials, in December 2015, she had a freak accident which resulted in a torn MCL and meniscus. Without a community of believers, she would have given up, she was so mentally discouraged. However, because of her win in 2014 she was able to compete in a wrestle off in February, to get her to the Pan Am qualifier. With this extra time, she was able to fully recuperate and did extremely well at the Olympic qualifier. The downside was she could not maintain her level of fitness and diet regiment for such an extended period and therefore peaked prior to the Olympics. Being a part of team Canada was an amazing experience, but she felt she had failed to meet the expectations of both wrestling Canada and herself. Once again, she recovered from this disappointment with the support of her village.
From Jillian’s experience, she now can relate and understand other’s struggles. There are highs and lows in sport and life, its all about how you process. We cannot control everything, but we can control our responses. It is okay to not control everything.
Connect with Jill:
Train with Jill: www.cravensportservices.com
Instagram @jilliangallays
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At the age of four, Alexandra (Alex) Doyscher began to dance to fulfil the creative passion within her. When she was eight, she started attending a competitive dance school in Saskatoon which she attended until she graduated high school. Alex then moved to New York on a scholarship where she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a minor in Business. During her time in New York, Alex had the chance to travel and dance in India, Europe and Central America. These were exciting times but upon completion of her degree she made the decision to return home to Saskatoon and has since discovered new passions in food and photography.
In this episode, Alex discusses how the stress of the dance world created in her an unhealthy obsession with body image and food. Although she did not see a prevalence of eating disorders in her world, she did struggle with a dysfunctional food relationship, later on seeing the spectrum of disordered eating. When Alex was younger, she did not have issues with weight and because of this she notes she did not develop good eating habits. However, the transition to university was difficult. Alex was homesick, was transitioning to a new type of dance and the “freshman 15” became a reality. Being surrounded by dancers, who dressed in tights and body suits, Alex started putting internal pressure on herself. She did not feel happy with her body and started making extreme food choices. “Yoyo” dieting became an issue and food lost its pleasure. Eventually Alex did recognize her stress cycle and started new food habits, which included focusing on putting good food into her body and focusing less on what food she was taking out of her diet.
Alex also shares with the listeners about the struggle of leaving competitive dance while at her peak. Although she didn’t fully recognize why she wanted to go home after university, she recognizes now that she was starting to see that the day to day struggle of the dance world was overwhelming and was taking the joy out of her creative expression. Upon moving home, she got her Pilates certification, which led her into rehab work. However, she continued to struggle as she felt she was disappointing people by quitting dance, so she began training again and attended some auditions. This caused her to once again struggle with body image and weight. Ultimately, she came to understand she had made the right decision for herself by quitting and that her self-worth was not dependent on an audience and what people were saying about her.
About this time, Alex was also rediscovering her creative outlet in cooking. Sitting down and eating as a family was a big deal in her home. For their family, food was about bringing people together and was a way to celebrate the beauty of relationship. She started a food blog, lionalandhetta.com, named after her grandparents who owned a family farm, where farm to table eating was the normal course of life. Her food blog has now led her into a new passion for photography and styling. Alex shares that her focus now is on getting enjoyment and happiness from what she does, versus always focusing on reaching her full potential.
“Passion does not always meet calling”- Alex’s story touches on so many pieces of pressures faced by individuals or athletes. The joy of dance was lost in the struggles with body image, food and Alex was no longer dancing for herself. Such a powerful story of how finding your calling may lead you away from expectations.
