Our first workshop of the day was with Shayne O’Connor, an ex-professional cricket player who has his own business, Prospective Solutions. He introduced us to some new ways of thinking, opening our minds to different ways we can tackle the problems we face throughout our lives, sporting or otherwise. He gave us advice on what we can do when our sports games or practices aren't going our way. When we feel these moments are happening, we shouldn't just give up, but instead we should always revert back to the basics and focus on what we can control. Shayne emphasised the importance of focusing on what we can control, as keeping a hold on the small things often leaves us with a stronger sense of control in general. 

After our talk with Shayne O'Connor we headed over to the Food Technology room where we met Toni Nelson, a registered nutritionist. Here we split into groups and were given a quiz to fill in, questioning what we knew about nutrition. She then took us through a powerpoint full of highly relevant topics such as what to look for when reading the labels on food you're buying, NIP (Nutrition Information Panel), the basics about food and nutrition and what sort of foods we should be using to fuel our bodies. She then talked about pre, during and post exercise nutrition, looking at the sorts of foods we should be eating before, during and after exercising, or while playing sports. An important message to be taken out of this talk with Toni is how important it is to be fuelling your body with all the right foods and nutrients for an athlete, to ensure we are performing at our best ability.

To round off the day, we had a session with Stevie Payne, a personal trainer with a background in track running and netball. She started us off with an example of a training plan, explaining different types of workouts and their effects. This gave us some good framework in terms of structuring our own weekly training plans, strengthening our understanding of the gains we can see from the right workouts in the right order. We then headed into the weights room where Stevie showed us a quick HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) workout that she has used with clients in the past. She also demonstrated the proper use of our school gym equipment, explaining how to utilise this resource we have here at Dunstan. This talk was very beneficial in teaching us how to best plan a week to maximise improvements in fitness and sporting skills without burning out and overtraining.

Malia Banks and Bella Thomas