About me

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Welcome to the world of elite sports performance

My name is Bastiaan Bruning. I am an elite sports coach specialized in the development of physical and mental capacities, injury prevention, and sustainable sports performance. After nearly 19 years at AFC Ajax, I founded Thriveos with a clear purpose: to support elite athletes, across all sports, in reaching their full potential. I don’t believe in isolated solutions. Performance is never just physical, technical, or mental; it is everything combined. That’s why I work from a 360-degree perspective, translating performance not only to the demands of the sport but also to the athlete as a person. Athletes are not projects to manage, but they are individuals to empower.

My Journey

Sport has been part of my life since childhood. Football was my first love and running my second. I trained relentlessly at my club, on the streets, and in the nearby park to be the next Patrick Kluivert or Jari Litmanen. My football talent was recognized early. AFC Ajax invited me for a trial period, but my parents made a difficult yet wise decision: education first. At the time, I felt frustration and disappointment. Looking back, it was my first major lesson in acceptance and emotion regulation.

In the latter years of elementary school, I suffered growth-related injuries that kept me sidelined for several years. I never returned to my previous football level. This period of injuries forced me to become creative, resilient, and self-aware to discover ways to stay active despite physical limitations. This period also shaped my drive to be highly active. Those experiences shaped my future more than any success could have. I discovered early that guidance at physical, mental, and medical levels was often missing. That realization stayed with me.

Driven by a desire to challenge myself and help others, I initially aimed for a career in the Marines or Special Forces. An elbow injury with structural damage ended that path, forcing me once again to adapt to deciding which area was next. I turned toward healthcare and performance, choosing physiotherapy for its active role in rehabilitation and its strong connection to sport. This decision brought me back to AFC Ajax as a physiotherapy intern in 2006. After graduating, I joined the youth academy as a physiotherapist (2008). What followed was a career focused on continuous development: roles at KNVB and in private practice; a master’s in manual therapy (2013), and specialization across injury prevention, rehabilitation, return to play, and performance development.

From 2010 onward, my focus shifted increasingly toward performance development, from prevention to elite output. In 2016, I became the medical performance manager of the Ajax youth academy, where I led multidisciplinary teams and built systems for long-term athlete development. During this period, talents such as Jorrel Hato emerged.

During COVID, my interest in the mental side of performance deepened. While co-leading the mental department, I completed a second master’s in applied psychology (2022). At the same time, I rediscovered myself as an endurance runner, improving from a 10K time of 41:41 to a personal best of 34:07 in official competition. Embracing performance as a personal pursuit once again.

Currently, I am completing my Master in Strength & Conditioning, finishing in 2026, fulfilling what I consider as my “performance triangle”. And no: I don’t promise it will be my last academic degree.

Coaching philosophy

My core values are integrity, positivity, and compassion. I believe athletes perform best in a psychologically safe environment: one where they are challenged, supported, and respected. The athlete is always central. Every decision, intervention, or confrontation is aimed at fostering long-term development, even when it may not feel comfortable at the time. Therefore I challenge athletes to change themselves and learn skills to develop their capacities and skills on their own in the future. When athletes truly believe in their plan, when it feels realistic, challenging, and personal, motivation increases and performance follows. They are not just athletes. They are human beings. And if they are not feeling well as individuals, elite performance is impossible.

My ultimate objective is not to make athletes dependent on Thriveos. It is to help them become independent, self-aware, motivated, and capable of developing themselves, now and in the future. I strive to make them hungry to thrive for their personal best and dare to start changing their behavior to improve even more than before. Thriveos contains, therefore, the name of the Greek goddess Eos, which symbolizes a new beginning.

What does Thriveos provide for athletes like you

At Thriveos, you gain access to a specialized multidisciplinary team, structured like a professional club or federation. We offer in-depth analysis and personalized action plans; high-level physical and mental performance coaching; injury prevention strategies; and rehabilitation, return to sport, and return to performance pathways.

Before training starts, each athlete goes through a thorough 360-degree intake that looks at their lifestyle and performance factors (like nutrition, sleep, biorhythm and recovery); a complete set of physical tests for prevention and performance; and mental evaluations, which include questionnaires and sport-specific scenarios. Altogether, our team will create your athlete profile and define a clear action plan, which we present afterwards during a development meeting.

In this meeting, you get an athlete report with priorities for your development. From there it is up to you if you want to develop in cooperation with the Thriveos team or take the analysis and plan to your own professional environment: The choice is yours!