Serena's Team (Part 1): Meet Mackie Shilstone

Mackie Shilstone is Serena's Conditioning Coach and one of America's most influential sports performance managers, whose expertise has played a pivotal role in the success and longevity of scores of million-dollar world-class athletes. Over 1000 professional athletes have turned to Mackie to give them the body, the drive, the stamina, and the performance they need to win. Mackie has also transformed the lives of hundreds of everyday people struggling with health and weight problems, poor nutrition, and lack of motivation. To Mackie, there are no barriers between professional athletes and the average person, only different target goals and differing training times to reach those goals.

With a Master's degree in both nutrition and business administration, Mackie is the Executive Director of the Center for Performance Enhancement and Lifestyle Management at the Elmwood Fitness Center, a division of Ochsner Clinic Foundation. This is the only program of its kind in the world, centered on Mackie's unique, cutting-edge expertise. He is a Clinical Instructor of Public Health and Preventative Medicine at Louisiana State Health Sciences Center, Adjunct Instructor in the School of Allied Health at Nicholls State University, Adjunct Professor at the A. B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University, special advisor to the United States Olympic Committee on Sports Nutrition, and has served on the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.

The astonishing results of Mackie's work with top athletes are constantly reported in magazines and newspapers across the country. Over 2,000 articles, appearing in print media such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, People magazine, and Inc., have praised the Mackie Shilstone method. KO Magazine voted him among the top 50 most influential people in the history of boxing. Mackie has also appeared on most of the major news shows in the country, including ESPN, the Today show, HBO, and Good Morning America. On a 48 Hours expose of the diet industry, Mackie was heralded as the weight control guru for top athletes in the country.

Mackie also appears weekly on The WWL Morning Show, the highest rated per capita, per household CBS affiliate in the nation. Examples of his segments, which are always changing, include Fitness Kitchen, which offers healthy recipes to viewers, and Yoga with Mackie and Meg. Mackie's segments are also shown on the Morning Show web site on the Internet, WWLTV.COM, which receives 30,000 hits per month. Mackie's Health Minute is heard by 30,000 regional listeners, twice a day during drive time at 6:15 a.m. and 6:15 p.m. on 50,000-watt WWL-870 AM.

Mackie is currently one of thirty board members chosen nationwide for the National Mental Health Association in Washington, D.C., and is a 2003 Recipient of the United States Sports Academy's Dwight David Eisenhower Fitness Award. Recently, Mackie was named Director of Health and Fitness for the Cardiovascular Health Center of Ochsner Heart and Vascular Institute.

--Biography courtesy of http://www.mackieshilstone.com/

THIS IS THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF "SERENA'S TEAM."

MORE OF THE TEAM SOON TO COME.