As an elite triathlete it’s essential to create a strong team of experts to support you in getting the very best out of yourself. ReBalance Injury Clinic are an integral part of my team and are already having a huge impact on my athletic performance through their performance development service.

The area of triathlon that I specialise in is “XTERRA Triathlon”, this involves swimming (1500m), mountain biking (35km) and trail running (10km). Over the last 5 years I have been racing as an amateur athlete, consistently winning my age group, culminating in becoming amateur World and European Champion in 2022.

Following this success, in 2023, I took a leap of faith and made the decision to step up into the elite ranks.

I first met Abby in early 2023 and was immediately struck by her knowledge, passion, and enthusiasm for Sports Therapy. I quickly learned that a partnership with ReBalance would be so much more than simply having a sports massage, and their company ethos really resonated with me:

“We believe in root cause analysis to ensure that we are not only treating your current aches and pains but identifying and correcting the cause of these. We see evidence-based practice, hands on treatment and movement central to the meaning of being healthy and functional. We collaborate with you to build a plan that suits you, which focuses on and encourages movement and exercise rehabilitation.”

During our first consultation, along with my Coach Rob Moore of trimoore coaching, we discussed my background, goals for the season and current training schedule. Abby proceeded to take me through a bespoke performance development screen which included a series of comprehensive strength and mobility tests with the goal of identifying potential weakness for us to work on.

Combining my anecdotal feedback with the results of the movement screening, Abby identified a small set of areas to work on. I was amazed by her ability to track down the root cause of my symptoms – I would never have guessed that my frequent glute tightness had a connection to foot strength!

After identifying the areas for development, Abby produced a bespoke conditioning plan with specific exercises tailored to my individual needs. The new strength plan integrated seamlessly into my training schedule. Abby designed the sessions so that they complemented my current strength routine and wouldn’t impact the other sessions I have during the week.

The bespoke plan was delivered by their easy to use exercise app “PhysiApp”. This was a fantastic tool, it listed each of my exercises, along with informative videos and a prompt to check each one off once completed – there were no excuses for not getting them done!

As my debut elite racing season got underway, having regular monthly touch points with Abby was invaluable. My season opened with XTERRA UK and XTERRA Portugal where I achieved 3rd and 4th places respectively. Whilst I was pleased with my strong performances, I felt I had more to give and that there were areas that could be improved upon.

In XTERRA triathlon it is important to be a strong and robust athlete, these races are often over 3hrs in duration and are held over incredibly tough terrains (lots of steep hills!) I felt that I needed more strength and stability for the run leg and as such Abby tweaked the plan, adjusted some of the exercises and introduced further specific stretches.

When it came to the pointy end of the season, I could really feel the difference!

I’ve recently returned from XTERRA Czech Republic, a World Cup triathlon race where the start list was packed with the World’s best off-road triathletes. I got off to a fantastic start, having a strong 1500m swim and exiting the water in the chasing pack. The mountain bike course was a proper slog – 33km and lots of climbing! The 10km trail run was equally as brutal, with very long and steep climbs, strength and robustness was key. When I hit the run, thanks to the specific strength I had developed over the year, I was able to overtake 5 of the elite women to secure a place in the top 10!

It really is the little things that make a big difference, since working with Abby I have become a stronger, more robust and well-rounded athlete – I can’t wait to see where we go from here!

The next race for me will be the World Championships held in the Italian Alps this September!

It has been great working with Kerri-Ann this season. She is evidently hugely committed to her training, has implemented and engaged with everything we discussed, and therefore has seen the benefits in her performance. 

When we work with athletes who are not injured, we are looking to complement their training with bespoke conditioning programs with the sole aim of performance development. We debrief and discuss their training and races to highlight any areas which can be improved on. We then assess global and specific movement patterns and look closely at where we can make those small changes. We aim to gain the small improvements in strength and range of motion in key areas around the body which can help to maximise performance, reduce fatigue when our athletes are pushing those limits, helping to keep them robust when competing and reduces the risk of injury.

We are looking forward to see what Kerri-Ann can achieve in her upcoming race at the World Championships in Italy and working closely with Kerri-Ann and her coach Rob in the coming months to develop things further.

Photo credits: XTERRA Europe.

