Working with athletes is something that speaking personally is the greatest privilege. I have worked with some phenomenal athletes and yet; no matter what your level of experience or expertise every singe one of you teaches me something. If you are curious to read some athlete testimonials please click here: I will do my best to keep this updated.

I love everything about sport; it has been my greatest teacher in life from science to spiritual to peak states of flow. I will also attest that sport can deal the hardest of lessons when the balance is off; I am sure you agree she can be a harsh taskmaster when it comes to lessons in injury, failure, over-training, and life balance.

I hope to bring all of what I have learnt over the past 20 years to help you achieve your sports goals and beyond. I combine a unique blend of sports science (the how things work bit), health education (the how to functional optimally bit), mind-body (the mental psychology and psychosomatic bit) functional medicine (the how it all links together bit), and intuitive energy medicine (the deeper shit) to support you according to your needs in the moment. Consider this more like a journey in education, empowerment and knowing yourself.

Sport is a never ending class room; how to achieve peak performance, peak physical health, peak mental strength and peak personal growth is something that will forever drive me; and what I learn, I aim to share to the best of my abilities. Are you in?

Andrea

I aim to offer a comprehensive selection of athlete services that meet the needs of the athlete in a holistic way. If you do not find what you are looking for here then we can custom tailor an appointment to meet your needs.

I work with international athletes; so if you are based in Ireland this is not a problem. Skype, Whatsapp and connection via Training peaks, Garmin connect, Strava and more also helps us stay connected in real time.

“I first met Andrea when I was preparing for the Beijing Olympics in 2008. I was a non believer in sports nutritionists as I felt they didn’t fully understand the uniqueness of my sport (weight restricted lightweight rowing), so I spent most of career doing my own thing nutritionally. Right from the beginning, Andrea got it and much of her advice and practice was very cutting edge and outside the box. Her advice was way ahead of the curve and she really helped us make our nutritional choices work. She brought us on a nutritional adventure and I could really feel the positive impact”. Gearoid Towey is an Irish Olympic Athlete and former World Rowing Champion, Trans-Atlantic adventurer and Co-founder and Managing Director of The Athlete Advantage. 

The Following services are available through the clinic:

Appointments can be booked via Acuity

Recovering from an injury – with specific focus on diet to speed healing, supportive herbs, supplements and complementary healing strategies.

I have a special interest in using nutrition and specific strategies to expedite healing post injury or surgery. This special interest was born out of assisting rugby players back to training as soon as possible when laid off with an injury or post surgery. I was fortunate to work with a professional rugby team for 4 years and so we got to test a lot of strategies.

Nutrition, diet, supplements and energy healing work or PEMF (available in the clinic) can significantly help the healing process. Supporting an injury is not only about a return to play or training quickly; it is about generating complete healing such that the injury does not recur and there is as little residual weakness as possible. Sometimes there is a lesson in the injury or layoff; we often explore this also; for example what was off in your balance mind-body-spirit leading up to the injury. Sometimes it is also just bad luck although some would say there is never bad luck, only lessons.

Herbal prescription for athletes mini consultation

Herbs are an amazing support to an athletes artillery (which also includes smart training, good sleep, strong mind, nutrient-dense food, correct timing of nutrition, active recovery, etc.). They provide gentle support in a number of ways such as promoting optimal immune system function and hence help to prevent and limit days off training from sickness (or at the very least reduce the number of days sick, training consistency is one of the most important things for an athlete), encouraging training adaptations (ergogenic aids; for example eleutherococcus), restoring balance via the endocrine/ hormonal system and can also be a helpful source of plant based nutrition, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

Herbs may also be selected for specific functions such as injury and wound healing, lymphatic support and “cleansing of the lymph and blood” which can be very helpful after hard training sessions or a race or when injured, musculoskeletal support, tissue and organ support, brain support, normalisation of inflammation, improved sleep, anti-viral effects to speed healing from flu, antibacterial actions to promote recovery from gastritis or food poisoning and so on.

Herbs are food, they are the medicine that comes closest to mother nature’s natural form. They are more natural than supplements and work well to support the hard training athlete. Herbs are gentle but powerful and encourage optimal balance in the body. I personally use herbs and love their gentle support that works in synergy with my diet.

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Functional holistic health assessment & recommendations for athlete fatigue, chronic fatigue, over training, RED-S or heath issues.

