Summer heat combined with the high altitude makes training tough but for health and fitness coach Jock Campbell, it is the perfect environment to reach your peak.
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Campbell has trained plenty of the country’s best athletes, including the Australian cricket team and for the last two weeks has brought some of his emerging stars to Armidale for an altitude training camp.
Campbell along with wife Melissa run Jock Athletic aimed at high performance training.
Among the young stars who have been put through their paces in the city are beach runners, surf lifesavers and grade cricketers.
Breaking his tradition of training his athletes in the Snowy Mountains, Campbell was impressed by the facilities at The Armidale School and decided it was time to relocate his training base.
"The great thing about having it at TAS is we have all the facilities right there, even the athletics track is only two kilometres away so we jog down there for warm up,” he said.
"We have the pool, the gym, six ovals to choose from, we use the dining hall, everything is contained whereas where we have them normally in the mountains we have to source a gym, source a pool and nothing comes close.”
The camp provides the athletes with the opportunity to train like a professional, from fitness regimes to health and diet, they gain the whole experience.
Australian champion two kilometre beachrunner Ali Najem is in his fourth year at the camp and said the region has provided the perfect setting to train in.
"I think the biggest difference was, coming from somewhere a lot colder, near the Snowy Mountains, coming here with the heat,” he said.
"Here has been the best of both worlds, you have the heat training and the altitude.
"It was a bit hard to adapt at the start but we have done the hard work now and it is our second week here now.
"It has been a luxury coming to Armidale, everything here is so close to us.”
A typical day for the athletes includes training in the morning, a pool recovery session, rest and a gym session.
Najem said the drills and workouts can be gruelling but he has already seen results.
"In the sessions Jock will give us anything from intervals ranging between 100 metres to a kilometre.
"We start off with a kilometre run, three minutes rest and then we do an 800 metre run, max effort and about five minutes rest and then repeat that four times.
"By the end of the session, everyone is dropping like flies, the heat is strong, the wind picked up.
"[Monday] I ran my personal best time over a kilometre.
"We have been dying to break 2:36 for a kilometre so we ran 2:32.”
The team also travel with a dietitian, Dee McCarthy who plans and prepares meals for them as well as teaching them how to cook and eat properly.
A physio also came up with the team to do assessments and screenings to narrow down any problems the athletes may be experiencing.
Programs are built for them to improve and take home with them.
The Jock Athletic group will be here until Friday.