Julie Rogers: Getting the best from my body
A healthy lifestyle is important for everyone, but athletes in particular need to make sure their day-to-day habits have a positive impact on their performance. Paralympic athlete Julie Rogers, who is supported with specialist insurance from Fish, talks us through how she gets the best from her body.
Julie is a sprinter, and good nutrition is vital for her to maintain her position as one of the fastest female single-leg amputee sprinters in the world. “I have a nutritionist who teaches me how to fuel my body with the right thing at the right time,” Julie explains. “I have a dedicated nutrition plan which I’m supposed to follow, although it’s not always that easy.”
Julie is just 16 years old, and by her own admission she’d rather be eating the same foods as most of her friends. “There’s loads of things I have to avoid eating completely,” Julie says. “Refined sugars, and basically anything that’s bad for you which is quite difficult because I love all those kinds of things. I do get bored of eating healthily sometimes and I would rather be eating things I like, but it’s important for my sport. Luckily, my nutritionist keeps me in check and she’s really good at motivating me to eat the right thing.”
Staying hydrated is also vital for people participating in sports. Water helps transport nutrients around the body and provides musculoskeletal lubrication. If fluid in the body isn’t maintained then performance can be affected and put an athlete at risk of dehydration. Julie says: “I need to make sure I drink a lot of water, but I don’t have any fancy tips or tricks for staying hydrated. Some athletes take hydration tablets and they find that helps, but I just make sure I drink lots. I also love Ribena, I always drink it before a race and it makes me feel really alert.”
One area where Julie doesn’t struggle to stick to what’s best for her body is sleep. She says: “Typically, you should try to get more than eight hours of sleep at night, although I usually sleep for longer. I don’t think it’s because I’m an athlete though, I just love sleep! I could sleep for hours.” It’s no bad thing, as sleep is crucial for athletic performance, and studies show that it can improve speed, accuracy and reaction time in athletes.
Julie also has some top tips for promising young athletes: “Work on your foundations first of all and don’t go straight into what you see on TV or YouTube. Evaluate what it is you need to work on and concentrate on that before you do anything heavy. Also, make sure you’re getting good advice from the right people.
“Most of all though, just train as hard as possible and do all you can to achieve what you want to achieve.”
Julie’s prosthesis is insured on a specialist insurance policy with Fish Insurance.
Photograph: Peter Milsom
