Be Your Best pre-season round-up

College students took part in a running challenge, received expert tips on their performance and used a fitness programme as part of the Be Your Best pre-season programme launched earlier this term. The six-week programme, which finished on 2 November, was intended to get students fit and ready for competitive sport once again. Thank you and well done to all the colleges who took part. More than 30 colleges signed up to our Strava running challenge where students could compete as a sports team or subject area with the aim of getting the highest average team distance, tracked on Strava per week. Congratulations to Dudley College’s endurance team (pictured), St John Rigby College’s badminton team and Birmingham Metropolitan College’s athletics team who all received a £50 JD voucher to award to the student of their choice after coming out on top over the respective weeks. The college teams ran a total distance of 1,293 miles over the six weeks and there was a designated leaderboard page which showed the teams' progress. In another element of the programme, staff and students had their questions answered on a range of topics during our expert Q&As hosted weekly on our Instagram channel. The topics were nutrition, recovery, strength & conditioning, speed and sports psychology with experts that included former Olympian Andy Turner, Wolverhampton FC nutritionist Dr Mayur Ranchordos and England Students Rugby League Therapist Keith Burnett. Bespoke fitness programmes downloadable from the website were produced each week by our WorldSkills Fitness Trainer alumni Ricky Raybould. These focused on improving speed, strength, power and endurance over the six weeks and featured guides and video demos for each aspect. Thanks again to everyone who took part and look out for further projects and challenges for your college to get involved in this term on the AoC Sport website.