An interview with Olympic diver Marion Reiff
Professional athlete Marion Reiff looks back on a seventeen-year career as a 10m platform diver. As a competitive athlete in the Austrian Army, she competed at a world-class level.
She met her obligation to deliver good results for years by achieving high placements in 10 metre synchronised diving and 10 metre individual platform diving competitions. In 2000 and 2004, she competed in the Olympic Games, securing 4th place in 10 metre synchronised diving in Sydney. She was a multiple Austrian national champion in individual diving and achieved top positions in European and World Championships between 1997 and 2006.
Today, Marion Reiff works as a Pilates trainer, Certified Rolfer®, and diving coach in Vienna.
In this interview, she answers questions about the challenges competitive sports places on the body, her personal coping with the consequences of her active professional sports career, and the insights she gained through her Rolfing® training.
What demands does competitive sport place on your body?
Extreme ones. As a diver, your posture is evaluated. This means every movement must be perfect. The movements must always be the same and flawless; there must be no splash when entering the water, and every movement needs to be precisely timed.
In addition, there are physical problems caused by the particular strain. Like most 10 metre high divers, I had the most problems with my wrists – they have to withstand incredible pressure and are compressed with every headfirst dive. Especially in the last 4-5 years of my active career, I suffered from oedema due to this constant strain.
Despite my wonderful physiotherapists who dedicated themselves to my pain and worked on the oedema in my carpal bones, I did not have the time back then that real regeneration would have required. An Olympic doctor predicted that my wrists were so ruined that I would never be able to become a manual therapist.
Did you know about Rolfing® Structural Integration during your active time, and how did it help you?
Unfortunately, I didn't know about Rolfing during my active time – but it would have made a lot of sense!
It would have been good to look for the causes of my pain and initiate self-healing through the right type of fascia work. My therapists worked locally with ultrasound on the carpal bones but not holistically on the whole body. Especially as a preventive measure and for regeneration, Rolfing would have been helpful.
A Rolfer® would have, for example, asked why such enormous pressure is coming to this spot, why the body cannot compensate for it itself, and which other body regions are affected. When diving, the whole body is involved; the pressure on the wrists continues through the arms, shoulders, neck, and the entire rest of the body. Unfortunately, attention was always focused on the oedema in the carpal bones, and the fascial tension system of the arms was not considered.
At least I had the benefit of dealing with the late effects of competitive sports through Rolfing. After the end of my active career, my wrists recovered in a year to the extent that I have since been able to do handstands again without any problems – and I can work wonderfully with my hands.
How did you come to be a Rolfer®?
As a competitive athlete, you find yourself in a situation where you have to make a fresh start after your sporting career. You enter new terrain – mentally and physically. During my pregnancies and parental leave, I thought about what to do next.
It was clear to me that I wanted to do something fundamental and meaningful in my new phase of life. I was already a Pilates trainer, but I also wanted to work with my hands. When I was considering whether physiotherapy, osteopathy, or Shiatsu would be suitable qualifications for me, my friend Eva-Maria Danko-Bodenstein introduced me to Rolfing Structural Integration.
After 5 minutes on her table, I knew I wanted to learn that. I took the entire Rolfing 10-series, which captivated me so much that I subsequently registered for the training to become a Certified Rolfer®.
What have you learned through Rolfing® that has been beneficial for your own body?
Initially, Rolfing helped me to make a fresh start. When you close a chapter, you have to create a new image of yourself, both physically and mentally. You start a new phase of life with your body because the body is now used differently. The Rolfing 10-series is a wonderful process if you are willing to allow changes. For me, it was a process like sports training, where I could observe myself changing step by step for my new life.
Thanks to Rolfing, I gained a new perspective on the body. The body benefits from varied movement experiences and patterns. As a diver, I didn't dare deviate from trained movements, not even in everyday life. I was worried about losing my ideal movement patterns for diving. My training between competitions, even with other sports like Pilates and ballet, always focused on a well-trained core for my stable, perfect posture.
Rolfing taught me that the core can also be relaxed sometimes. This allowed me to expand my range of motion and discover a more relaxed and freer version of myself. I became aware of my ingrained patterns and was able to change them, which helped my body a lot in regeneration.
