The Road To Glasgow – Update From Jayden

With only 2 months until the Commonwealth Games we caught up with F-Teamer Jayden Hadler for an update on his training. Here's what he had to say

As I come to the end of a heavy training block, my preparation for the Commonwealth Games is in full swing. For the last two weeks I have been with my SOPAC squad at Thredbo for altitude training and it has gone really well.

The higher altitude seems to have varying effects on us, increasing as we put more effort into the exercises. Personally I only find the decreased oxygen is noticeable after excessive exercise, particularly recovering in between anaerobic 50's and all the additional dryland we're doing.  Steve Smith, our Strength & Conditioning Coach from the New South Wales Institute of Sport (NSWIS), Physiotherapist David Pugh and Assistant Coach Darren Howard, have driven from Sydney twice during this camp to help us stay on track. It is great to have such an invested support crew when our bodies are being put through such rough workloads.

The squads from Commercial (QLD), Chandler (QLD) and West Illawarra (NSW) joined us for the second week. We train at separate times but it is great to mix it up with different faces, including 3x World Champions (James Magnussen, Christian Sprenger and Cate Campbell). Also fantastic to be joined by the new Head Coach of the Australian Swim Team Jacco Verhaeren in the last few days.

It has also been great to see the Thredbo pool stocked up with their Funky Trunks apparel! Lots of Funky Trunks and Funkita signage and stickers around too.

Training has been very beneficial up in Thredbo, just to get that extra little bit out of an essential part of our preparation has been time well spent, and a great step towards swimming competitively at the Commonwealth Games. Next up is some racing in Canberra for Grand Prix 1, alongside the rest of the Australian Swim Team, Australia A Team and Junior Pan Pacs Team.