Niall MacSweeney & Matt Lamarque (Royal Ballet School): The Artistic Athlete

Niall MacSweeney completed his MSc at St Mary’s University. Whilst studying, he secured a position as an S&C coach at White Lodge, which houses The Royal Ballet School students aged 11-16. Niall has previously worked with a variety of sports including the University of Liverpool sports teams, London Broncos, and GB Sitting Volleyball. Niall also has a private coaching business called Energia Performance. Matt Lamarque is an S&C working with The Royal Ballet School for the last three and a half years. He completed a Masters by Research in quantifying training loads in elite adolescent ballet in a collaboration between The Royal Ballet School and St Mary’s University. He has previously worked within both male and female rugby at Richmond Rugby and male football at Leyton Orient FC, as well as a short stint in academy level cricket. 

In this episode they discuss: 

• Their context delivering S&C to ballet students aged 11-19 and their normal weekly training load. 

• The evolution of ballet performance  from a delicate to a more explosive endurance performance. 

• The extreme number of jumps dancers complete on a daily basis and the typical injuries reported in ballet dancers. 

• How S&C can provide the capacity to underpin the artistry in ballet. 

• The barriers they had to overcome to implement S&C in a ballet setting. and the gradual change in culture. 

You can find keep up to date with Niall via his Twitter: @NiallMacSweeney and via his Instagram: @energia_performance . 

You can keep up to date with Matt via his Twitter: @mlamarqueSC and Instagram: @matt_lamarqueperformance . 

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