Latest news with #SallyGunnell
The Independent
30-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
This is how Sally Gunnell went from Olympic gold to training for ‘life performance' and longevity
Training to win Olympic gold and exercising for good health well into later life are two very different prospects. Today, I'm speaking to Sally Gunnell; one of the only people on the planet to have extensive experience of both. The former world champion hurdler is five minutes early for our interview, showing signs that her Olympic discipline remains. But, she tells me, her current fitness regime is far less stringent than it was 30 years ago. Instead of chasing sweat and medals, her emphasis is now on something she calls 'life performance'. 'I'm focussed on having enough energy, having enough focus, being happy in myself, being mobile, staying strong, being there for my family and preventing illnesses and injuries,' the 58-year-old says. 'But I still want to go out and have a glass of wine, eat my easter eggs, go on holiday and enjoy myself.' This approach has struck a chord with many. Gunnell's recent Instagram videos regularly reach five- and six-figure audiences, containing everything from accessible mobility routines and mindset hacks to quick home workouts you can do while the kettle boils. The mission, through this and her coaching company Life's Hurdle, is to 'help as many women as possible build confidence in life through mindset, exercise and nutrition'. To find out how, I quizzed Gunnell on how her training has shifted over the years, the best thing she believes you can do for your health, and the 'all or nothing' mindset shift that has a transformative effect on her clients. What does a typical week of training look like? Gunnell's exercise goals are refreshingly relatable, and strength training is the key to achieving them. This means two or three weekly sessions of lifting weights, with each one lasting anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes. 'Even though I had my muscles when I was competing, as you age they just go – it's quite scary really, so weight sessions are an important part of my week' Gunnell tells me. Age-related strength and muscle loss is called sarcopenia, and this can start as early as your 30s. Strength training, be that lifting weights or bodyweight exercises like press-ups and squats, is the best way to counter this. 'I like to do good compound lifts [those that recruit multiple muscles at once], so that might be the squat, bench press and Romanian deadlift,' Gunnell says. 'I don't focus on all arms or all legs in a workout either, I mix it up. It doesn't need to be too complicated, I just make sure I [hit every major muscle group] in each training session .' To provide a sufficient stimulus for building strength and muscle, exercises should feel challenging too. Gunnell likes to work to the rule of thumb that 'the last two reps should be quite a strain'. To complement her strength training efforts, she also goes on regular dog walks and does a dedicated stretching session once or twice per week. 'Mobility is something I'm very conscious of, probably because I pushed my body for quite a few years, so it's really important for me to keep mobility in my legs and hips,' she explains. Gunnell still goes for a run a couple of times per week too, although she says these outings look very different to her track sessions of old. 'I'll go for a run, but it's very slow and it's much more about how I'm feeling,' she says. 'I suppose the cardio side is built into me. I don't need to go and run the marathon again, I just enjoy getting outside, getting into nature and having some really good thinking time. And I do think it's the best thing for managing stress.' The mindset change that makes the biggest difference Gunnell says the fitness pitfall most people fall into is adopting an 'all or nothing mindset'. They will set out with the best intentions, exercising regularly and adopting a healthier diet, then pack it all in as soon as they make any sort of slip-up – an act she likens to finding a flat tyre on your car then needlessly slashing the other three. 'If you miss a workout or overeat on one day, don't say 'I'm going to start again on Monday', then throw the rest of the week away. Just go back to your normal [healthy] routine as soon as you can – progress isn't about perfection,' she says. 'I like to think about it in terms of red, amber and green days. Your green days are your good days where you exercise and eat well, but sometimes you might have a red day where you don't feel like doing anything. On those days, is there one thing you can do to make it an amber day?' This could mean reaching for a nutritious snack rather than a chocolate bar, going for a short walk or doing a five-minute bodyweight workout. Making these small improvements on a regular basis is likely to have a compounding positive effect, and they can also keep you from falling off the fitness wagon. 'There are all sorts of different journeys people go on, but roughly it takes Life's Hurdle members about three months to get to a good place where they're not giving themselves a hard time and always trying to get that perfect day,' says Gunnell. 'This mindset change is a slow thing we have to work on, but it's the key to long-term health and building it into your life.' The best thing you can do for your health Linked to Gunnell's traffic light philosophy; if you're looking for a straightforward way to turn a red day into an amber one, her foundational advice couldn't be more simple: 'Get up and get walking.' 