lauren bertolacci

The guys at Ascend Sports Nutrition have been helping me out since I got home from Germany. For those not up with Sports Science, protein supplements are used by elite athletes around the world in order to help them recover faster and build and maintain muscle. Sports nutrition is an essential part of training and recovery, and one I find can often be neglected in Volleyball. When I got home from Germany I was still recovering from a torn hip flexor that I was struggling to shake, and had an ankle injury within a week of getting home, and I have no doubt using the recovery and protein catalyst product from Ascend helped me get through those a lot quicker than normal.

Protein supplementation is important for after games, training and weight session and it provides numerous benefits. When you exercise you stimulate protein synthesis, and you need a surplus of protein in order to help repair the muscle damage that you caused. When you repair you adapt, grow and get stronger…you also reduce soreness and inflammation. Ascend have created a world first product after dicovering a new whey peptide, designed to help you recover and adapt in a very short amount of time, and it is proven. Here is a small snippet from their website.

ASCEND Elite Recovery ultra active whey peptide accelerates your strength recovery after exercise. In clinical studies, subjects achieved full strength recovery within a staggering 24-hour period after they had exercised to fatigue. These recovery times are unheard of! Train Harder More Often.

I’m not going to talk too much about the science behind it on here but you can read more about the clinical trials and details of the recovery product here. Science behind Ascend.

I just wanted to let everybody know about these guys as they are relatively new, and a big step ahead of their competition. They have been helping me out since I got home and I can feel the difference. With tough schedules for AVL, it’s making a difference, and when I head back to Germany I intend to keep on using their products to help me recover and train harder.

I’m back from the tournament in Abu Dhabi, it was a great experience for us. It’s so valuable to be able to play against European teams. It suits our game much more and it shows us what we can do and can achieve.

Now we have the Perth AVL round, where we are going to try to improve on our last effort of 2 wins and 2 losses.

I’ve been watching the boys play in the Olympic Qualifier, it’s not often I get to see them and they are doing really well. Fingers crossed for them, they have a lot of support back here!

Here is some video from our Sydney game…we lost in 5, very disappointing but it was a quality game.

some video from WA game, we won in five.

check out more here

Highlights from our match against Queensland.

A bit of an update seeing as I have settled down at home again. I have been training for AVL and we start this weekend. The first round is in Melbourne and we hope to put on a good show at home. We have four games this weekend, from Friday through to Sunday, and then I fly out on Monday with the national team to compete in Dubai. This tournament is against some unbelievable teams and it is going to be a very good experience for all of us. Thats it for now, cross your fingers for this weekend, we were champions last year and hope to repeat that, but it will be tougher this year as the other teams seem to have done some catching up! I hope to see a few people out there supporting us.

Here is a video that was on the local TV here from after our last match. There is no game play, just our celebrations…and me giving susi a big hug!

If you cant see it for some reason use this link 

The massive crane I spoke of…

Season over and we are moving into division 1 next yr!! I really can’t do this weekends game justice with only words but I’ll have a crack. We had our last game against Erfurt, who were our only loss in the first round. We had secured second spot last week with our win against Mauerstetten, and in that we had also secured our move up into division 1 next year. Which is awesome news. We had our chance to celebrate that this week, with a win in a Sachsen derby, and celebrate we did. The whole day started as a celebration and all that we needed to do to top it off was win and win well, as I walked up to our stadium there was a massive 30m crane with a banner hanging off it congratulating us on our move into division 1. If we could secure the win today then it was going to be an awesome day.

I hadn’t trained basically for two weeks and missed last weeks game, trying to get my hip flexor right for this big match. I had got through 20 mins of game the night before and felt pretty confident I would be OK, and I was. Game started well with us at 8-2, and it pretty much continued in this fashion. The gym was packed, everyone had come to see us knock off a big rival, and to celebrate moving up into division 1. We gave them a great show, playing one of our best games for the year. By halfway through the third set we knew we had it wrapped up and every single one of us could not wipe the smiles off our faces. We were playing so efficiently and with a little bit of show, and the crowd loved it. We won the game easily in three, and it was a crazy feeling. We were the vice champs of the league and moving up. There was champagne being sprayed everywhere and for an hour after the game we were celebrating in the stadium with the fans. It was an unbelievable finish to a long and successful season. We continued our celebrations into the night and topped the day off well. Now we have a few functions, an exhibition match this Friday against a D1 team, and then I am heading home so you guys can see my pretty face again. Here are some pics from the game…see you all soon.

interesting tip cover

my favourite middle! and a really awesome friend

another point for us

not quite fast enough

all smiles. I felt my lack of training and was just having a little rest…

very late in the third, the game was like a party

Game over, job done, time to celebrate

thanking the fans with our aufsteiger t shirts! (means moving up)

susi ripping out the champagne…

We have secured second spot with our win this week against Mauerstetten, who were sitting 10th. It was a pretty easy game and we finished them off in 3. Sindsheim had a loss this week, which puts us clear regardless of next week. However…we play Erfurt next week. They were the first team we lost too, and there is a massive rivalry between the two clubs. It is a great game to finish the year off with, and the whole club and team want a win, badly.

I had to sit out this week because I strained my hip flexor last weekend. Was at the physio everyday and doing everything I could to get right, but I was about 70-80% on Saturday, and coaches wanted to give me the extra time to be right for this weeks grudge match.  It wasn’t nice missing a game, but I’m grateful for the time to get it 100% and looking forward to getting back into full training later this week.

This will be the last game of the season, but we will play against Berlin, a first division team in an exhibition match the week after.