Hear about what life as an Olympic swimmer looked like for Martha McCabe… but more importantly from 22min onwards, listen about the beginnings of Head to Head and what world renowned scientist Dr. Greg Wells thinks about it all!
ABOUT DR. GREG WELLS
As a scientist, broadcaster, author, coach and athlete, Dr. Greg Wells has dedicated his career to understanding human performance and how the human body responds to extreme conditions.
Dr. Wells is an assistant professor of kinesiology at the University of Toronto where he studies elite sport performance. He also serves as an associate scientist of physiology and experimental medicine at The Hospital for Sick Children where he leads the Exercise Medicine Research Program. There, he and his team explore how to use exercise to prevent, diagnose and treat chronic illnesses in children. Previously, he served as the director of sport science at the Canadian Sport Institute, and taught elite sport coaches at the National Coaching Institute.
Throughout his career, Dr. Wells has coached, trained and inspired dozens of elite athletes to win medals at World Championships, the Commonwealth Games and the Olympics. He has studied athletic performance in some of the most severe conditions on the planet, like the Andes Mountains and the Sahara Desert.
Dr. Wells has had his own personal experience with the challenges and opportunities of adversity and human extremes. Late in his high school career, he broke his neck in a freak accident while swimming in the ocean and was in a halo brace before undergoing neurosurgery. Told by his doctor that he would never perform as an athlete again, he went on to compete at the international level in swimming. He has competed in events such as the Nanisivik Marathon – 600 miles north of the Arctic Circle – Ironman Canada, and the Tour D’Afrique, a grueling 11,000-kilometre event that is the longest bike race in the world.
Dr. Wells is the author of Superbodies: Peak Performance Secrets from the World’s Best Athletes (HarperCollins, June 26, 2012), which explores how genetics and DNA, the brain, muscles, lungs, heart and blood work together in extreme conditions. His latest book is The Ripple Effect (HarperCollins, April 4, 2017) which is a fascinating look at the power of simple changes to transform your health and performance, drawing on Wells’ world-class scientific and athletic expertise.
A sought after speaker on the topic of human performance, Dr. Wells has spoken at top events like TEDX and the Titan Summit, alongside Sir Richard Branson, Robin Sharma and Steve Wozniak.
Dr. Wells is a frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail and has been an expert source to other top media outlets like ABC News, “20/20,” The Discovery Channel, TSN, CBC and CTV. He also served as the sports medicine analyst for the Canadian Olympic Broadcast Consortium for the 2010 and 2012 Olympic Games.