'Too many people sit behind a desk at work, then they sit in front of the telly when they come home,' she says. 'So I would say the best thing you can do is get up, get mobile, get outside and just get walking. Stretch that over the day and break your day up instead of just sitting there for eight-plus hours. I think doing that can make a big difference to a lot of people.' Walking can also be your workout for the day, particularly if you're struggling for time, she adds. 'Sometimes, when I do cardio, I only have 20 minutes so I'll go and find a hill then walk up and down it, or run up and jog back. It doesn't take long, but it gets your heart rate up, and then in your head you've done something for the day. I feel so much better afterwards as well.' Navigating life's hurdles Life's Hurdle is Gunnell's online coaching company, which she runs with her son Luca. The pair founded it in March 2024, and it has since grown from strength to strength. 'Lots of members want to lose weight and tone up, of course, but it's also about helping people feel good in themselves; having that confidence, an effective mindset, and fitting fitness into their lives,' she says. 'What I love most about it is hearing from ladies who've been with us since the beginning. They now say [exercise] is no longer about weight loss for them, but the confidence it brings them in life, and the fact their friends and family are noticing how much happier they are. That's the bit that I love, and that's what exercise can do – it's powerful.' Members have access to a personalised exercise programme, as well as two live classes per week and a weekly live chat where they can pepper the coaches with questions. There is also education around lifestyle factors such as sleep and diet, as well as a community group chat. 'The community side is great,' Gunnell says. 'I think it's the accountability that people like. They like that we care and we're there to support them and navigate them through all sorts of things they're going through in their life. 'I think for a lot of people they're daunted by gyms, they're daunted by never having done any exercise or strength training before in their life, and we give them the confidence to get their weights set up in their lounge and join in.' When can I start? People tend to delay their exercise plans until a certain date, be that a Monday, the first day of the month or, in many cases, the start of a new year. But in Gunnell's eyes, there's no time like the present. 'There's never a right or wrong time to start exercising,' she says. 'People often delay it because they're going on holiday or they have a busy month, when actually you would do better getting started now.' Gunnell identifies this as one of the most common things standing between Life's Hurdle members and a regular exercise routine. She has also spotted another recurring theme among clients. 'As women, we always put ourselves last,' she explains. 'We always look after everybody else – I've had a lot of ladies tell me, 'I want to do something for me because I'm always the one running around after the kids or the husband or the parents'. They come to us and say, 'This is the first time I've ever done something for me'. I think that's true, and I think it's very powerful as well.' Perform the superset below between one (for beginners) and three (for a challenge) times, leaving 60 seconds of rest between sets Goblet squat x10-12 Floor press x10-12 Perform the superset below between one (for beginners) and three (for a challenge) times, leaving 60 seconds of rest between sets Single-arm row x10-12 (on each side) Glute bridge x10-12 This four-move workout promises to recruit and strengthen muscles in your legs, back, glutes, chest, shoulders, arms and core with just four moves. If you perform the maximum three rounds of each superset it should still take no more than 20 minutes. A superset simply means performing two exercises back to back with no rest in between. For this workout, you would perform 10-12 goblet squats, move straight into 10-12 floor presses, then rest for 60 seconds before repeating this sequence. Once you have done your chosen number of rounds, move on to the next superset (single-arm rows and glute bridges) and follow the same sequence. Gunnell also recommends adding a core-strengthening exercise of your choice at the end, such as a dead bug or bird dog. Benefits of this workout The key to Gunnell's strength training workouts, both for herself and for her members at Life's Hurdle, is accessibility. This is because the workout people do will always be more effective than the one they don't. 'There are all sorts of different tools you can use, whether that's a couple of dumbbells, resistance bands or a kettlebell,' she says. 'You don't always need to have weights – you can use bodyweight exercises as well. 'I don't think workouts have to be complicated either. It's important to do them right technically, but you don't need to get too fancy with it – do the basics and do them well.' She tries to hit every major muscle group in each session, strengthening not only the muscles but also the bones, tendons, ligaments and joints across her entire body. This will make everyday tasks feel easier, and leave your body more resilient to injury.
