Ms. Namita Nayyar:
What exercises comprise your fitness regime or workout routine that you may like to share?
Ms. Arianna Fontana:
As a warm up I usually run, it’s good to wake up my body and to start to burn some calories!
Skating is such a foreign-feeling sport that in order to prepare our bodies for the lateral motion that comprises speed skating we have to be all around fitness machines.
I am on the bike constantly to increase my Vo2 and wind gate. I am in the gym for strength and power. I’ve become a much more efficient runner than I was just 2 years ago. I do more burpees over a summer then most people do in their lifetimes. There are specific workouts that I do for skating that focus on glutes and stabilization and without those, my top speed would be without a steering wheel.
As far as specific workouts go, I love combining circuits of all kinds. Intervals are the way to go to really increase your fitness. I build around 2-3 min and usually make it 3 sets of 6 of whatever I am doing; typically 45” of abs, 30” sprint, and 45” of burpees or mountain climbers, as an example. The only way to beat your competition is to do what they think is impossible.
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
Do you take some special diet or have a strict menu that you follow to remain healthy and physically fit?
Ms. Arianna Fontana:
I don’t really have a strict diet, depends on which period of training I am in. I change the amount of carbs and protein, and I use Herbalife products to help me to recover during and after practice. But, you know, as a good Italian I love to eat and sometimes it’s hard for me so I give myself some little treats when I have a good training or race! It is important to give yourself rewards or you will never want to work for the grand prize at the end of the road.
Don’t let me downplay how important diet is for most every athlete. I am cautious about when I can eat the polenta I love from Valtellina or when I should watch the quantity of food I consume. There is a time and place for everything so my recommendation is moderation. Everything in moderation.
Ms. Namita Nayyar:
How are you able to balance your personal life and competing for speed skating?
Ms. Arianna Fontana:
I’m actually really lucky. I found the love of my life thanks to skating. My husband Anthony Lobello, was a skater who competed for the United States, and thanks to his Italian origin moved to Italy to chase me down, and I never let him go. It is important in life to find balance and when you perform at the highest level of anything it pays to have someone who knows exactly what you are going through.
For Anthony and I, we face problems that none of my competition face because we are married and he is also my coach. No other athlete I race has a husband coach and the difficulties that go along with those two relationships commingling are challenging but the challenges we face together make our marriage stronger and at the end of the day I wouldn’t have come back for the Olympics in Korea without him coaching me. He is a master of technique and he’s experienced things that even I haven’t in training. He is training me to beat the men. He always says, “I would hate to race you”. It makes me happy when he says that, it means I crushed the workout for that day.
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