This consultation is recommended for all athletes struggling with health, injury or fatigue problems. This consultation also addresses chronic health issues such as Lymes disease, gastrointestinal issues or hormone and immune system problems.
In other words this consultation can help you if you are dealing with anything chronic that has become a major issue for you. This is a full functional medicine assessment combined with intuitive diagnostic energy screen. This is a comprehensive dive into your current symptoms and recent and past training history, health, diet, lifestyle, and environmental triggers. You will be sent paperwork in advance to complete and return and I ask that this can be done at least 48 hours before we meet so that I get have the time to review your paperwork comprehensively.

Read on here if you would like to know more about this consultation in detail.

The full works assessment – functional and holistic health assessment for high performance

Full comprehensive assessment of diet, diet-training relationship, blood tests, health questionnaire (full assessment of past health or symptoms and present health or symptoms). This appointment also includes a BodyStat body composition measurement and intuitive energy body feedback session. Your fee includes a follow up 40-minute session recommended in 2 to 4 week’s time. If you are unable to have blood tests taken, I can organise this through the clinic via Forth Life biotracking and monitoring.

Read on if you would like to know more about this consultation in detail, or skip this section to read about other services available further below.

This appointment is a comprehensive assessment into your health as an athlete from an holistic and functional medicine approach. I add a twist to this in that we also explore the health of the body on an energetic level because this often gives very specific clues as to real time actions that we can implement in the now.

I explore the following areas through detailed questionnaire, timeline, food and training diary, tests, and blood or other medical test results:

• Body composition.
• Hydration and cellular health markers (phase angle)
• Blood pressure.
• Postural hypotension blood pressure test.
• Energy balance.
• Quality of recovery.
• Signs and symptoms of over-reaching, over-training or relative energy deficiency in sport.
• Training energy and recovery, lingering fatigue.
• Sleep quality.
• Gut health, digestive function, microbiome health.
• Endocrine function and balance (for example the adrenals, thyroid, pituitary and hypothalamus, sex organs and their respective hormones).
• The female athlete cycle.
• Immune function and your ability to ward off infection and control inflammation
• Nervous system balance – are you moving from sympathetic fight and flight state into parasympathetic rest and recovery mode.
• Mental emotional health, anxiety, hypervigilance, tension and how this can impact your ability to relax, flow and perform. Stress resilience, emotional eating patterns and more.
• Lifestyle habits.
• Environmental triggers and exposures and our ability to deal with them.
• Nutritional balance, nutrient and calorie intake and their ability to match your training, mental and physical demands.
• Blood test review or any other medical test review.

I run a very thorough assessment on all these areas and more depending on your specific goals and concerns. Armed with this information we can plan a strategy. For example to commence making changes in the following areas:

• Food choices and your day to day diet.
• Hydration practice.
• Cooking skills and meal balance.
• Time management.
• Training nutrition aka nutrition periodisation (fuelling for the work required, optimising training adaptations).
• Health concerns and whether further specialist diagnostics tests are recommended and if so what, where, and how.
• Recovery strategies.
• Sleep routine.
• Environment – physical, personal and emotional, chemical, etc.
• Self talk, stress management, relationship with food or alcohol, etc.
• Nutritional supplements, herbs, specialist foods.

The outcome of this consultation is that you will have information regarding your strengths and weaknesses in terms of health, performance and potential future issues. This then highlights the areas where you must make changes and from here you can develop a plan and with a strategic plan you can then decide where to invest your time, energy and money. This may be in further consultations to learn how to implement these changes and for specific guidance, or in specific food or supplements, or in tests, or on other therapists or even in gadgets like a proper non-alarming alarm clock!

Knowledge drives action for making positive changes and positive changes make a massive difference to your health, wellbeing, training and performance.

I have training as a pharmacist and also in sports nutrition, nutrition, functional medicine, diagnostics, herbal medicine, nutritional supplements, the mind-body connection and energy healing and also experience from working with amateur and world class athletes, athletes with chronic fatigue or serious health issues and also more “normal people” with chronic illness. You are in good hands.

I invest hours before this session reviewing all your personal info provided to me. I do not create generic templates or written guidance because I see the hours invested before the session as better invested in a thorough analysis and time with you in person rather than a quick analysis and a long write up. You are welcome to take notes as we proceed or even take a voice recording of the session to listen to again later.

Where specific follow up advice and notes or links to tests or information is necessary, I will email this (to you) after the session end. I am aware that certain clinics email written case reports however they are generic, they do not connect all the dots and they do not consider the intricate web of mind-body-emotions-experience-environment and how this all interacts. I invest the time doing this for you.