The Independent
10-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
We've overcomplicated fitness – these six simple things will make you healthier than most people
I recently witnessed an online melee as people debated the best way to perform a press-up: an exercise with an instruction booklet built into its name. Sure, there are nuances you can use to manipulate muscular engagement, but for the vast majority of people, simply pressing themselves away from the ground (kneeling or otherwise) will deliver most of the benefits. This isn't an isolated event either. Everywhere I look, people are seeking incremental health and fitness progress through (often expensive) hacks, shortcuts and supplements, all while leaving potentially huge gains on the table by overlooking the basics. Regular sauna sessions in lieu of a good night's sleep, a huge stack of pills where fruit and vegetables might suffice, and some new-fangled bosu ball exercise when a simple squat would deliver more bang for your buck. I'm not saying these things are ineffective, but for the greatest impact on your health, you're better off laying strong foundations first. Having interviewed some of the top researchers, coaches, trainers and athletes from across the fitness industry, I've identified the common denominators they all recommend for general good health. From these, I have created six accessible, expert-led and actionable tips which you can use to become fitter than the majority of the population. 'Most of us have this mindset that more is better and we have to be absolutely perfect in everything,' says Sally Gunnell, former Olympic champion and founder of Life's Hurdle. 'But you can't be perfect every day. That's where exercise programmes and diets often go wrong.' When people slip up and miss a day of their exercise plan, they often pack it all in. Failing to follow a diet's strict rules regularly ends in a similar fate. Gunnell likens this 'all or nothing mindset' to getting a flat tyre, then slashing the other three. Instead, she recommends fixing the one that is broken by finding small ways to move your health and fitness in the right direction. 'If you miss a workout or overeat on one day, don't throw the week away and say, 'I'm going to start again on Monday'. Just go back to your normal [healthy] routine. Progress isn't about perfection,' she says. 'I always think about red, amber and green days. Your green days are your good days, but often you might have a red day where you don't feel like doing anything. On those days, is there one thing you can do that makes it an amber day?' This might mean a short walk when you would otherwise have been scrolling on your phone, or a quick five minutes of movement (such as the short resistance training routine below) while taking a break from your desk. A few minutes of effort might not seem significant enough to have an impact, but doing these activities regularly will quickly rack up compound interest for your fitness. 'It's about being consistent, doing something when you can, and having a mindset where you're not beating yourself up [if you don't do everything perfectly],' Gunnell says. 'That's the key to long-term health and building it into your life.' If we apply this to walking, step-based activity expert Dr Elroy Aguiar says the 'ideal' baseline to hit for most health benefits is around 7,000-8,000 steps per day, with 20 to 30 minutes of walking at 100 to 130 steps per minute or faster. However, he echoes the World Health Organisation's sentiment that 'every move counts towards better health'. 'If that means walking a little bit more quickly to your car, the train station or a bus stop, just to elevate your heart rate and your metabolic rate a little bit for those brief periods which you can accumulate throughout the day, those things count as well in terms of exercise,' Dr Aguiar says. Lesson two: Vary your movements Broadly speaking, the body operates on a use it or lose it basis. If you do something regularly, it will adapt to do it better. If you stop doing something, it will gradually discard the strength, mobility and cardiorespiratory fitness required to do so. Therefore, if you want to be able to move freely, moving frequently is a non-negotiable. Top strength coach Dan John identifies the five basic human movements as push, pull, hinge, squat and loaded carry. Movement mechanics expert Ash Grossmann also highlights the importance of moving in all three planes of motion; sagittal, meaning up, down, forward and backward motions; frontal, meaning side-to-side actions such as bending; transverse, meaning twisting or rotational movements. If you can cover these eight bases each week, whether that's via strength training, pilates or any other activity you favour, your body is likely to feel more supple than most. 'We want to maintain as many movement options as possible, so that means moving as many joints as possible in as many directions as possible,' says Grossmann. 