Connect with Alex at:
Website: https://www.lionelandhetta.com/
Instagram: @lionelandhetta
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We are often led to believe that many of us are eating too much and should work towards eating less, choosing 'healthier' foods and exercising more. The reality is, most of what the popular media is sharing is leading to issues of low energy availability, over-exercising and dysfunctional eating patterns. We can be focused on pursuing health and well- being but when is that pursuit being taken to far? The term or condition Orthorexia was coined in 1988 and it means “the obsession with proper or ‘healthful’ eating. It is not a problem to ensure you are getting in quality food and focused on good nutrition, it can become one when thoughts of food and what you eat or how 'healthy' that food is starts to damage well-being.Physiologically there are many signs that this may be an issue. The responses that occur in the body include (but are not limited to):
a loss of menstrual function, no period or lack of period at 15 years of age or older changes in hormones, hormone function such as alterations lowered testosterone levels for males recurring or frequent viral infections digestive upset such as constipation and bloatingQuestions that were referenced in the podcast include:
It is OKAY if you identify with any of these questions, there is support and hope to live with freedom and still be active and healthy.
For more information on Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, head to my recent blog post.
If there is any more support or information I can provide you, please do not hesitate to reach out.
Jorie Janzen, RD, CSSD- [email protected]
Alison Friesen, RD- [email protected]
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As a young athlete, TJ Sanders had some very lofty goals. He was very driven and competitive, and his end goal was to be a professional volleyball player and to become the “best player” in the world. Upon completion of High school, with this lofty goal in mind, TJ played on two university teams, played with the junior national team and trained at the full-time training center. Ultimately this drive helped him achieve his goal of becoming a professional player in Europe where he has played in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey and Poland; and he has now played on the National Volleyball team for 7 years. As a national player, he was a key player in the drive to reach the Olympics in 2016 and the entire team has gone from being 23rd in the world in 2012 to being ranked as high as 6th in 2018.
In this episode, TJ discusses how he deals with the pressure of being the setter (really the quarterback of a volleyball team). Early on in his career he was obsessed with perfection, however this robbed him of his ability to receive feedback well and to be grateful for the moments of success in his career. With experience, TJ has come to understand that one needs to go through failures and mistakes to learn and this helps him put less pressure on himself. He has learned that being critiqued is not about who he is as a person but is an opportunity to grow as a player. This maturity helps him become both a better person and player.
TJ also shares with the listeners about his largest challenge. At the end of 2018, TJ suffered a possible career ending injury-in lay language a “broken back”. TJ discusses the identity crisis he went through as he came to terms with his desire to compete and the fact that his body couldn’t. Through tools such as practicing mindfulness, gratitude and with the support of community; TJ is now grateful for the insight his injury has given him. His perspective has shifted, and he has learned to focus on the things he can control and to enjoy his day to day experiences.
TJ is now returning to his professional contract in Poland and hopes to be a part of the Canadian team that plays in the January Olympic qualifier.
Connect with TJ:
Instagram: @sanders_tj
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From walk on to 4 year starter for the USC Volleyball team, Victoria is a force to be reckoned with and living her dream . During the 4 years of being a top level varsity athlete, Victoria faced many challenges. These are challenges many athletes think will not affect them but living in the day to day, staying at that top level entails so much more than just showing up. “No one prepares you for being a student athlete.” It is easy to slip into coping with the stresses of the day to day, with food, obsessing about not only the stats but how we look on the court. Victoria openly shares about her struggles with mental health and body image, sharing about performance anxiety, depression, and binge eating. Today, she is a mental health and body image advocate, inspiring others through her Instagram, podcast and Youtube page.
In this episode, we take a take a deep dive into the pressures of being a student athlete, performance anxiety, body image and finding purpose beyond sport. Mental health still carries a stigma; seeking support from professionals still carries stigma. Victoria shares her journey with the goal and desire to help others see that they are not alone and you are not your anxiety, binge, depression and so on. Your mental health is a priority, you are a priority! Victoria credits the support and therapy she took in her Junior year with a mental health leave for the success and joy she found in her Senior Year. I am so grateful to have met Victoria. Her message is empowering and needs to be heard!
