The Sport Slice

SG EBT Berlin team from Saturday's Clash Back Row L-R: Kai, Tim, Robert, Francis Front Row L-R: Adam, Lisa, Kate Hey guys, welcome to the final update for the three part blog series. Hope you enjoyed reading about what I got up to while over here in Berlin.  Today, Saturday marked the end of my first trip to Germany and Berlin and what a trip it was. Meeting up with my team-mates for the first time last Friday to winning the Berlin Derby today (Saturday 14th September). It has been a successful week. I have really enjoyed this week of training and competing in Germany and I have learnt so much from a single week that I will now use to motivate me further for the future.   Today my team SG EBT Berlin lined up against the Berlin Breweries in an exciting clash. My team-mates knew these players well as they train altogether sometimes in the Berlin set-up but this week we didn't train with them as they were our competition this time. I knew it was going to be a to...

Hey Guys, welcome to the second post of the blog series where I will give you some insight into my week spent in Berlin. Everything from training to sightseeing and also food! Hope you enjoy 😀 TV Tower Berlin  Tuesday 10th September: Today I woke up around 9am once again and chilled in the house and had some breakfast for about an hour before I headed into Berlin for the day. I left around 10:30 and headed for the number 296 bus which I could get as far as the 'Tiergarten' before I got off and got onto the U5 (Underground train). I bought a day ticket for the public transport which costs €7, but it allows you to use all forms of public transport across the city. I got the U5 as far as Alexanderplatz which is the center of the city (You know this because the 'TV Tower' is located here which marks the center of the city). I walked around the area for a few minutes to familiarize myself before heading off to see a lot of the famous historical sites. The first ...

Hey guys, for these next few posts I will give you an insight into how my first league weekend in Germany went and my week in Berlin! Welcome to the first of the blog series😀 Friday 6th September: I left home on Friday, nervous and excited for what lay ahead of me. Bags packed and off I went for a week in Berlin. I arrived at the airport in loads of time, dropped my bags off and headed through security to kill the time before the flight. I met Adam on the flight as we both headed off to Berlin to meet up with our new team-mates. The flight was smooth and on-time so we arrived in Berlin a little after 6pm. When we landed, we collected our bags and met up with Kai, one of the players on our team. We went with Kai to the minibus where we drove from the airport straight to the training hall where we got a light hit and met up with some of the other Berlin players. Everyone was very welcoming and we got settled in very fast. After training we went for some food with some of the play...

Hey guys, for this post I am going to be discussing the ketogenic diet. What is it, where did the craze come from and what makes our body use these ketones? All are important questions when it comes to the simple ketone.  But what exactly is a ketone? A ketone can be defined as a class of organic compounds characterized by the presence of a carbonyl group in which the carbon atom is covalently bonded to an oxygen atom. The remaining two bonds are to other carbon atoms or hydrocarbon radicals. These ketone bodies are always present in the body. Some examples of ketones are Acetone, Acetoacetate and Beta-Hydroxybutyrate as seen in the image below.  Our liver is responsible for producing ketones and these are readily available during states of prolonged fasting or exercise. To put it easily, Ketones are used by the body as the main fuel source when glucose is not available. For that reason, if we put our body through a state of prolonged fasting, we aren't going to hav...

The Summer months have been a really busy period for me between playing in the Sudirman Cup in May as well as the Lithuanian International at the start of June before coming home and starting work for the remainder of the summer. Apologies for the lack of posts over the last few months, but it was a busy period for me between work, training and studying for deferred exams. But I am back now with a report from the first Irish Badminton tournament of the season: The Mount Pleasant Open.  As of last weekend, the badminton season in Ireland officially kicked off. The Mount Pleasant Open was the first ranking event of the season, where players from across Ireland traveled to the club in Ranelagh to make their mark on the new season. Old faces and new competed to lift the first titles of the season.  The tournament was an extremely competitive affair and was run to the highest standard as usual, so a massive thanks to the tournament officials who ran such an efficient tourn...

Team Ireland have been in China since Thursday the 16th May to compete in the world's most prestigious team badminton competition: The Sudirman Cup also known as The World Mixed Team Championships. Placed as top seeds in group 3A, the third tier of the competition, to play teams from Australia, New Zealand and Nepal. The first three days here, the team spent climatising to the Chinese weather and also getting used to playing in the hall. On Friday evening the team attended the opening ceremony with all other teams also competing in the competition. Ireland got their campaign underway on Sunday 19th agaisnt Nepal. The team got off to a flying start, winning this tie 5-0 with each team member playing their part. After the match, we took some time to get some lunch before heading into the practice hall to do some training for our next match which would be against New Zealnd on Tuesday 21st. On Monday, we had a rest day as we had no match to play so we took our time gett...