Listening is your best way to take in the info… that is you and I focused together, having a good deep chat about the whats whys and what nexts. Please ask me questions; it is my aim to provide the info to you in a comprehensive way; sometimes I may fail to make what is complex simple despite my best endeavours, and it is important that you rein me in and ask me to state the details again only better.

The following options: beginning of season and in competition / race season nutrition plan are similar but with some differences. If you are unsure which to book think about where you are in your season, and what your goals are.

Beginning of season nutrition plan

Recommended for the athlete commencing their pre-season where we have an opportunity to review your training plan, weight and body composition goals, current health and potential weak spots, your lifestyle, your blood tests and health markers and sync it all up with a health and performance supporting diet plan. We will cover topics such as eating to fuel and recover, fat adaptation, nutrition periodisation, cooking skills, time management, sleep, herbs and supplements and so much more.

Preseason is the phase of training that builds for all that is to come, nail it and you set yourself up for a strong season. Get it wrong and you may increase your risk for injury, illness, over-training or even burnout.

Preseason is also the perfect time to work on specific outcomes such as improved metabolic flexibility, fat adaptation, and body composition. Nutrition supports this significantly and improves your ability to achieve more training specific goals such as strength, endurance, flexibility and even assists in how the brain processes new skills thus enabling new skills acquisition and development of improved neuromuscular connections.

Nutrition provides the raw ingredients for the physical body to build, repair and grow and furthermore provides the raw ingredients required for this to operate (e.g. neurotransmitters, chemical messengers, energy generation); wow!

My personal goal for you is to support you in mind and body to bring out the very best of your talents as an athlete and to optimise the time that you invest in your training. In other words, to make it all count and ensure that the body stays strong, healthy and adapting to the training stress.

In competition / race season nutrition plan

This plan is recommended for you if you are in that 12-week countdown to your A race, or starting into a few months of competing. We discuss personalised strategies to support training, recovery, training-adaptations, body composition, health and injury or illness prevention during this hard phase of training. We start to implement and practice race fuelling strategies in longer training sessions. We adjust the diet macros slightly from what was done in pre-season training. Includes body comp assessment.

“This phase is when we must be highly responsive to what you are noting in the body (and mind) in terms of health and recovery and to adapt your plan as we go. Many athletes are prone to lose muscle mass and hence strength when the training volume increases as a result of a mismatch between training energy demands, stress hormones, recovery strategies, sleep quality and perhaps food energy intake, protein intake and/ or the timing of meals in relation to training.”

Body composition assessment such as the BodyStat MDD 1500 that is in the clinic will help track this. We can also monitor your hydration levels.

Certain foods and sports fuels may be helpful to us, herbs and when needed supplements. The goal is always to do as much as possible with your diet, to work with the manipulation of meal timing and macro balance and also the incorporation of specialist foods, herbs and functional foods when appropriate and hence avoid the over reliance on synthetic supplements or sports supplements. There is a time and place and we shall discuss this.

This phase of your season is very exciting as we start to implement race fuelling strategies in training and have the time to tweak and refine this such that you feel confident that you have a plan as you get close to race day. This phase of the season can also go very wrong if we do not support the body while it is training through its most intense training sessions. Many athletes now ramp up the intensity and the volume and it is important to match this with good nutrition. We work together on all these details.

Nailing your racing and recovery plan

This is where we pull it all together. We explore what has been done in the past, what we have been working on in training (e.g. sweetspot for grams carbs per hour and the format of how this looks practically). We consider how your body and digestive system respond to nutrition, the unique demands of your race, race location, travel and more to create a plan. For women what time of the menstrual cycle their race falls on can be significant. Additionally we make a plan for what happens after the race which is somewhere a lot of athletes fall short and then risk falling ill which can be a problem if they have further races on the calendar.

We will cover the following topics:

• Race details (where, when, race details such disciplines involved, distances, terrain, expected weather on the day and any other relevant and important factors).
• Taper week training details, travel/ international travel, accommodation and facilities etc.
• Pre-race meals.
• Race morning meal.
• Race nutrition strategy regarding product selection, real food selection, beverages, electrolytes, expected practical challenges and how to sync all this with the recommended rate of calorie, carbohydrate, fluids and electrolyte intake per hour (bearing in mind individual variability).
• What you have done in the past and your experiences with this.
• Preferred brands.
• On course sports nutrition brands, beverages and foods.
• Recovery plan taking into account what is available, location, time of day, travel, expected appetite, your upcoming training and racing schedule, etc.
• ? travel/ international travel and anticipated issues for example some athletes are prone to stomach upset or coughs and colds.
• Management of nerves, anxiety, lack of appetite, nausea, cramps etc.
• Any other relevant and important information.