“I started visiting ReBalance Injury Clinic in 2017 with recurrent knee issues relating to being over-weight most of my teenage/younger years. After losing 4stone, I took up running and did not understand the benefits of the ideal training load and intensity, warming up/cooling down and stretching.

Abby spent a lot of time going through the importance of looking after your body, giving me exercises to do at home to increase my ability to run further and faster. On top of this, her knowledge of the human body and the reason our bodies react in such a way is phenomenal and I would trust her over most health professionals when it comes to how I progress with my fitness journey.

Since visiting, I have been able to exercise for whole days, enrolling in fitness retreats and working out all day for FUN!

In 2020, I sprained my ankle whilst running in some under cliffs and Abby had me back on my feet in no time, giving me stretches and exercises to practice at home. Exercise is a huge part of my life and without this my mental health suffers massively so this monthly appointment is just as important as the exercise in itself. When I do not have an injury/issue, Abby works on my shoulder blades/back muscles. I work as a secretary so spend a lot of time sitting and typing, so my back muscles regularly need a lot of work!

I am now able to do 18 miles of coastal walking at a time with no pain or issues afterwards. I have completed the Jurassic coastal path and many 5-10k charity runs. This could have not been possible without the expertise and amazing care given by Abby and her team over the past 5 years.”

We have loved seeing Ceri’s passion for exercise develop over the last few years, and we admire her drive and commitment to her goals, training plans and to herself. Her current goal is to complete the rest of the South West Coast Path and to of course get some amazing photos along the way! We look forward to helping you complete your goal!

Clare came to us in early 2020, close to the start of her journey and the first Covid-19 lockdown. She had shoulder pain with her day-to-day movements when lifting her arm up away from her body, this was due to the non-existent training and activity she had done before starting a 4-week challenge at B! Health and Fitness.

We got Clare booked in for an Injury Assessment and Treatment and we diagnosed her problem as subacromial impingement. We developed a tailored treatment plan based on her highlighted needs to get her back to pain free movement so that she could focus on her training and improvements towards her goals.

Despite Clare trying to fool us in the fact that she had actually done her rehab exercises a couple of times (we can always tell if you don’t!), we were able to reduce her pain quickly and alongside the team at B! with their personal training sessions, we kept her on top of her exercises and got her back to training pain free again.

“Absolutely fantastic service as always, Abby is so knowledgeable and you always feel in extremely capable hands. Abby finds solutions to problems you didn’t know you had which make such a massive difference to both your physical and mental wellbeing. I cannot recommend highly enough.”

From then, nothing could stop her. She has gone from being overweight, no exercise, smoking, and suffering two small strokes due to Meningitis on the brain, which at the time, altered her eye sight, gait and reduced the strength on the left side of her body. To now, where the gym is her second home and family – she is there 5 times a week for her own sessions, personal training sessions and spin classes (we also see her socialising a lot too!).

Her transformation is absolutely unbelievable and she is looking fantastic! She has lost a lot of weight, gained a lot of confidence and is smashing her targets. What a fantastic achievement.

This year she accepted the challenge with a few other gym members and staff at B! Health and Fitness to complete a charity walk in Brixham. This wasn’t just any walk – this was a 42km, marathon distance walk, over extremely steep south west coast path terrain. So, this was always going to be a tough challenge to accept for Clare as this was above and beyond her fitness levels. Despite the few hurdles she has encountered, with the stress her work and personal life has thrown at her during her training – she managed to keep focused and stayed on top of what she needed to do. We had a few physical hurdles along the way too but we were able to keep the pain under control with hands on treatment, whilst we adapted her walk training to match her tolerance and progressively built the distances back up, we also altered Clare’s training program and conditioning in the gym to meet our treatment goals.

Her hard work and determination in combination with our expertise, meant she not only got back on track, she got through the most intense training period and improved her physical ability and made it to the start line of the walk event! Now, the walk did try to break her because of the under-estimated terrain difficulty, but she was determined to power through and she smash it and got to the finish line. Clare individually raised over £2000, and as a team they raised over £8000 for The Alzheimer’s Society.

An incredible attitude and achievement! We are so very proud of you. You’ve smashed it!

Clare values the focused and wider benefits she feels from our appointments and she has decided to invest in herself and her physical health by complimenting her future training with regular appointments with us. This will help keep her on track and focused towards her training and improving any weaknesses.

We look forward to continue working alongside Clare and see her hit her future targets.