Connect follow Victoria:
Instagram: @victoriagarrick or @#realpod
Podcast: #Realpod on iTunes and Spotify
Youtube: @VictoriaGarrick
Website: www.victoriagarrick.com
Learn more about Alison Friesen's online program Eat, Live, Train
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Chantal van Landegham- Olympic lows, highs and everything in between. Now Registered Psychologist helping others in their struggles
Chantal van Landegham has had an athletic carrier that could be made into a movie. Seeded first in the country in her event, Chantal had everything behind her to make the 2012 Olympics. In trials, standing behind the blocks, completely terrified, Chantal swam but missed qualifying by 0.01 seconds. A devastating miss but the journey did not end. With the support of a Sport Psychologist and a lot of self reflection, Chantal learned how to use her heart break to find perspective and worked her way back to the 2016 Rio Olympics and found herself on the podium. Today, Chantal has a Masters in Clinical Psychology and is working towards her PhD in exercise addiction and alexithymia.
We walk through the importance of being compassionate with ourselves, learning the value of being present and learning to understand and face emotions. Finding joy and appreciation for her sport, helped Chantal journey back to the Olympics. Walking up to the blocks no longer with fear but a smile on her face.
Chantal also helps us to understand exercise addiction and alexithymia, walks us through some of the red flags and the connection it has to dysfunctional or disordered eating. We covered a lot of ground in this episode!
Connect with Chantal and read some of her research:
Instagram: @chantal_van
Facebook: @chantalvanlandegham
Research:
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Michael Linklater- A basketball legend: A story of hard work, resilience and staying grounded in our culture and who we are
Michael Linklater is a basketball legend. Michael is Nehiyaw from Thunderchild First Nation in Saskatchewan. Growing up in the inner city of Saskatoon, watching friends struggle with drugs and alcohol, Michael promised himself to never touch drugs or alcohol, a promise he has kept. Michael fell in love with the game of basketball at the age of 11. From winning a national championship with the U of S Huskies, going on to plan 3 X 3 basketball on the World Stage and finishing his career winning a Championship with the Saskatoon Rattlers professional team. Finding strength in his faith and culture, Michael was able to push himself harder than many. Facing racism head on, Linklater has become an incredible leader. Showing up each day with gratitude, staying grounded in who he is and where he came from, and learning to feel to stay present on the court and in life all are a piece of how Michael has been able to achieve the success he has had.
How do we get through some of the most difficult seasons of life? Seek support and wisdom from mentors or elders. Learn from those who have walked the journey before you and listen. Listen to their story, hear how they grew from their struggles and transfer that wisdom to your own life. We are never alone in our struggles, there will always be someone who has walked before you, we have to learn to reach out. Michael has worked extremely hard to achieve the health and performance he has, but he humbly credits the support he has had in his life.
“What is your favorite movie? When you think about that movie, if there is one thing you would go back and change, what would you change about that movie? Right now… you are in your movie. You are at a point where you can change the direction or route that you want to take, rather than waiting to the end of the movie when you can no longer change anything.”
Follow Michael Linklater and see what he is up to
Instagram: @Michael_linklater
Twitter: @mrlinklater
Facebook: @LinklaterMichael
Website: www.michaellinklater.com
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Welcome to The Warrior!
Why Warrior? Many times our barriers feel like battles. Sometimes the battles are short. Sometimes we feel like we never stop fighting. The battle for health, wellness and high performance is not all about how the battle finished last time. It is about setting our strategy so that we win more battles in the future, it is about the journey, the process. As we go about setting our strategies, we learn, grow, adapt, persevere, change, and ultimately reveal more of whom we are meant to be. This podcast is a place where we can hear stories from Warriors; athletes and individuals who will inspire us, give us some tangible tips or information we can use to overcome our barriers to health, wellness and high performance. Join me and become a Warrior!
I am Alison Friesen, a registered dietitian and former athlete. I have worked with many athletes and individuals who, just like me, need to hear that we are not alone. I needed to hear from other athletes, I needed to get support and information that would help me understand steps I needed to take to get healthier and perform better. We all have incredible potential! Sometimes we just need to be encouraged, taught and pushed out of our comfort zone to reach that true potential. Each week you will hear inspiring stories and interviews, advice and practical information all with the same intention: these are the tools that will empower you to be a great Warrior, to experience the fullness of good health and step into your true potential.
