Popular guide to improving your health and fitness

Date Published: 18-Apr-2013

 AN innovative new book – entitled ‘Training and Optimal Health for Sport’ and compiled by reigning double World kickboxing champion and adopted Craughwell man Shane Fitzgibbon – has been getting rave reviews since hitting the bookshops just two months ago.

Among those to heap praise on Fitzgibbon and his manuscript have been Academic Director of Setanta College, Dr. Liam Hennessy; seven-time Irish triathlon champion (1984-1991) and physical therapist to the Olympic Council of Ireland, Gerard Hartmann; and President of The Physical Education Association of Ireland, Fergal Lyons.

No doubt, the publication is a vital training aid for those interested in improving their own personal health and fitness along with those athletes immersed in peak sports performance, an area which Fitzgibbon – a multiple World martial arts champion over a successful 20-year-period – is also very familiar with.

Of course, Fitzgibbon’s vast array of achievements on the international stage have been well-documented in the past and these have included winning his first World Championship medals – two golds and a silver – at the AIMAA Open Martial Arts World Championships in 2000 along with captaining Ireland to gold in the ITF (International Taekwondo-do Federation) World Championships in 2007.

In all, he has won approximately 20 medals in World Championships – most recently four bronze medals in the Taekwondo World Championships and two gold medals in the World Taekwondo Festival in 2010 (both in South Korea) and two gold medals in the Kickboxing World Championships in Orlando last year.

In 2012, he also was a gold medallist in the Holland Cup and a bronze medallist in the German International Championships in Kickboxing and he is the frontrunner, once again, to collect his fifth ‘Irish Competitor of the Year’ award following his glorious exploits over the last 12 months.

Amazingly, in between training and competition, he has had time to compile a book which should prove to be an invaluable asset to athletes of all levels. He describes his effort as “a balance between a text book and a lay person’s approach” – something that he has failed to find on the book shelves previously.

So, encouraged by his Oranmore physical therapist Derek King – who he describes as “the guy who has kept my body in one piece for years” – he embraced the challenge to pen something unique and in February of this year he released his offering.

The book, he says, is an “all-in-one package” and covers such areas as initial assessment, the principles of exercise, flexibility, endurance, training for strength and power, core training, nutrition, the importance of sleep, mental preparation and conditioning and, finally, injury prevention.

It also looks to dispel some exercise myths, of which the Kerry native says there are a lot. “First of all, women tend to be afraid of strength training because they think it will make them look masculine. That myth is still circulating. So, I am sharing the real background science why that is not the case,” notes Fitzgibbon.

“Also, there is another myth that children shouldn’t do strength training and, again, I am explaining why that is not the case. Women should strength train; young children should strength train. It could be their body weight; it could be an external weight. It depends on the situation.”

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.