Fitness

Elite athletes use a lot more than natural born talent to achieve personal bests. The best part is many of the strategies they rely on for success are just as useful for amateur athletes.

Even though elite athletes may make winning performances look easy, there’s a lot more to success on the field, track or court than pure talent. From strict training regimes to controlled diets and an obsession with statistics, elite athletes use a heap of scientific strategies to help them improve performance. You may not aspire to win an Olympic gold medal, but many of the practices that aid elite athletes can also help amateurs do better at the gym, on the field or during a fun run.

Children today spend more time sitting than ever before. And research shows that as they grow up, children tend to become more sedentary and less active.

This is where The Daily Mile, a teacher-led running programme for primary school children, aims to make a difference. Designed by a headteacher in Scotland in 2012 in a bid to get children more active, the concept involves children running laps of the playground or school playing fields for 15 minutes everyday. Its simple design combined with political, public health and celebrity endorsement has seen it expand to over 10,000 schools in 78 countries worldwide.