pianysteen

2016 has been an incredible fitness year for me! There has been ups and downs, amazing experiences and devastating failures. I think it's fair to say, that even though I've turned 33 this year, I'm in the best shaped of my life! I am stronger and faster than ever, and I'm still working on getting stronger and faster.

A year ago I decided to apply for Denmark's Ninja Warrior. This was the decision that made me work harder at the gym. For months I worked on building up strength for Ninja Warrior. Most of my focus was on lifting waits and climbing, I didn't do much cardio. Then Denmark's Ninja Warrior was replaced with Team Ninja Warrior Denmark, and I got to be a part of the show with my two awesome teammates (read my Team Ninja Warrior blog here).

Team Ninja Warrior let me to begin a new adventure, Obstacle Course Racing. In August I qualified for OCR World Championship in Canada, which was held in October. It didn't go the way I wanted, but it motivat…

So it's been a few weeks since the OCR World Championship in Blue Mountains, Canada. If you follow me on social media or have seen me since I participated in OCRWC then you've probably heard me bitching and complaining about my performance. As I started writing this post, I slowly recalled each obstacle and the feelings I went through during my races. These reflections turned out to be really good for me.

Before I tell my story, I want say THANK YOU to especially Houlind Houlding Aps and all the people who were so kind to sponsor me! Without you I wouldn't have had the chance to go to Canada to compete, so THANK YOU!

So here's my story:
Before going to Canada I honestly didn't know what to expect at all! I had signed up for a short 3 km race Friday, 15 km Saturday and team relay on Sunday. For the first two races my goal was to get my wristband with me to the finish line (that means you completed all obstacles), but that was it. The team relay was just for fun, and…

As I (finally) sat down to write this post, it has been months since filming Team Ninja Warrior Denmark. I have been trying to avoid this moment, but with the TV premier coming up really soon, there is no way around it.

I don't even know where to start! So many things happened at Team Ninja Warrior, and so many things have come from it.
When I initially started training for Ninja Warrior, I was going for the individual one. However, that show was replaced with Team Ninja Warrior. I found Kristian and Tim, we applied, were called in for casting and in the end we got the call to be on the show. It had been my goal for such a long time, to get on the show, and suddenly it became a reality. 
People who know me, know that I have been training for this for a while. I wanted to do well, and I had VERY high expectations for myself and my performance! When I walked up on the start platform for the first time, I was so confident! I knew I could do the obstacles. Four easy steps and I was o…

Fitspiration is one of the new hip words. According to the Urban Dictionary Fitspiration "is using examples of good fitness (people, photographs, skinny jeans, etc) as inspiration to attain a fitness goal." Fitspiration is great for getting inspiration and motivation to work towards your fitness goals. However, that being said recent studies show that there is darker side of fitspiration. 
Tiggerman and Zaccardo (2015) found in their study that exposure to fitspiration images on Instagram resulted in negative moods and body dissatisfaction among the participants. Blogs, apps, Instagram and Twitter are all full of dietary posts and workout routines. It may not be worded as advise, but so many fit people and athletes posts pictures of their food, bodies and workouts. Some followers take this as advice on how to eat and workout, which can result in compulsive exercise and disordered eating (Hefner et al, 2016). Though followers forget that the majority of people only post pictu…

Many people strive to achieve their goals in life. What motivates them is individual, but what they all have in common is that their emotions and achievement goals help define their motivation and behavior. But what do you do when your fear of failure is holding you back from achieving the goals you have set out to achieve?

In their study Sagar and Stoeber (2009, 26) found that "perfectionistic concern over mistakes and perceived pressure to be perfect show strong links with fears of failure and negative affect after failure." Therefore, before looking at the fear of failure it is important take a moment to look at perfectionism. Sagar and Stoeber (2009, 3) defines perfectionism as "a personality disposition characterized by excessively high standards for performance and accompanied by tendencies for overly critical self-evaluations of one’s behavior." Perfectionism can be viewed as something that can help achieve elite sporting performance, enhance learning a new …

Gluten-free products and diets have been a hot topics for quite some time now. In the fitness communities many athletes follow gluten-free diets, despite not suffering from celiac disease or other gluten related disorders. However, new research suggest that this may not have the benefits on the performance as first perceived.

The Celiac Disease Foundation (2016) explains that "gluten is a general name for the proteins found in wheat (durum, emmer, spelt, farina, farro, KAMUT® khorasan wheat and einkorn), rye, barley and triticale. Gluten helps foods maintain their shape, acting as a glue that holds food together."

In a study Lis et al (2015) found that there were no beneficial effects of a gluten-free diet for athletes who did not have a clinical reason to be gluten free. They did a study on 1000 athletes in Australia, where they found that 41% were on a gluten-free diet despite the fact that only 13% had received a formal medical diagnosis of Celiac disease, a serious autoi…