What have we Been Doing?

1.Alannah O Brien, 4.1

Openlearn course about Athletes and Efficient Hearts.

The course itself took about 2 hours and went through the difference between a very athletic person, a regular healthy adult and a non-healthy adult. The differences really stood out and were really easy to find out if you have a healthy heart or not by just counting your heartbeats. The healthy adult should be on average around the 60 beats per minute at resting, not exercising, anything over 70 is considered unhealthy and for athletes it could be anything as low as 30 beats per minute for elite sportsmen/women. It also included the links between the lungs, heart and blood and went into enough information to get a good understanding of what was really happening. The diagrams comparing different hearts too was very interesting. There was also a case study about a fencer named Sophie Troiano, she went through what she ate before a fencing game and how important eating the right can affect your energy and effort, even if it's just a little bit of pasta and some chicken can make a huge difference. The last topic I found really cool was the training at a high altitude. Training at a high altitude can be challenging because there is less oxygen that we would be used to, but the benefits are very positive. It makes the heart stronger and more efficient, makes the lungs stronger, increases the number of red and/or white blood cells and makes the muscles stronger. To get use of the high altitude training, they have specially designed chambers that have less oxygen than a regular room. Another way athletes can gain more red blood cells is to get them injected into their own blood, or use a drug to increase their own level of red blood cells. This is illegal and anti-doping authorities test very carefully for this.

We wish Alannah every success.

2.Caoimhe Murphy 4.1

I was apart of a Mini Company, company named “Glassify.” I was one of the main people running this business and completed many things.

I did an online Nutrition/ Food Course which was very interesting and I learned a lot from it.

I was apart of The Economic Doctors’ in the Generation Euro competition where we completed a quiz and did a presentation on what we think the interest rate will be for the coming year, I completed everything on inflation and inflation outlook on this project.

I’ve done a lot of work on my home farm such as milking the cows etc in my spare time during quarantine. I’ve witnessed and learned from the farming industry first hand and it’s a very enjoyable experience.

I’ve worked on what I love the most…that is Sport and Fitness. I have a home gym at home with weights where I train 5-6 times a week as apart of my strength training, I love bettering myself and getting stronger every day. I’ve made extreme progress over the past year, e.g my deadlift compound movement .I’ve been working on this for ages .I started at 20kg and it now 130kg for 8 .I feel very proud of myself and of course feel very strong.

I’ve been completing 2 5k runs a week for awhile now for fitness preparing for camogie to return .To be the best and fittest version of myself I am hoping to play for Cork Minor team this year.Even though I’m 17 , I know it will be hard but I want to give myself the best chance of success by giving time to training . If I don’t make it this year I’ll make it next year! Before I struggled to run 2.5k straight but now I can easily run 6k in 28mins! My best 5k time is 22 mins 30 and my average it 23 mins down from 24.30 when I first began. I can really see the progress and I love working hard towards my goal. When my hard work pays off I know it will be the best feeling ever!

We wish Caoimhe every success