ABOUT BUILT TO ENDURE

BUILT TO ENDURE founder, Emma O'Toole, has been in the fitness industry for over 14 years and has worked with endurance athletes of varying abilities and experience. From recreational runners chasing their first 5km, weekend warrior cyclists looking to stave of injury and keep doing what they love, right through to triathletes chasing their home nation's skinsuit.

Emma is a competitive athlete in her own right and some of her most notable career achievements so far are:

• Team GB good for Age middle and long course triathlete.
• Qualifying to represent Team GB at the UCI Masters World Championships in 2023 for the Time Trial event.

After suffering one too many injuries from endurance sports, she decided something had to change. Here's what she has to say on the matter:

^{"I was knocked off my bike during a training ride for Almere-Amsterdam long distance triathlon and broke my left hip. 18 months later I was badly caught up in a crash during a crit race and was left with a fractured L1 vertebrae in my spine and radial head replacement in my elbow. I used to suffer overuse injuries, in particular in my right knee, when my running volume increased; this in spite of taking a steady and progressive approach to training. With endurance sports we are always playing with fire with injuries as we're putting our bodies through it and then adding cars, potholes etc into the mix.Since incorporating regular, season-long S&C into my training, I'm pleased to report that I've not had one injury since, (despite a few more incidents!)} 

^{Several years ago, I trained to become a Strength & Conditioning coach after studying the benefits for endurance sports and speaking to athletes and coaches in the sport. I also wanted to be able to further help the endurance athletes that I coached to enhance their performance and reduce their injury risk.}

^{I found that the standard approach to S&C when applied to endurance sports left a lot on the table and accumulated a lot of excess fatigue, consequently athletes were not getting the results they could (and should) have be getting. Endurance sports are so vastly different to field/contact sports and the S&C programme design needs to respect this.} 

^{Unfortunately a lot of the athletes and coaches who come to me for S&C are already experiencing some form of injury or injuries with their athletes and that's the reason they're there. They know it is something they should be doing but do not know what, or how often, or at what intensity to do it. The S&C coaches I speak to are frustrated with their athletes flatlined performance and general attitude towards S&C.} 

^{There has been a lot of hesitancy and push back towards S&C for endurance sports with age-old myths still circulating and lots of generic strength and conditioning plans out there which don't put the athlete or the endurance sport at the heart of it.} 

^{I hope that BUILT TO ENDURE changes the narrative of S&C for endurance sports."}