Generic health advice isn't failing you because you're doing it wrong. It's failing you because it wasn't built for your biology.
Optimize You is the European health transformation podcast where real people share the moment they stopped guessing and started understanding their own body, backed by their actual data.
Host Brent Luyckx, founder of Superhlth, former pro cyclist, Crohn's survivor talks with athletes, health transformers, and experts every two weeks. Expect real stories, real DNA results, real blood work, real change.
Not another American biohacking show. European, grounded, personal, and built on one belief: your biology is unique, and your answers should be too.
The oldest debut in Eredivisie history | Denis Odoi
He was 37 when he made his Eredivisie debut. Most defenders are five years retired by then.
Denis Odoi signed for NAC Breda in November 2025 and became the oldest player in the competition's history to start a first match. That is not luck, and it is not a late bloom. It is what happens when someone spends thirty years learning exactly how one body works.
He grew up in Leuven, the son of Ghanaian parents, best friends with Dries Mertens since the two of them were five years old at Stade Leuven. He studied to become a PE teacher while he was still fighting for a professional contract, because he wanted to understand the game as a system, not just play it. He made 177 appearances for Fulham, won two promotions there, won three Belgian titles, and at 33 he switched nationalities to represent Ghana at the World Cup in Qatar.
On the pitch they call him 'The Professor'. He was never the fastest. He simply understood more.
Brent went looking for the specifics. Not sleep and discipline in the abstract, the actual protocols, the actual changes, the one piece of data that shifted how Denis manages himself. They also get into what your DNA says about where you come from, what a footballer does when the game finally stops, and the advice nobody gave him at 18.
12 Jun 2026
The Woman Behind Mathieu van der Poel - Roxanne Bertels on Life With a Champion
Most people know Mathieu van der Poel: 10-time world champion and one of the greatest all-round cyclists in history. But this episode isn't about him. It's about the woman by his side.
Roxanne Bertels (33, Antwerp) spent six years in marketing at Porsche before her life took an unexpected turn after meeting Mathieu at a work event in Finland.
In this episode of Improve You, Roxanne opens up about her personal health journey: from someone who publicly swore she'd never run, to finding genuine joy in running, Pilates, and even cycling.
We talk about tracking recovery with WHOOP, regular blood testing, being vegetarian since age 10, cooking for a pro athlete, the stress of the classics season, and the difference between looking healthy and being healthy.
Her advice for anyone starting out? "Stick through it. At some point your workout stops being a punishment and that's where the magic happens."
What you'll hear:▸ How Roxanne went from "I will never run" to loving running (it took 30+ runs)▸ Why she tracks everything with WHOOP and gets blood tests every 4 months▸ Skipping alcohol for a green recovery score▸ Cooking and nutrition for a pro cyclist and being vegetarian since age 10▸ Sauna and ice bath recovery routines in Spain▸ The yearly stress spike during classics season▸ Looking healthy vs. actually being healthy▸ Her advice for women starting their fitness journeyThis is Optimize You, a Superhlth podcast. Making health personal.
26 May 2026
He Had Surgery 7 Days Before The Olympics - Then He Raced
Surgery on Monday. Olympic race the Monday after.That's not a metaphor. That's what Jens Schuermans actually did before Paris 2024.One week before his Olympic race, a bag of podium clothes caught in his wheel at the Belgian Championships. Broken wrist. Surgery. Most athletes would have ended their summer there. Jens got back on the bike pain-free and showed up at the Olympic start line seven days later.He's a 3× Olympian. 8× Belgian national champion. A professional soldier in the Belgian military's elite athlete programme. And here's the part most people miss: he didn't even start cycling until he was 16, after a football injury that everyone thought had ended his sporting career. His body was never a given. He had to build it from scratch.In this conversation, Brent sits down with Jens at Sundē in Antwerp to talk about what it really means to take care of your body when your body is your career. We get into the surgery week. The mental switch from despair to 100% committed. The DNA tests, the blood markers, the wearables, and the one data point that genuinely changed how he trains. The thin line between peak performance and breaking. The loneliness of an individual sport. And the question almost no one asks elite athletes: are you actually healthy, or do you just look healthy?What you'll hear:- The football injury that rewrote his entire life- Inside the operating room, 7 days before the Olympics- How he flips the switch, from despair to start line- The single piece of DNA data that changed his training- Why being healthy and looking healthy are not the same thing- The biggest recovery mistake young athletes make- What he'd tell his 10-year-old self about his body
This is Optimize You, a Superhlth podcast.
