We love seeing videos and snippets of our Vaulting Simulator ambassadors on their Simulators. Their level of fitness and strength is mind-blowing. We wanted to really find out what keeps them so motivated and what makes them tick. Vaulter Madeleine Wickstom let us pick her brains!
Q. Madeleine, what country are you from?
A. Sweden and Austria
Q. How long have you been Vaulting?
A. I did vaulting in 1997 as a child for about 1 year and started again as an adult in 2016. So in total about 7 years.
Q. What is your typical training schedule?
A. 2-3 days vaulting (with horse or simulator), 1 training at the gym for strength and injury prevention, 1-2 training gymnastics in an adults gymnastics group, 1 day training acro-yoga, 2-4 times a week a short shoulder prehab training and if I feel for anything else I do different sports depending on the seasons, e.g. figure skating, skiing, dancing, parkour, OCR, riding in the woods. My horse trainings are few, I do about 1-2 weekends a month as I have to travel around 4 hours to get to him. That is where the simulator has helped me a lot to overbridge this gap.
Q. How do you switch off/have down time?
A. I am a little bit like an on-/off-machine; I just lay down and get sleepy. Though I firmly believe that a good balance between love, food, sleep, work, exercise and fun is the most important part to be able to do that. So it’s not one single thing, for me it’s all together. And occasionally I read a book or take a hike in some of the beautiful nature in Sweden.
Q. Next competition?
A. Hopefully one in October in Sweden which will be the last of this year. After that we plan on organizing a simulator competition here in Sweden with the Racewood Vaulting Simulator.
Q. Favourite thing about training with the Racewood Vaulting Simulator?
A. It just keeps on going and going and going… Jokes aside, it just is the perfect simulator since it adjusts to weight shifts and has the perfect body shape just like a horse. For me the difference between it and my competition horse is quite small which makes the transition from taking a trick from the sim to a horse very easy.
Q. Favourite motivational quote?
A. "Who the hell cares about what anybody else thinks? Just look into your heart and do whatever the hell makes you happy."
Dr Kelso, TV show Scrubs
Thanks Madeleine! And best of luck with the upcoming competition!
You can find out more about the Vaulting Simulator here, or drop us an email if you would like pricing and lead times.