Fortunately, besides the oedema in my wrists, I had few serious after-effects from my competitive sports career – I largely avoided problems with discs, lower back, and neck. However, I have an increased kyphosis of the thoracic spine (hunchback). This sports-related hump formed despite my posture awareness and Pilates.
Of course, I wanted to improve this hump visually with Rolfing. This worked to a certain extent. However, more important than eliminating the hump was aligning the existing curves of the spine so well that they harmonised ideally with each other. Today, I accept my kyphosis as a well-developed curve of the spine (round back).
Thanks to Rolfing, I understood that I no longer have to constantly maintain the perfect posture to meet the standards of a judge or Pilates. As long as my body functions, I can also relax sometimes. The important thing is that my body can move out of the position again. Posture is not static; we are constantly changing and in motion. That's why I also tell my clients: "The best posture is the next posture." The important thing is the ability to adopt different postures.
What would you recommend to other athletes as a former competitive athlete and Rolfer®?
I recommend every athlete support their sports training with Rolfing preventively.
Rolfing is suitable as an extra training measure, e.g., during the break before the next season starts. This offers the opportunity to try out other postures and different patterns, to learn alternative movement sequences. This broadens the focus and possibilities.
Especially young athletes are very open to new movement patterns, which the body benefits from. Later, it becomes more difficult to deviate from the seemingly ideal movement and allow new movement stimuli. If you start this early, you can always return to the old pattern as desired, but you can switch, adapt, choose the freer version, or decide to return to the familiar pattern.
This is also particularly important for regeneration phases, during which Rolfing can help change ingrained patterns that harm the body.
For injuries or if a vertebra, for example, dislocates once, I go to the chiropractor or physiotherapist to have it re-set. However, if my vertebra dislocates repeatedly, I have to ask myself why this is happening. Then I go and see a Rolfer®.
What do you do today? Pilates trainer or Rolfer®?
I work as a Rolfer®, Pilates trainer, diving instructor, lecturer at the Sports University of Vienna, and as a judge, e.g., at Red Bull Cliff Diving and High Diving. For me, it fits together content-wise and time-wise. I wouldn't want to miss Pilates, but Rolfing definitely has the higher priority.
Today, my Rolfing perspective flows into everything: When I see divers, I think about where I would start as a Rolfer® and which fascial structures I would work on. My Pilates training has also changed significantly since I became a Rolfer®. I have found that I can influence Pilates corrections also fascially. Often, a single grip is enough to improve something further.
The Rolfing touch is something very special and has its justification. We Rolfers can be proud of that. Some movements that don't work in Pilates training can be structural in nature. With the touch, I give a reference that helps people understand why a certain movement doesn't work as hoped.
Do you have many athletes among your Rolfing® clients? How can you help them?
Yes, I look after professional athletes both during and after their active phase, as well as hobby athletes. Men in particular trust me because I know my way around physical challenges.
I accompany personal trainers, divers, skiers, ice hockey players – it is important that they show willingness to change something in their body. With professionals during the sports breaks or after the active phase, I look at movement patterns and help them 'take off their sports shoes sometimes'.
Hobby athletes also often show classic compensation patterns with repeated movements – e.g., in tennis or golf. Other areas can atrophy in the process. We then look at what can be done preventively so that one can continue the sport they love.
How do you explain Rolfing® to your clients?
Rolfing is so much, but I explain it with these simple words: 'Rolfing is fascia work focused on improving posture, mobility, and body awareness. Pain and chronic tension can be well treated with Rolfing.'
As a Rolfer®, I have a deep understanding of the complex fascial connections in the body. By targeted work on the adhered fasciae, these become more supple, so that movement restrictions are resolved. This gives my client the freedom to take new positions and be adaptable. The 10-series is a holistic overall concept that also helps to improve body awareness.
Unlike diving or Pilates, there is no perfect posture in Rolfing. Rolfing supports resilience, the ability to adopt different positions and adapt the body depending on the situation and requirements.
Interviewee: Marion Reiff, Certified Rolfer®, Pilates Trainer, Diving Coach – Vienna, Austria
Interviewer & author: Sabine Becker
Photo: Copyright © Roland Pum
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