Lex Dijkstra

Club / Team	Team Reggeborgh: Netherlands
Name of coach	Gerard van Velde [club], NED

Other information

HIATUS In 2020 he announced he was quitting speed skating to focus on his studies. He returned to the sport less than a year later after receiving a call from Dutch skater Koen Verwij to join team Worldstream. "I discovered that skating is so important to me. Mentally, that season gave me a lot of space. From the age of 16 I was serious about my sport. I lived for it and in the end you do it because you don't know any better anymore. You really enjoy it, let me put that first, but you do not consciously choose to continue every year. Now I have really chosen to pick it up again. That has changed my experience. I know why I do it, it gives me energy. We are in the privileged position of being able to turn our passion into our job. Not everyone is granted that. Enough people have a nine-to-five job and work because they get a salary for it. They lack the love for their profession. We are allowed to do what we are good at and I only saw that after I stopped." (schaatsen.nl, 11 Feb 2023, 27 Jul 2020) DIET In 2019 he was diagnosed with dietary intolerances and started following a specialised nutrition programme. "Since May 2019 I had intestinal complaints and fatigue complaints. In addition, my muscles acidified faster during exercise. These complaints prevented me from achieving top performance. Research showed that my entire intestinal flora was damaged and because it was damaged, intolerances developed. This can occur, for example, due to extreme fatigue, where the enzymes are broken down incorrectly. If, let's say, you ingest gluten and the chain is cut incorrectly, the body no longer recognises the gluten chain and your body will attack it. At one point I was no longer allowed to eat gluten, eggs, apples, oatmeal, or pumpkin. Ultimately, I started avoiding those products and noticed that I really got rid of my fatigue, that I was less likely to become acidic and that I was less grumpy. Actually all my complaints disappeared." (triathlonworld.nl, 26 May 2021; studiotempel.com, 20 May 2020)

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