Get Fitter and Healthier with Team Turner: Make a Plan!

Sometimes it’s all a bit much. Working hard, giving your family enough attention, maintaining a vibrant social life, and then finding time to enjoy sports—not everyone can keep that up. For the members of Team Turner, things are a little different, Dieuwertje van Kalken explains during the Turner Office Day. “It’s easier for us. We’re really motivated because we have a goal: winning competitions.” So that’s tip number 1: choose a goal. “Do you want to feel more energetic? Do you want to look good? Do you want to be healthier? It doesn’t matter what your goal is,” says Van Kalken, “as long as you have a reason to exercise.”

Don’t think that the members of Team Turner are superhumans. “When it rains in June, skating hard during the Alternative Elfstedentocht on the Weissensee seems like a distant dream,” Van Kalken admits. “We don’t always feel like getting on our bikes then either. But we do it anyway, with our teammates.” That’s tip #2: do it together, because if you try to do it on your own, you lack social pressure. If your teammates are waiting for you outside, you have no choice but to brave the rain. Related to that is tip #3: lay out your workout clothes and a banana so you have no excuse.

The skaters take a very precise approach. Their coach draws up a carefully crafted annual plan, specifying the type of training, intensity, and duration for each day—all tailored to the individual skater. Team Turner even has different coaches for different activities. That’s tip 4: make a plan. “You still have to carry out the plan yourself and find your own balance between what you’d like to do and what’s good for you. We also study or work: my teammates Tjilde Bennis and Lisanne Buurman work three days a week alongside their elite athletic careers.”

Nutrition

“You can’t win a competition with your diet, but you can lose one,” says Tjilde Bennis. That’s tip 5: eat a healthy and varied diet. Tailor your diet to what you need to do. That starts, of course, with eating healthily—three meals a day. But you also need to think about your energy levels while exercising. During the Alternative Elfstedentocht on the Weissensee, the skaters receive some fruit, a gel, a caffeine shot, and a water bottle filled with sports drink at the refreshment station every two laps (one lap is 8.7 kilometers). It’s a matter of necessity: if you get hungry while exercising, it’s already too late. The amount of food the skaters consume during the race is considerable. After all, you need energy to perform at the highest level for over 200 kilometers: the skaters burn about 3,600 calories during the race. For ordinary people, that’s an amount that would fit into a diet plan designed to gain weight.

Finally, it’s a good idea to replenish your energy levels after exercising by consuming carbohydrates and protein—for example, through cottage cheese, nuts, and granola.

Exercise

In 1980, cyclist Joop Zoetemelk said, “You win the Tour de France in bed.” It’s as true as can be—you have to get your rest. But you have to keep in mind that Zoetemelk had already been competing at the top level for years by that point and had logged thousands of hours of training. Still, he was right: it’s not just about training hard and often. “You want to train your body to deliver a top performance as easily as possible,” says Dieuwertje van Kalken. “That means you should ideally keep your heart rate low while exercising.” That requires endurance, which you build through endurance training. And that’s tip 6: don’t constantly push yourself to the limit during workouts; don’t force yourself to go all out.