My aim is to work with you to create a plan that you are comfortable executing. Sometimes it can take a while to arrive at the perfect plan. It can be a bit daunting to make radical changes hence I work with what you have done in the past and make it better. That is our start and we progress the changes at a rate that you are comfortable with. Every race adds more knowledge and feedback, there are factors that we cannot anticipate on the day and there are factors that we can control.

Your appointment also covers a race week PEMF and intuitive energy healing session and I will email you a race day nutrition e-book after our consultation.

Athlete – nutrition for high performance monthly mentorship 

This is recommended for all serious athletes whether in base prep season or race prep season to educate and empower. Includes 4 x weekly emails detailing personalised nutrition goals, meal ideas, and health advice tailored to your weekly training plan and health stats; 4 x weekly sixty-minute appointment sessions (in person or skype), 1 x bodystat, optional weekly PEMF and intuitive body feedback energy work. Access to whatsapp support.

The nutrition for high performance monthly mentorship is a fantastic investment to make in yourself to support the investment that you already make in your training. My goal is to take you on a journey of education, empowerment, learning about yourself as an athlete in relation to your health and nutrition, and finally of support over the weeks and months that we work together.

Every week we will work on new challenges, habit changes, nutrition skills and whatever else springs to mind as I guide you intuitively along this journey.

Athletes that I have worked with on this mentorship programme make significant gains in their racing and training and furthermore many health issues resolve such as fatigue, stomach problems, chronic issues with anaemia, muscle pain and stiffness, difficult menstrual cycles and so on. This is very rewarding for me; I care about the athletes that I work with and want to see them achieve their goals

I explore the following areas through detailed questionnaire, timeline, food and training diary, tests, and blood or other medical test results (this is an abbreviated description of all that we cover):

• Body composition, hydration and cellular health markers (Bodystat MDD measurement in clinic; this is a bioelectric impedance device).
• Blood pressure and postural hypotension blood pressure challenge test.
• Energy balance, training energy, recovery quality.
• Signs and symptoms of over-reaching, over-training or relative energy deficiency in sport.
• Sleep quality.
• Gut health, digestive function, microbiome health.
• Endocrine function and balance (for example the adrenals, thyroid, pituitary and hypothalamus, sex organs and their respective hormones).
• The female athlete cycle.
• Immune function and your ability to ward off infection and control/ manage inflammation.
• Nervous system balance – are you moving from sympathetic fight and flight state into parasympathetic rest and recovery mode.
• Mental emotional health, anxiety, hypervigilance, tension and how this can impact your ability to relax, flow and perform. Stress resilience, emotional eating patterns and more.
• Lifestyle habits
• Environmental triggers and exposures and our ability to deal with them (detoxification organ function).
• Nutritional balance, nutrient and calorie intake and their ability to match your daily training, mental and physical demands.
• Blood test review or any other medical test review.

On the mentorship plan we have 60 minutes together each week whether in person or via skype, to review, discuss and plan.

Every week I will look to your training week ahead and send on detailed instructions and advice. If you send me weekly food diaries for review, then I will also assess and return these with comments and suggestions.

I aim to cover most of the following where appropriate:

