Name: Ellie Travis
Name of blog: Performance Sports Therapy
What is your blog about?
I talk about many things on my blog including; sports injury care, book reviews, my work as a sports therapist, my lifestyle (the less serious side), strength and conditioning advice for American footballers and dancers. The aim of my blog is to bring sports science research to a wider population in a way that can be understood and implemented.
How often do you blog?
As of this year I am aiming to blog once a week and so far I have been successful!
How long have you been blogging? And what inspired you to start a blog?
I started my blog in 2015 when I was studying my postgraduate degree in Strength and Conditioning. I began the blog to aid my own studies and because I felt there was a void which needed to be filled in the dance science world. The blog was initially wholly about Dance Science until I wished to broaden my writing to the other areas mentioned above.
What programme do you use to blog?
I use blogspot, however I am considering the move to WordPress.
How do you motivate yourself to blog?
At the end of last year I decided that I needed to make my posts more regular. I now use a diary to plan my posts months in advance. This enables me to work on posts weeks before they are due to be published. Due to the nature of my blog posts I can spend a long time researching and so it can sometimes be difficult to motivate myself during a busy day to spend the time doing this. However my great interest in the areas I research definitely helps. If the researching takes a long time then I will spread the writing of the post over a few days. But ultimately I love writing to help educate others so its not difficult.
What is your favourite thing about blogging?
I enjoy writing to help educate others in areas they might not otherwise have access to. Its also great to refresh my knowledge and practice as a health practitioner.
Are there any downsides to it?
I have recently had someone plagiarise the ideas/concepts/layout of one of my pieces which is understandably very frustrating, but there is little that can be done. When I spend a lot of time out of my weeks researching for these posts it can be disheartening. There needs to be regulations put in place to stop this!
For all us newbies to the blogging world, what is your advice to them?
Enjoy creating and find your niche! There’s so much of the same content out there at the moment, that I skim over a lot of bloggers on twitter etc as their posts just don’t catch my eye. I would also suggest ensuring you can back up any claims you make by research (if you’re a fitness/food blogger). There is a lot of pants information going around at the moment from unqualified people.
And just for fun, name one social media platform you could not live without?
Ahh this is a tough one! I would say that I love Twitter as this is where I mostly catch new research as it comes out. However I love viewing and taking photos (especially when outdoors exploring) so Instagram is great. Between the two it would have to be Twitter!
To find out more about Ellie, check out her blog here
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