Beach volleyball players Shauna Mullin, 26, and Zara Dampney, 28, are representing Team GB at the London 2012 Olympics. It's a popular sport with spectators - and gruelling for competitiors. Here's how they ensure they stay in tip-top shape to compete.
Nutrition:
Shauna: For breakfast, I usually have cereal or toast with peanut butter and raspberry jam or porridge if it’s cold. For lunch I have couscous with tuna and some vegetables. Yoghurts, light rice pudding, and biltong are also great power training snacks. I love chocolate, so when I have a real craving, its best to put sugary treats right after training so your body uses them in its recovery. Other recovery tips are stretching, ice baths and Arnicare cooling gel when the sessions are particularly tough so that we are able to come back the next day to perform again.
Zara: Porridge with strawberries or raspberries with ginger tea make up my best breakfast. Jacket potato and beans is another great lunch. Low fat milkshakes are good for recovery and energy during the day. I love cheese but try and eat less of it.
Your perfect breakfast: lots of ideas for healthy, tasty ways to start the day with a metabolism boost
Training:
Shauna: We do weights three times a week - a lot of Olympic lifting, squatting, dead lift, and other volleyball-specific exercises. Cardio sessions two times a week - mostly interval training on the treadmills and then some cardio sessions in the sand. We don't do any classes, although have a lot of Pilates and yoga in our warm-ups, cool-downs and extra supplementary sessions.
Zara: We also do a lot of conditioning work in the gym to ensure we are jumping high and able to go for a long match in intense heat.
Choose your own at-home fitness moves to get yourself in beach volleyball bikini shape
Motivation:
Shauna: We play music in the gym to pump us up, and for me, during cardio sessions, blaring pumped-up music in my ears keeps me going. Because I am part of a team, when we aren't motivated, the other one usually is, so we bounce off each other like that. Other times when it is a bit slow, whenever I do something good, or get a ball up that was quite difficult, it always motivates me a little more, but with the Olympics so close this whole year I haven't found it difficult to be motivated for any sessions. David Guetta, Rihanna, Pitbull, Flo Rida are a few of the people who feature on my playlists.
Zara: We don't struggle for motivation. With the home Olympics, that is usually enough motivation for any athlete. Music again can help me to get into a good mood - upbeat pop songs. I always think about my performance at the Games and imagine myself doing great digs and big plays.
Go girl, go! The 1-2-3 of motivation
How do you fit training in with your normal life?
Shauna: We have been on a very heavy training and competition schedule for the past four years.. which has meant our normal life has been kind of nonexistent or has been sidetracked to Skype and whatsapp.
Zara: Normal doesn't exist for us! We are always travelling and living out of a suitcase so we struggle to see friends and family regularly, it's definitely a strange life that we lead. I like to have a pamper every now and again as a way of relaxing, I use Arnicare bath & massage balm to help my relax in a bath and to aid the recovery of my legs.
Find out more...Suncare tips from the beach volleyball team
Beach volleyball players Shauna Mullin and Zara Dampney are ambassadors for Nelsons
