“The most demanding part of my daily life is to give one hundred per cent in my training sessions”

Crys Dyaz, physiotherapist and former athlete of the Spanish swimming team, reveals how she got started in elite sport and her current routine as a personal trainer.

Physiotherapist, personal trainer, former elite swimmer, and nutrition expert, among many other things. Crys Dyaz is an example of perseverance, talent, and professionalism, both in her sporting and personal side.

In this interview she reviews her beginnings in sport and explains what her current daily life is like at the sports centre she runs, CrysDyaz&Co.

1. You are a former swimmer and former elite athlete, and currently work as a physiotherapist and personal trainer in your own sports centre. Tell us, how did you start in sport, how old were you and what led you to compete in swimming?

I started in sport many, many years ago. I have always been a child who needed to be active, and I was excited about anything to do with physical activity. When I was 8 years old, I started going to swimming lessons. My mother would take my sister and me so that she could combine her physical activity time with us.  Since then, they recommended me to join the club because they saw qualities in me, because I was a girl with a lot of enthusiasm, passion and, perhaps, talent.

I started my first steps as a swimmer at the Marbella Swimming Club in Madrid. When I was 8 years old, I was already training 1 hour every day, from Monday to Friday, and I started to compete when I was 9 years old. My passion for sport also led me to love competition, going to the pool every afternoon was my moment of glory.

A few years later I was signed up at a technical centre of the Madrid Swimming Federation, where I spent 3 years reconciling my 3 hours of daily training with classes, school, and my life as a normal 12, 13-year-old girl. Later, I was signed by the Spanish National Team, where I went to the Blume, to a high-performance centre in Madrid, where I lived and trained 7 hours a day, and where we had the class inside the high-performance centre itself, psychologists, physiotherapists, physical trainers, and everything that had to do with elite development.

It has always been something I have been passionate about. I enjoyed it very much and I would repeat it every day of my life. I had wonderful experiences, I forged values that today help me to have the energy and to see life from the point of view that I have, and to get excited every day with the physical preparation of people who sometimes come for a pathology, for weight loss, to improve their performance or to find motivation, passion, and improvement of their health through sport.

2. In your day-to-day life as a personal trainer, what is the most demanding aspect of your daily workouts?

Perhaps the most demanding aspect of my day-to-day life is to give one hundred percent in each of my training sessions. I always say that every hour I change the film because every hour I have a different patient, with different circumstances, with a different level of motivation or physicality. For example, maybe you have someone who has cancer and you need to pull a lot of your energy to motivate that person, or deal with the emotional part that they have; or you have a pregnant woman, someone who has very high levels of stress and who finds it difficult to motivate herself on a daily basis; or a mother of 3 children who has had little sleep and is very tired... In the end you must pull your own energy, change the chip, and give one hundred percent with each one of them. I think that's the most exhausting or difficult part of my job and, without a doubt, the most beautiful.

3. We know you must be very busy with all the people you train, but do you have a daily training routine for yourself or how do you organise your training throughout the week?

Sometimes I struggle to find time for my own training sessions. But, as I always say, in the end you must schedule it just like you schedule a meeting at work, or pick up the kids, or make a leisure plan. You must schedule what days and times you're going to train and what you're going to do. In my case, I usually train first thing in the morning, when the kids are not yet awake, so I can fit it in so that there is nothing to interfere with me meeting my goal for the day.

Also, I love training so early because when I was doing elite sport, I trained at 6:15 in the morning every day, from the age of 16, and that helped me to see how the energy changes in the day when you start with sport. I try to train 4 days a week, sometimes 5. I also try to go for a run from time to time with my children in the car, to do sports where I can involve them and also, sometimes, I try to train with one of my patients if I see that I am not going to be able to train alone, demanding more from them so that they can follow my rhythm, or adapting to routines that I do and that sometimes don't require a lot of material or space.

In addition, on Mondays and Saturdays I train in ClassLand, our platform.

4. Which part or parts of your body suffer the most from daily training? How do you take care of them?

In the last year a study was carried out on which part of our body was most affected by work or sports activity and 85% of people answered that it was the back. I think, because of our stress levels, hormone levels and because of our morphology. In my case, I am particularly affected by morphology, as I have hyperlordosis, and because of the sport I have practiced (swimming, more specifically breaststroke), the lower back is an area that I must take care of consciously.

I am very careful with the routines I do; I always strengthen my core; I take care of the mattress where I sleep, and I am aware that there is a lot of difference between one bed and another. I do stretching, I do a lot of mobility and I also use some supplementation that helps my muscles, joints... In this case, I am a big fan of Artrohelp Forte, which accompanies me on a daily basis and which, thanks to its natural ingredients, reinforces all the work I do in terms of rest, stretching and strengthening.

