Rosalyn Lawrence - I have just finished a training camp in Prague, where the World Championships will be held in September. Despite the entire venue recently being flooded to record levels, the course was completely repaired and ready to paddle on. I was lucky enough to be getting accustomed to my brand new K1, which I ordered in glorious green and gold after deciding to be more patriotic.

Although you might not be familiar with the venue in Prague, you can probably gather that there is more water in this photo than usual! The water’s edge is normally about 100m in front of this building.

I have just finished a training camp in Prague, where the World Championships will be held in September. Despite the entire venue recently being flooded to record levels, the course was completely repaired and ready to paddle on.

Bausele - 10% Discount

I would like to introduce you to my new sponsor, Bausele watches. Bausele have given me a beautiful new Ocean Moon watch and some funds to help me achieve my dreams. Bausele watches are designed in Australia and Swiss made. Each watch includes a dash of Aussie flavour - in the crown of the watch (the part you turn to set the time) hand ground Australian elements are displayed, red earth, white sand or black coal. Now I can take a little bit of Australia with me wherever I go. If you would like to check out the Bausele range, go to www.bausele.com If you order online using this code (BAULROS10) you will receive a 10% discount and 15% of the purchase will go to towards supporting me. I’m very proud to have such a cool sponsor and I love wearing my fancy new watch!

I recently reached my personal best in chin ups - 25!

I thought I’d share with you some of the techniques that helped me get there. Try a few of these variations and your training session will be much more interesting.

Static hold - Start your chin up and when you reach half way hold still for 4 seconds (your elbows should make a right angle) as you fatigue more muscle fibres will be recruited.

Slow release - Pull up in the normal manner, and then take a long time straightening your arms back down. This is an eccentric muscle movement and can lead to greater strength gains.

Assisted chins - if your lucky enough to have a well equipped gym, you might find a machine that makes chin ups easier. Basically you kneel on a plate that has a counterbalance with an adjustable weight, so when you pull up the weight helps you pull! You can use this if you haven’t quite managed one chin up yet, or if you want to get a feeling for doing many more than you can by yourself. If you’re already a legend at chin ups, have a go at a one arm assisted chin up.

Weighted chins - the more weight you can lift doing one chin up, the more body weight chins you will be able to do. Try putting some weights in a backpack or suspending them from a strap around your waist.

Fast grip change - start overhand or underhand and pull up quickly, just far enough to feel weightless - let go of the bar and quickly change your grip to the other direction. Having a strong grip is an important part of becoming good a chin ups. This one takes some confidence. You may feel the need to place a mattress underneath your chin up bar!

Horizontal chins – If you want an easier style of chin up to get started on try lying under a horizontal bar that is about a metre off the ground. The bar should be directly above your shoulders. Hold the bar with your hands just wider than shoulder width and pull your chest as close to it as you can get, keeping your feet on the ground where they were when you were lying down. You can use a lowered squat bar in the gym, part of a fence or even a tree branch!

Wide grip – try changing the width of your grip for each set of chins you do. This will work a wider range of muscles.

Nutrition - home baked muesli

Be careful not to push yourself too hard when training, and remember, I am not a qualified trainer. These tips are purely from my personal experience. Whatever you do, make sure your chin ups are always controlled, don’t relax down too quickly, and don’t ‘bounce’ from the bottom part of your chin up to make it easier to get to the top again or you will injure yourself!

I hate how sugary supermarket cereal is, and most of the mueslis have all the wrong ingredients. I use my mum’s homemade recipe to bake my own muesli and give myself control over what goes into it.

This recipe is easy and delicious and the smell of it cooking reminds me of coming home after training in the morning to mum’s freshly baked muesli. Yum! You can alter it to add your favourite flavours.

Ingredients: 4 cups rolled oats, 2 tablespoons honey, 1 cup almonds

Place the oats and almonds in an ovenproof container and bake at 150 degrees for 10 minutes. Take out of the oven and drizzle honey over the oats as you mix them around so they can bake evenly. Return to the oven for a further 10 minutes. Allow to cool and store in an air-tight container.

You can replace oats with flakes of other grains, such as spelt, einkorn or barley for different nutritional loadings. Use more or less honey to suit your taste, the oats stick to it and form delicious crunchy oat clusters! You can add any kind of nuts or seeds; sunflower seeds also taste great in this recipe.

Next stop

My next stop will be back in Prague, for the Czech nationals as a warm up race before the Worlds. I’ll keep you updated!

Don’t forget to

• check out my website: www.roslawrence.com
• give me a ‘like’ on Facebook: www.facebook.com/LawrenceRosalyn
• follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RosLawrence