'Doing things like side bends and rotations will all contribute to a body that feels limber and loose.' Lesson three: Do resistance training in some form Resistance training is the golden goose for health, fitness and longevity, offering an invariably cheaper entry fee and far greater return on investment than most biohacking options. 'In my opinion, the benefits of maintaining healthy muscle are highly underrated,' says Well To Lead founder Ollie Thompson, a trainer who specialises in longevity. 'Consistent resistance exercise enhances metabolic function by improving insulin sensitivity, supports cardiovascular health by reducing blood pressure and inflammation, helps maintain hormonal balance to combat age-related decline, preserves bone density to reduce fracture risk and strengthens the immune system to help fight off disease.' But resistance exercise doesn't have to mean spending an hour in the gym every day. Your muscles don't know the difference between a dumbbell, barbell or bodyweight workout, they just recognise the need to overcome resistance. As long as an exercise is adequately challenging, it will prompt positive adaptations to strength and size, so time-savvy home workouts will serve most people just fine. And beginners can see significant improvements from minimal input. 'This is because any type of resistance training is a new stimulus to the body,' explains Amanda Capritto, a personal trainer who specialises in minimal equipment workouts. 'A previously unstimulated neuromuscular and musculoskeletal system will respond quite dramatically to lower total training volumes and less intense stimuli, compared to the more advanced lifter [who will likely require more weight, intensity and volume in their workouts to see progress].' To prove this point, a new 2025 study published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology found that a five-minute resistance training workout comprising five beginner-friendly bodyweight exercises 'significantly improved physical fitness and mental health in sedentary individuals' when performed daily for four weeks. Fancy trying something similar? Then, every day or two, complete one round of the equipment-free circuit below: Lesson four: Apply progressive overload to your training One of the most common training mistakes is stagnation. People get stuck in a loop of doing the same exercises at the same weights for the same number of sets and reps every week. But given the Said (specific adaptations to imposed demands) principle, in which the body only adapts to better handle the tasks we consistently ask of it, this is one-way traffic to a progress plateau. Instead, you need to gradually increase the challenge of your workouts via a process called progressive overload to continue to see benefits. Take the five-minute workout above as a case study. For some people, it will present a challenge as written. For others, it may feel like a breeze. If you're in the latter camp and it requires less than a seven out of 10 effort, it's time to increase the difficulty if you want to see progress. You can do this by performing the circuit multiple times, increasing the number of reps you perform of each exercise, increasing the weight you're lifting (by adding items to the rucksack, and wearing it for the squats and press-ups) or switching to similar but more challenging variations of each exercise. For example: Lesson five: Tweak your routine to improve sleep quality Nearly every fitness professional I've spoken to swears by the same first pillar for feeling better: improve your sleep. Dan Lawrence, a performance coach to elite athletes such as boxer Conor Benn, is the latest to lend weight to the argument. 'Sleep is the number one recovery tool, and it costs absolutely nothing,' he tells me. 'If an athlete had a poor night's sleep, we identify why. Have they eaten too late? Is their brain going at too fast a rate? Do we need to regulate autonomic status and breathing work? What's gone on that's led to poor sleep?' The problem is, most of us aren't elite athletes. We have early morning alarms, social commitments and unforeseen interruptions which impact our nightly slumber. However, Lawrence's points still stand: the aim is to optimise the time we do spend in bed. He recommends keeping your room cool and finding a sleep set-up that works for you – during Conor Benn's training camp before his Chris Eubank Jr fight, Lawrence sprang into action after identifying a 'pillow issue' which was hampering the star's sleep. The Sleep Scientist founder Dr Sophie Bostock also prescribes prioritising consistent sleep and wake times where possible. This will help keep you in sync with your circadian rhythm, helping your various bodily systems run smoothly. Accessing bright natural light first thing in the morning, leaving a few hours before dinner and bedtime, and finding a way to destress before bed (such as meditation or journaling) can also improve your sleep quality. Lesson six: Build positive nutrition habits and improve your food environment The final step when building the base of the fitness pyramid is nutrition. But again, we're not elite athletes, so you don't have to weigh everything you eat and take all the fun out of food. Instead, a few sustainable habits are likely to push the nutrition needle in the right direction, with dramatic carryovers to how you feel and perform. 