5. In addition to being a personal trainer and former elite athlete, you are a specialist in nutrition. Therefore, you know how important a correct diet is when it comes to achieving our physical goals. In your case, what dietary guidelines do you follow to achieve maximum performance?

I look after my diet, I look after the diet of my patients, my environment, my family, my children, because I believe that it is one of the most important, if not the most important, way to achieve optimal levels of health. I always say that for me there are no black and whites, there are no miracle diets, there are no fixed structures that work for everyone. You have to find your own rhythm, your own guidelines, what works well for you, because it is not the same for a vegan person as for someone who does not like gluten, someone who does well with intermittent fasting or someone who decides to have a balanced Mediterranean diet that suits their daily routines, their energy requirements. What I always advise is that we should try to avoid processed ultras, carbonated drinks, fizzy drinks, pastries, fried foods... Everything we already know.

I really like to do intermittent fasting from time to time, because I think it releases some of the stress that we sometimes have in the digestive system and it also helps us to rest our digestion, which many studies have shown to be related to the second brain. In addition, I like to supplement myself with little things that can support the good habits that I establish daily, which are none other than using materials from the garden, using the wonderful vegetables we have in Spain, fruit, good meat, good fish; without overdoing it with red meat, without overdoing it with certain ingredients that may be better or worse for us. You must find out if lactose is good for you, if gluten is good for you, if fructose is good for you, and listen to your body to find out which habits work best for it and make you feel stronger physically and mentally.

6. Do you supplement your diet with supplements? What supplements do you take and what benefits do you seek?

I do take supplements. I also recommend taking them due to the demands or hyper-demands of everyday life, both on a sporting level and at work. It is also good even on a mental level, especially with the hectic pace we are all going through.

I like to adjust my food and supplements according to the time of year, according to my vitality and how I feel. Therefore, I vary throughout the year, just as I vary the recommendations, I make to each of my patients.

In preparation for the winter, I have started taking VIT-C 1000 Liposomal Vitamin C and Propolvit Defens, which helps me to fine-tune my immune system.

In addition, I incorporate supplements such as Artrohelp Forte or Mialtrim into my daily routine, depending on the stage of the season we are in, favouring my joints, ligaments, tendons and muscles.

I also take Beauty In & Out Elixir. I am a big fan of this product. Since I've been taking it, my skin, hair, and nails feel revitalised.

7. For both people who are just starting out in physical activity and those who have been training for years, are there any supplements that you recommend for sporting activity?

Having been an elite athlete and practising sport on a regular basis, I also take care to maintain my joints, with good mobility habits, good hydration, good stretching, a good care session, etc.

If I had to choose a supplement for those who are just starting to do sport or for those who do it on a regular basis, I think it would be Artrohelp Forte. For me it's key for sport to be sustainable and to be able to make progress in our goals and performance. And for that it is important to organise the training, what type of training, the loads we are going to put in, the evolution in intensity, to know how to listen to our body when it needs rest and to feed it, rest it and supplement it in the right way. And I think Artrohelp Forte is the perfect complement in this case.

In addition to Artrohelp Forte, I also recommend Carnitin 3000, which is a product that I take before training and the truth is that I notice the level of energy and performance in training, facilitating muscle definition.

8. What do you look for when recommending a supplement?

The most important thing for me is to see the vital state the person is in, how they are, what their goals are, and from there choose the ideal supplementation and modify and accept or assess how the body reacts to it in order to adjust.

It is also essential to trust a brand that you know works with a great team in development, research, and production, and always surround yourself with health professionals who can advise you along the way.

9. Do you think it is important for sports supplementation to be natural, as is the case with MARNYS® and MARNYS SPORTS®?

It is very important that this supplementation is natural. Our body, daily, is subjected to different pollutants and oxidative free radicals, so for me it is essential that the supplementation is natural.  That it is something that nature itself provides us with, either formulated or produced by our own body in a natural way and that we are simply providing those quantities in the body.

10. In addition to supplements, do you use other natural products?

Yes, for example, I recommend the moisturising gel with natural ingredients, Ginecoil, which we use a lot in our pelvic floor unit. We use it for vaginal dryness problems during menopause, during post-partum, due to hormonal changes, among others. I think it's one of the most amazing products from Marnys.

I also love the smell and taste re-educator, RecuSenses. In my case, I can personally say that I have found the development of these re-educational guidelines through essential oils to be wonderful and that it definitely helps many people to train such an important sense as the sense of smell.