My experience is your advantage

In order to compete at the top of the World Rally Championship you have to be fit, both physically and mentally. But this doesn’t only apply to professional athletes, but also to all the challenges of daily work and family life as well as hobby sports.

The ability to move anatomically accurate, building strength and functionality, feeling good about your looks as well as being able to focus are important skills to master life - physically and mentally.

I had my first encounters with personal training after two very serious accidents and convalescence. In 2001 I suffered a femur fracture on my way from Athens to Delphi and had to go into surgery immediately. Back at home I quickly started getting back into training. Unfortunately the plate inserted in Greece could be strained significantly less than I was told by Austrian doctors. The result: the plate broke and the bone fractured again. I had to undergo surgery once more, in Vienna this time. After a long and hard time of rehabilitation training I soon was back in the cockpit next to Manfred Stohl.

My first contact with my later training facility, Flexyfit Sports Academy in Vienna, I owe another serious injury. At the Austrian Rally Championship in Admont the car was pushed onto a mound, a compression pressed me into the seat. Although I didn’t notice anything at first, I decided to check with a doctor, since a few important races were coming up. The doctors told me I had sustained a vertebral fracture that could only be fixed surgically. I was transported back to Vienna and brought straight to an operation in the SMZ Ost hospital.

Looking for a personal trainer who could deal with my injury in a highly professional way and get me back to normal as quick as possible, I bumped into Melanie Brandstätter, head of Flexyfit Sports Academy. Our trainer-customer relationship soon developed into a close friendship. During the convalescence Melanie put a lot of time and effort into my well being. To this day we train together and support each other.

Flexyfit cooperates with a lot of gyms all over Austria - you pay for exactly the time you spend there - and also train and licenses people to be fitness and personal trainers, functional trainers and sports coaches at the Flexyfit Sports Academy: fitnessacademy.at.

Training with Melanie made so much fun and I saw great progress. That’s when I decided to include fitness into my work life and start my education at her Academy.

My education included strength and coordination training, machine-supported and differentiated strength training, free weight training with dumbbells and barbells, functional strength training, cardio training and sensory-motor skill training amongst other things. Additionally I am specialized in outdoor training.

My education program also included functional training which doesn't focus on bare muscle power, but more so on difficult coordinated tasks to minimize risk of injury and enhance performance. Joints, tendons and ligaments get used and moved, self observation gets better and the body learns to stabilize itself in various situations. This approach supports professional as well as hobby sports, but also overall well-being and the body’s functionality in day to day life.

My boundless joy in movement, my preciseness and ambition are important factors for motivation and companionship, which I am more than happy to use, in order to get you to achieve your goals. Your path will be shorter and not at all stony, when walked on together.