Making health personal.
Download our app for free and get started: https://linktr.ee/superhlth
8 May 2026
Eli Iserbyt: He Won On January 1st. A Year Later, His Body Told Him To Stop.
On 1 January 2025, Eli Iserbyt won the GP Sven Nys in Baal. His 54th elite cyclo-cross victory. He was 27, in the prime of his career, and nobody watching that day could have told you he had six weeks of racing left in him.
Six weeks later he stopped his season because of pain in his left leg. Everyone, including the doctors, thought it was a muscle problem. It wasn't. An artery in his pelvis had narrowed so much his leg wasn't getting blood during efforts. Four surgeries. Fifteen hours on the operating table. One attempted comeback. Another relapse.
On 8 January 2026, multiple doctors told him he had to stop. Not just stop competing. Stop riding. The sport he had spent his entire life inside of. He's 28.
This conversation is recorded three months after that announcement. It is not a comeback story, he is not coming back. It is not a greatest-hits retrospective, he still can't watch his old races. It's something harder than either of those: a conversation with someone standing at the junction between real grief and real possibility, with the road behind him closed.
Brent sits down with Eli to talk about what happens when your body ends a career your mind didn't agree to end. The misdiagnosis. The four surgeries. The moment the right specialist finally said "it's not your muscle, it's your artery." What it's like to watch your sport from the analyst's chair when you can't ride home afterwards. And the question that sits underneath the whole episode: could better data, earlier, have changed any of this, for him, or for the next Eli?
Brent knows this territory more than most. He nearly died from misdiagnosed Crohn's. Eli lost his career to a condition misdiagnosed as a muscle problem. Same gap. Same cost.
What you'll hear:
The first time the pain hit, and why everyone thought it was nothing
Why "Piriformis syndrome" became the diagnosis that cost him a year
Inside four surgeries and one failed comeback
What his data was actually showing before anyone knew what to look for
Racing a generation against Mathieu and Wout, and what that really felt like
Who you are when the training plan you've had every day for 15 years disappears
What he'd say to the version of himself who won in Baal on January 1st
Whether professional sport is actually health, or just looks like it
This is Optimize You, a Superhlth podcast.Making health personal.
Get started with your health journey for free here. (https://linktr.ee/superhlth)
28 Apr 2026
Justine Vanhaevermaet: "Being A Professional Athlete Is NOT The Same As Being Healthy". Red Flames Star On Pain, Recovery & The Body's Limits
Most people assume professional athletes are the healthiest people on the planet.
They're not.
Justine Vanhaevermaet has 77 international caps for the Belgian Red Flames, plays for Crystal Palace Women in England, and holds a Master's degree in physiotherapy. For 17 years she has used her body as her tool, her income, and her identity. While knowing better than almost anyone what that actually costs.
She treated patients during the day. Drove to training in Brussels every evening. Ate dinner in the car. And right before the very first Red Flames European Championship in 2017, her knee gave out. ACL. Gone.
She fought her way back. And scored at both Euro 2022 and Euro 2025.
In this episode, Justine opens up about what elite sport really does to your body and your mind when no one is watching.
You'll learn:
Why looking healthy and being healthy are two completely different things
What it's like to be the physio and the patient at the same time
How she rebuilt mentally after her ACL tear, and what most people get wrong about recovery
What health data revealed about her body that 17 years of professional training couldn't
Why generic medical advice consistently fails female athletes
The one thing she would tell her ten-year-old self about health
Optimize You is powered by Superhlth. Europe's first personal health super app.
Discover what your data says about you → superhlth.com
Get started for free with our app on: https://linktr.ee/superhlth
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