'Picking some solid nutritional foundations to get better at is a good place to start, even if it's just one or two things,' says Everything Fat Loss author Ben Carpenter. 'Hopefully, they should become easier over the next few months, rather than you following a strict diet for four weeks, then stopping.' The first foundation he recommends is 'focusing on [consuming] nutritious foods rather than high-calorie, ultra-processed foods'. 'If you focus more on nutritious food, it's building a habit rather than severing one,' he explains. 'A lot of diets are focused on restriction and avoidance: you're not allowed to eat certain things, or you have to reduce your intake of xyz. 'I like focusing on nutritious foods you can add in. They tend to have a habit of displacing other foods out of your diet because appetite is finite.' Another thing you can do is create a favourable food environment which promotes positive nutrition choices. This can benefit everyone from office workers to elite athletes, as Manchester City Women's physical performance lead Dan McPartlan explains. 'The eating environment is really important; trying to make the right foods appealing to the players, and buying food that they really want to eat. 'We've had a big focus on post-match food over the last few years. When I first arrived, we had little boxes of food that we would put in the microwave at the back of the bus after a game. We now have one of the chefs from the academy who travels with us, and he will cook fresh pasta at the back of the bus.' If a private pasta specialist isn't an option, Carpenter says there are easier ways to achieve this. Try keeping nutritious food options in more accessible spots than less nutritious options. For example, boiled eggs instead of snack bars or fruit on your desk, rather than a communal high-calorie treats like biscuits. It's far from a straight swap, granted, but you're more likely to make positive choices if it is easier to do so.
BBC News
28-03-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Sally Gunnell announced as judge for BBC Make a Difference Awards
Olympic gold medallist Sally Gunnell is set to be a judge for the BBC Make a Difference Awards (MADA). The ex-track and field athlete, who lives near Brighton, will help choose the winner of the new active category, awarded to individuals or groups who have used sport or physical activity to improve the lives of others in the the winner "is going to be very tricky," she told BBC Radio Sussex. "But I want to see somebody that's doing that little bit extra for somebody else." Ms Gunnell, who set a world record in the woman's 400m hurdles in 1993, said there were "so many different options" judges wanted to hear about. She suggested nominees could be helping communities through sport, keeping people active, or anyone who has done "something incredible" like raising money for charity through physical is "everything for our health", Ms Gunnell added, highlighting its positive social and mental effects. "It's so important." MADA is a BBC initiative to honour community champions across eight different categories. To nominate someone go to the Make A Difference site, with nominations closing at 17:00 BST on 31 March.
BBC News
31-01-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Athlete Sally Gunnell guest edits BBC Radio Sussex and Surrey show
Olympian Sally Gunnell will be the next big name to guest edit an edition of the Radio Sussex and Surrey Mid Morning Gunnell, who lives near Brighton, East Sussex, won gold in the 400m hurdles at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, along with golds in the World and European championships and the Commonwealth former world record time at the event, set in 1993, is still the British her edition of the programme on Friday she has chosen to focus on the work done by hospices, the difficulties of finding athletics coaches, and women facing the menopause. Every Friday in January a guest editor took over the Sarah Gorrell show's running order from 10:00 notable figures from across the region stepping into the editor's shoes include scientist Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock, children's author Jacqueline Wilson, and writer Dorothy Koomson. Guests will include Becki Jupp, the chief commercial officer of St Barnabas House hospice, and parents of a child benefitting from the care of Chestnut Tree two other issues Ms Gunnell has chosen to focus on are the difficulty in finding the right athletics coach, with a fellow Olympian, the 1500m runner Jemma Reekie, joining her in the studio, and the support available for women over 45 who are going through the menopause.
