Wednesday, November 30, 2011

A Day in the Life of Canadian Peng Peng Lee


Peng Peng Lee is Pan American Silver medalist, a future UCLA Bruin and a member of the Canadian National Team. Although Peng Peng graduated in 2011, she’s deferring from college this year in hopes of making the Olympic Team. This provides her with a bit of an unorthodox elite training schedule.
(Property of Oakville Gymnastics Club) 

7:30 AM - I wake up get changed and go downstairs and have breakfast. Breakfast I cook myself so I normally make toast and eggs and have yogurt with granola or berries.

8 AM - I leave and go to the workout gym. Sometimes I'll drop my brother off at school before I go.  I do repetitions on the treadmill so I'll run hard for 1:30 then lightly jog for another 1:30 and I'll repeat that about 10 times. Then I do my required back exercises plus some extra conditioning. I have a specific physio that comes into the gym and she oversees my back exercises and she'll upgrade them when needed. A lot of the back exercises are to do with the core so a lot of planks and bird dogs some exercises with the medicine ball etc.

9:30 AM - After I come home and rest. I'll do some chores and errands that need to be done. Since I'm going to UCLA soon I'm doing a lot of research on what I would like to go into. I like to sing and play guitar/piano while I'm at home so I have fun doing that. I usually take the chance for the free time to get physio and make sure my body is taken care of.

(Property of Scott Heavey)
1:00 PM - I have lunch. Lunch depends on what we have at home but it's mostly proteins and veggies.

2:00 PM - I have to leave the house at around 2 to get to training at 3.

3:00 PM - Then we train. We warm-up for about 10 mins then do 20 mins of conditioning then we start our events. About 15 mins before training is done we'll do more conditioning, stretch, then say goodbye to all the coaches.

7:00 PM - I usually have a snack (protein bar) right after training since I have an hour before I eat dinner.

8:00 PM - I get home, have dinner, relax. Dinner depends on what my parent's make but it's usually chicken, rice and some kind of chinese vegetables. Then I’ll go to bed around 10:30-11 PM.

In order to make Peng Peng’s day easier for the reader to quickly understand, some of the quotes are slightly paraphrased without changing any of the meaning. 

4 comments:

  1. Ooh, only four hours a day!? Is that because of her back or is it usually that light? Good for her!

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  2. Thats so bizarre that as a top level gymnast in her country she would train so little! No wonder WAG canadian gymnastics is kinda junk! 9th in the world only!

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  3. Shanw Johnson only trains 20 hours a week? Would you call her crap? I think not.

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    1. people vary. Shawn is actually the only gymnast I know to train that little and be that awesome. Four hours a day is usually reserved for those with injuries or not really serious with the sport.

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