Hire Fitness Sponsors Taekwon-Do Champ
Hire Fitness sponsors Taekwon-do champ: Damian Smith is a taekwon-do champion who lives in Surrey with his wife and family. In the first couple of years of his taekwon-do training, he concentrated on sparring and attending as many tournaments as possible to gain experience in his chosen sport. He would usually train 5 or 6 times a week to make sure he competed at the top of his game. Damian’s perseverance and determination has allowed him to win many British Taekwon-do titles across the UK topped off by a well deserved silver medal at the US ISKA World Championships in Florida and WPKA World Kickboxing Championships in Cyprus.
After continued hard work and relentless training, Damian has won a place at the 2014 ITF Taekwon-do European Championships in Minsk, Belarus from 6th to 13th April. Damian has been entered into the Team Patterns and Team Sparring events (both 6 man teams) plus the Individual Sparring event in the Senior 78KG male 18-40 years category.
Hire Fitness are delighted to be sponsoring Damian at the European championships and over the coming weeks we’re gong to be tracking his progress and training in the run up to the event. We’ll bring you photos of Damian training and a diary charting his progress before the championships. We wish him every success in Minsk and believe his shear determination and dedication will bring him great success.
Damian’s Taekwon-do Training Diary
Just before Christmas when I was trying to bulk up as part of my training, I weighed in at 83kg. Perhaps Christmas is to blame, but I put on a little more than I’d planned and have managed to lose 3kg in the last 6 weeks. I’m currently 81kg and need to lose a further 3kg in the run up to the European Championships in Minsk in early April. I’m confident this will be achievable with the intense training I’m doing. A typical week of training for me consists of the following:
Monday: 40 minute HIIT session and separate 1 hour stretching/patterns session
Tuesday: 1 hour – joining in the class sparring session
Wednesday: Morning: mountain biking 7-12 miles or jog 5-6 miles Evening: 40 minute HIIT session
Thursday: 1 hour stretching/patterns session
Friday: Can vary but usually sparring/patterns/stretch or occasionally a rest day!
Saturday: Normally a rest day but once a month I join in the sparring session at my instructor’s club
Sunday: 3 hours ITF England squad training every 2 weeks or mountain bike riding 15-20 miles
We’ll be tracking Damian’s progress over the next 6 weeks, so check back to find out how he’s getting on.
Nicky Terrett
Hire Fitness, West London