Feature Team of the Week: Equestrian

Team of the Week:

EQUESTRIAN 

1. What league do you compete in?
We compete in the BUCS Championship League, we've just had one of our riders qualify for the regional competitions. 

2. What is your training schedule?
We train every Wednesday and Friday as well as having Strength and Conditioning every Tuesday. 

3. Can you tell us about your competitions?
We are in a mini league with three other Universities, each University takes it in turn to host at the yard they train at, so we compete three times a year. There are four riders in a team and we compete in two disciplines; dressage and show jumping. You never know what horse you're going to ride on, its picked at random on the day to test the ability of the rider. 

4. What do you work on in S&C?
In our S&C sessions we cover a bit of everything however there is a large focus on building core, glute and leg strength which is essential for riding. 

5. How has S&C helped you develop as athletes?
S&C has really helped with assisting the improvement of our riders such as recovering from serious injuries from training sessions as well as general improvement on our core stability which has shown such a difference in our scoring in competitions. 

 

Lisa Cockburn, the Lead S&C Coach for Equestrian says:

Equestrian have been one of the most rewarding teams to coach this year. Only a few of the riders had done S&C before and most had never stepped foot in a gym before. We’ve had a consistent 10-15 riders attend weekly and not only have we seen progress in their movement competencies and their weights increasing but also in their confidence in the gym.

The team have one S&C session a week so my main priorities were to develop their fundamental movement competencies and become competent with the basic lifts in order to build a foundation of strength, to improve their knowledge and confidence with training so that they are able to train away from the S&C suite and continue to train when they leave university, and to have a better awareness of how movements should feel, i.e. shoulder retraction so that they can hold a better posture when riding and to create stability within the shoulder to reduce the risk of injury.

This is the latest programme the girls are working on. We’re aiming to further develop overall strength now that the girls are comfortable lifting a heavier load. I’ve played around with various ways of programming and this tri-set of a lower body lift, upper body lift and core stability/strength has worked best so far as they have more time to rest in between training each body part. We also use pauses and longer eccentric phases to increase time under tension and reinforce correct technique.

I wish the girls the best of luck with their 3 peak challenge and I’m sure your hard work in the gym will pay off.

 

 

On Saturday 25th March, Sheffield Hallam Equestrian team will be tackling the Yorkshire 3 Peaks! This is a 40km walk and will take up to 12 hours! They are training hard raising money for two charities which are Sheffield MIND and The Millhouse Farm Animal Sanctuary.

 

"As we are only a small club we decided at the start of the year we wanted to give back to the Sheffield community and make a big impact. We’ve been volunteering at Mill House Farm Animal Sanctuary since November and go at least once a week, usually two or three times in different groups to help care for the animals there who have all been miss treated or given up. We help them exercise the pony’s and dogs, muck out the pigs, sheep, horses and cows. Help take hay bail deliveries and basically do what we can to help. This lead us to the decision that we wanted to help them even more and challenge ourselves and do the Yorkshire 3 peaks to fund raise money for the Sanctuary and also Sheffield. MIND is another charity the club believe do brilliant work and fully support as mental health which is an incredibly important topic that is usually over looked"

Click here if you would like to support Hallam Equestrian Yorkshire 3 Peaks!
https://www.gofundme.com/hallam-equestrian-yorkshire-3-peak

Feature Athlete of the Week: Georgia Hollis Lawrence

Feature Athlete of the Week:

Georgia Hollis Lawrence 

1. What event do you compete in?
I compete in 60m Hurdles (indoor) and 100m hurdles (outdoor).

2. When and how did you get into athletics? 
I joined an athletics club at about 7 years old doing different events.  When I was about 12, a few people suggested I should try sprint hurdles which I did. I spent some time competing in the 300m hurdles before coming back to shorter distance hurdling. 

3. Who do you compete for and when?
As well as competing for Hallam, I compete for City of Sheffield AC and will be competing for them in the outdoor season which starts next month.


4. What is your greatest achievement as a athlete?
I think my greatest achievement is probably when I ran my indoor personal best in the England Championships Final this year. 

5. What is your current training schedule?
I do two strength and conditioning sessions per week, and about 3 track sessions which is either hurdling or running. 

6. How do you feel S&C has helped you develop as an athlete?
I think S&C has helped me improve on a lot of my weaknesses in the gym like technique, which has made a difference to my running as it’s helped me to prevent a lot of the injuries I used to have. I have gained strength and power which has in turn helped me to become faster.

Andrew Langford, Head of S&C says: 

Georgia has been really great to work with this year. It is sometimes common in athletics for people to only want to train in a ‘functional’ or ‘specific’ way. It has been refreshing with Georgia because she has been willing to learn new techniques and spend time developing her foundational strength and movement qualities. This has now given us a solid base to start developing her speed qualities.

The session shown is from one of her early programmes. The session started with an exercise encouraging her to develop force as quickly as possible. The exercise also requires a controlled eccentric landing which can have great benefits for soft tissue development. We then used some compound lifts to develop key areas and build strength qualities. We are now progressing onto more reactive and plyometric type exercises, helping with her expression of force at higher speeds.

Feature Team of the Week: Women's Hockey

Feature Team of the Week:


WOMEN'S HOCKEY

1. What BUCS League do you compete in?
    
 We compete in the Northern 1A

   

2. What is your training schedule?

We have S&C on Monday mornings as well as a pitch training session in the evening. We also have S&C on Friday's. Tuesday's and Thursday's are free to do individual recovery sessions. 


3. When are games?

Games are every Wednesday  

3. What kind of training do you do in S&C? 

We spend about 15 minutes at the start of the session doing prehab and dynamic stretching all together. Our programmes are usually 4 weeks and our current programme focuses on strength and power.

4. How do you feel S&C has helped you develop as athletes?

S&C has developed the team in various physical aspects. Everyone has gained strength and speed as a result of training meaning that this has allowed us to perform to a higher standard in games. Team S&C sessions have strengthened the cohesion within the group as everyone is encouraging each other to improve off the field and most importantly, enjoying it. 

    

Andrew Langford, the Lead S&C Coach for Women's Hockey says:

The Women’s Hockey team has been one of our flagship programmes for the past 4 years. They were one of the first teams to fully commit to making S&C an integral part of what they do. During this time they have seen a number of promotions in BUCS and have really progressed as a club. They now have 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th team sessions as well which demonstrates the benefit across the entire performance pathway.

 This is session 1 from the most recent programme for the Women’s Hockey 1^st Team. This is the 5^th cycle of the current season and we are starting to incorporate some more aspects of power expression. The girls have done a great job this year and we have seen some excellent improvements in strength and quality of movement. We’ve also had a really low injury rate, which is testament to their commitment to the programme.