Locker Room Files Claire-Louise Vermande

Brenton Ford is a renowned Australian swimming coach who focuses on stroke technique and correction.  Brenton started his coaching business, Effortless Swimming, when he was a uni student on the premise of assisting swimmers to bring down their times by focuses less on fitness and more on the bio-mechanics associated with the movement of the sport.  He now undertakes online coaching and holds clinics and camps around Australia and across the globe.



Brenton discusses what an athlete can expect from his courses and delves into his own background in swimming.  He also talks about the long distance, open water swims he now undertakes and how he manages his mental game when he enters the "hurt locker."

 

Brenden Hall is one of Australia's best ever swimmers.  He competed at the Beijing Olympics at the age of 15 where he broke the 400m Freestyle world record in the heats and came 5th overall.  Four years later in London Brenden won his first Paralympic gold medal and has won five more since.   Added to his Paralympic efforts are his 8 World Championship gold medals , although there is a good chance of the number increasing and he looks to take on the world again this weekend. 

With a wife, two tween children, two jobs and a chicken named Kevin, you may think that competing on the world stage in a sport that combines three separate disciplines would be a bit of a stretch for most. Jamie Simmonds is not like most. The American born Australian national is, at 43 years of age, set to compete at his third ITU World Triathlon Grand Final at the end of August in Lausanne, Switzerland.

When Nick Smith was 14 years old his mother bought him a new bike with wider tyres hoping to keep him safe on the roads and trails surrounding his Southern Highlands home. They had unknowingly purchased a cyclocross bike, a stroke of good fortune that has since seen the 21 year old pursue a career in that sport which is still finding its roots in Australia. At just 16, Smith took himself off to Europe, unaccompanied, to try his hand at the sport where the best in the world compete. He had been making the pilgrimage every year. since, racing in front of tens of thousands of rambunctious supporters on tracks comprising obstacles such as stairs, sand, snow and mud

Steve Solomon is an Australian 400m runner who competed in the finals at the London Olympics and was more recently crowned Oceania Champion. He is now setting his sights on the 2019 World Championships as well as the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Steve gives LRF an insight into the psychology of being an athlete, what his goals are for the future, who his idols are and what he does outside of sport.

Julz, a professional personal trainer, lives and breathes fitness. She is a highly motivated athlete on a personal quest to win a WBFF pro card which will entitle her to compete overseas with other professional models. A young woman on a mission, she knows what she wants and isn't stopping at anything to get it.