• Weekly advice on the training week ahead from a nutritional perspective (what type of meal to eat, when and why with some meal examples).
• Training diet – detailed assessment of what you are currently doing and how to make it better.
• Education about how to eat for optimal health and peak performance. Week by week I will add little education titbits and supportive literature or resources regarding food groups, meal planning and food preparation, recipes and so on. Over the weeks I will also provide you with education on how to use foods to support suspected nutritional deficiencies. For example, what foods are high in magnesium or iron and so on.
• How to eat specifically to fuel, perform and recover from your training sessions, and how this looks across the week when you take the weeks training as a whole (nutrition periodisation). I will spell it out for you.
• Eating to support health and body composition based on your individual goals.
• How to sync your eating with your menstrual cycle (females).
• Troubleshooting for life stress.
• Hydration and electrolyte guidelines. When to drink water and when to add electrolytes or salts.
• Illness prevention and protocols for things as they crop up like coughs and colds.
• How to deal with body niggles, pain and inflammation from a nutritional perspective.
• Supplement, sports fuel, functional foods and specific food products should I feel this is helpful and appropriate.
• Herb prescription for immune and training support (all my athletes love the benefits that individualised herb blends give to them for energy, immune function and more).
• Specific training nutrition advice for longer training sessions (e.g. run, bike)
• Energy healing work and intuitive body feedback or energy balancing should this be needed.
• Body composition assessment using bodystat 1500MDD. This also includes cellular hydration, whole body hydration and cell health markers. Tracking your stats during your season is a super way to keep on top of body composition changes as they happen and catch for example muscle mass and body weight loss; this can be a problem for endurance athletes. And the other extreme can be a problem for some: body weight and fat gain as a result of poorly managed diet in relation to training (probably caused by stress hormones messing your appetite up; something we can work with if we catch it).
• Race day fuelling and hydration practice should you have a race in the time that we are working together.
• Post-race or training event recovery eating and supportive strategies should you have a race in the time that we are working together.

I stayed going to Andrea for nearly 5 months and in that time she helped and supported me. She explained to me a lot about food when to eat and not to, making good choices. For sure her help over those months really help all round with the Beast, and TransAlp which is a 7-day stage race. My food intake was bang on for all this and I felt it help with my recovery also. Not only was Andrea there to help with food but it was also like a sports counselling session, also the mix of herbs was amazing.

I can’t thank Andrea enough for all her help and time. We met all my goals, which was so important. Being an athlete herself she knew how important all the racing was to me. I have to say she helped me race hard and leave it all out there, been a shoulder to lean on and helped me achieve all my goals. You rock girl. Lorraine

Training diet 

This is for athletes wishing to work on integrating a nutrition plan into their training and racing schedule for high performance and optimal health. We work together on making your training work for you by adding simple, practical and effective nutrition strategies into your daily routine. We discuss *feedback on your food diary *filling in the nutrition gaps *nutrition periodisation * fat adaptation strategies *racing and training specific strategies *weight goals with specific strategies and more.

The format involves you sending me a training and diet diary as well as your training schedule for your coming weeks of training. I will review what you are currently doing before we meet and then when we meet we will discuss making improvements, why, and how to set a plan in place for the coming weeks in the context of your training schedule. You will learn how to make better food choices, how to plan meals, and also how to time your food around your training, and more when relevant.

Endurance lab or indoor cycling specific health and nutrition assessment 

Endurance lab athlete special geared to build on our work in the endurance lab and the coaches corner, only in more detail and specific to you. Tailored questionnaire and nutrition assessment with practical and individualised feedback to support your cycling specific or multisport training goals. Format = Skype session. Continued support is ongoing via the endurance lab forum https://discuss.endurancelab.fit/

1 hour follow up-appointment/ Q&A

This appointment is for athletes following up on longer appointments, or simply booking in for an hour review, BodyStat/ PEMF and/ or supportive chat, or focused Q & A session (e.g. if travelling to compete, or when injured). Appointments can also be facilitated via Skype.

Bodystat 1500MDD body composition and cellular health assessment 

Bioelectrical impedance assessment providing in-depth measurement of body composition, hydration, and cellular health with phase angle reading. Full report emailed after your consultation. This is an advanced diagnostics machine as used in hospitals by clinicians. Option to block book 3 x monthly measurements for €100. For more details on this system of body composition assessment please click here:

Intuitive energy healing with cell-health and body balance feedback 

This is a super session that taps into the deeper wisdom of your body, tissues, and cells. It can be very useful to provide “in the now” guidance re specific nutrition or well-being strategies to support training and racing. For example, it can nudge you to diet tweaks, identify imbalances, or highlight stress/negative patterns held in the body. This session also creates opportunity for focused visualisation for optimal race day performance; and cues the body to achieve full potential.

PEMF for recovery or injury rehabilitation

Pulsed electromagnetic field therapy is a form of electromagetic medicine that optimises the body’s natural self-healing and self-regulating function. PEMF can be used by athletes to maximize performance, speed up recovery time, and reduce the risk of injury. PEMF assists the body from the level of the cell and complements other strategies to speed recovery from injury, fatigue and pain. Option to block book 4 sessions for €100. See: https://andreacullenhealthsolutions.com/2015/05/07/pemf-an-intro/

I hope that in this list of services you find something to suit your needs and I look forward to working with you.

Andrea x

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