Hey Guys, sorry for the lack of posts since the new year. I have been super busy with college, training and coaching. I didn't have the time I needed to put aside for the blog, but I am back now and hopefully can start publishing more regularly again. For this post I am going to talk about where I've been and what I have been doing for the past 3 months; in terms of my badminton, coaching and my studies. Over the Christmas period I was extremely busy with all my college exams which went reasonably well (at the time I wasn't so sure) but I got through them anyway and could focus on my badminton in the lead up to the Irish Nationals. At the beginning of January, I played in the Leinster Open, winning both the singles and the mixed doubles events. I was extremely happy with my performances in both events due to the fact that the competition took place the day after my exams finished and I hadn't felt like I had gotten the preparation I would have liked. Moving on...

Hey Guys, Hope you all had a great Christmas and ate lots and lots of chocolate! It is a time to indulge after all. But more importantly I hope it was well spent with family and friends! 2018 has been a good year for me and now I am looking forward to 2019 and I am optimistic about what it has to bring. Between my studies, my badminton and my coaching it is sure to be an exciting year.  Anyway back to the topic of Christmas... I don't know about you but I for one know that I ate too much food these past few days... And what better way to burn them off than some simple exercises? In this post I am going to give you guys 8 simple ways to burn off those Christmas calories! For any of you gym goers, you will be sure to enjoy this... 8 ways to burn Christmas Calories: 100g Roast Turkey (101 calories) = 8 minutes of skipping  One mince pie (200 calories) = Rower for 30 minutes 150g slice of cheesecake (440 calories) = Between 63 and 82 minutes of walking 1 indiv...

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of posts in the last while it has been a really busy time for me with work and training but I'm back and excited to post some of the topics I have been working on!   For this post anyway, I have decided to discuss briefly about how you can develop your game as a player and how key individuals such as family, friends and coaches in particular can play a role. I think that it is very difficult to get the balance between how much interaction you need. For example, "Do you need you parents at the back of the court?" This can be up for discussion and if I am being totally honest a discussion that could go on for years and years. There is no right or wrong answer. As children, we tend to like having someone at the back of the court or on the sideline to cheer us on and give us that extra bit of motivation. But how much is enough? For me, I grew up having my mum, a great badminton player herself to coach me and I am forever thankful to her for t...

Hey guys, for this post I will be briefing you on intermittent fasting (IF) and how it might benefit you. At this moment in time, Intermittent fasting is one of the newest craze's. It is currently one of the World's most popular health and fitness trends. People are starting to use Intermittent Fasting to improve their quality of life as well as it being a way to lose weight.  So, to start of... What is Intermittent Fasting?!? Well IF is an eating pattern that cycles between periods of eating and fasting. This type of fasting doesn't tell you what you should eat, rather when you should eat and hence why it is such a big trend. The standard window for eating during IF would be 8 hours and then for the other 16 hours a day you would be fasting. But depending on your lifestyle this can vary to what suits you.  The reason a lot of people have started IF is because it is an easy way to lose weight. Our bodies can easily cope with it as well though as back before superma...

Hey guys, really sorry for the lack of posts recently, it's been a really hectic time for me with work and training but don't worry I have lots of posts planned for the next few weeks as the badminton season draws closer.  For this post, I am just reflecting on a great pre-seasons training over the summer months as the badminton season kicks off again next week! I have some interesting posts planned for the coming weeks and I can't wait to share them with you all! As always, if you have any post suggestions or questions leave me a comment and I will try and answer it in an upcoming post!  Well what a summer that was! And how quick has it gone? Finally, I can say I have had a full pre-season training without no major injuries and I am now prepared for what the new season holds! I am delighted with the effort I have put in over the summer months to get my fitness levels up so that I am ready to go for the new season. It's never easy keeping yourself fit and injur...

Hey guys, The world cup came to it's conclusion this afternoon when France took on Croatia to take the crown in a thrilling encounter with goals galore! All football fans were treated to a special final with lots of goals - A penalty, an own goal and a keeper's fumble... But some excellent strikes also, Perisic's goal my favourite! What was yours?!? Not only was it an excellent final but we also saw VAR used in a World Cup final for the first time!! What an exciting time for football! I think you will all agree with me in saying that I am glad the use of VAR didn't directly impact the result of the game - By that I mean it wasn't just the one goal between the teams. As a big footie fan, I am sad to see the end of the World cup, but what a World cup it has been! The highlight for me being Belgium's last grasp winner against Japan and also the superb strike from Nacho in Spain's 3-3 draw with Portugal. Special mention to Pavard with that special goal and also...

Hey guys, sorry it's been a while since my last post, I have been really busy with starting a new job but i'm ready to get back into it again! In this post I will outline 6 key benefits of listening to music while working out. I always listen to music when working out, especially when running or in the gym and here's why... Music is a good kind of distraction: A study showed that there is more to listening to music than just distraction but it did show that participants who listened to music while working out were less aware of their exertion. A distraction like this has been proven to enhance athletic performance by up to 15 percent. It ups your effort: Listening to music is a key component in my workouts and I find it helps me put in that extra ounce of effort! A study showed that cyclists who listen to music while working out actually work harder when listening to fast music rather than slow music. Songs between 120 and 140 beats per minute were suggested to ha...