Iain's time in Kabdalis

Tjenare from Kåbdalis, Sverige 

It's been an excellent camp here in Kåbdalis. 

Training has been prefect on both the man-made base as well as the extensive

injected surface kindly prepared by Kåbdalis staff in conjunction with 

the World Cup teams which have used Kåbdalis as their slalom base prior to 

racing in Levi for the opening World Cup slalom races.

We have been blessed with mild temperatures and for the most part sunny days. 

The combination of surface and weather allowing for lengthy training days and

solid improvements all round. 

Big thanks to all the staff at Kåbdalis whom have made our stay unbelievably fantastic.

Great food, accommodation, training, atmosphere and facilities have made out time 

here outstanding... couldn't ask for anything more. 

Hirscher...impressive to watch him in person

the German women's team hard at work in preparation for Levi

 With racing at the Kåbdalis Magic Drum Slalom, we have some mixed 

results. The extensive field has created tough racing, especially within the women; 

whom had a number of girls returning from Levi (Saturday) to race. 

- Iain McFie AUS -- 40th, 38th (Solid skiing first day, caught up second run day two)

- Diogo Macedo POR -- DNF2, DNF1 (Tough racing from the back for Diogo in his first FIS starts)

- Rebecca Gunnarstedt SWE -- 19th ,31st (Tough field and hill where mistakes punish you)

- Amanda Smith CAN -- 37th ,44th (Tough racing with a stacked field of girls)

- Nadja Gunnarstedt SWE -- DNF1 ,43rd (Solid skiing for Nadja's first races)

The northern lights in Sweden...unbelievable

The Austrian men's team preparing for the Levi races

Unfortunately the slaloms scheduled for Taernaby have been postponed until December

due to lack off snow, so we will not have the opportunity to attend them. 

We explored the possibility of heading up to Ruka for a few more SL's, but couldn't quite justify the trip (long drive, and too much time away from training for this block). 

Following a 2 week foundational slalom block,  we continued with the slalom work, as well as some GS, but the overall for this camp remained on foundational SL skills. 

Check the pics below from Kåbdalis from the last few weeks, including the WC

teams and a great Aurora show Friday night that last for 45 minutes.

Also check the IR Sprongo page for videos of the Swedish, Austrian and German

National Teams training the past two weeks.

https://sprongo.com/playlist/67954

It's been an unbelievable time so far and only looks to get better.

Until next time. 

God kväll

Iain McFie

IR athlete since 2009 

Pre-hab video specific preparation phase

Pre-hab for the specific prep phase (SPP)

The pre-hab program is built around 3x primary areas;
1. Soft tissue quality (flexibility) 
2. Mobility 
3. Stability 
...with a primary focus on the pillar (hips (including hamstrings & quads) - trunk - shoulder), as well as other areas as necessary.  
Click here for an overview of pre-hab from an earlier blog post

Here is the video which briefly goes through some basic movements to guide you through October - November.  This framework is intended to be simple with minimal moving parts to make it easily repeated, and done in a quality manner at home, where little to no supervision is available.

Here is the program (JPG format, save it to your phone - ipad - laptop, or print it)

Thank you for reading, the next blog post will be coming your way later in the month, in the meantime please get in touch with questions, or for information on any of our programs.  

Jeff Books 

Director of Athletics & Partner 

Mobile (Australia) +61 4 31 071 121 

Mobile (Canada) +1 778 549 4313 

Skype 'jeff.books' 
E mail - jeff.books@internationalracer.com

NISSAN GT-R Ski slope "OFFICIAL VERSION"

Pre-hab

Pre-hab 

by Jeff Books 

The arc is becoming shorter all the time.  This results in increased injury risk for the athlete, & the resultant need to develop the durability required to withstand the impacts of training and racing day in - day out.  This isn't a new story by any means, but one that requires specific attention as we attempt to keep athletes on the hill and skiing fast. 

For our purposes in this post, we will focus briefly on our ‘Pre-hab’ program, one of the tools that we use to assist athletes in developing the requisite flexibility, mobility and strength – stability that ski racing demands.  

What is Pre-hab?  

Pre-hab, (what we often refer to as ‘pillar prep’) is a system based preventative program designed to minimize injury risk. The pre-hab session not only provides us with a consistent daily session to work on key physical capacities, we've found that this session provides the coaches with a good overall sense of motivation levels, fatigue, tightness, soreness etc. before starting the day (generally before breakfast).  This allows for necessary adjustments in an individual's volume, intensity and activity if required.  

The ‘Pre-Hab’ or ‘Pillar prep’ program will focus primarily on these key areas;

1.Tissue quality – flexibility

2.Mobility (making joints move nice)

3.Pillar (core) strength 

• Pre-hab is performed proactively before injury occurs; otherwise you are in re-hab territory... 
• The concept of pre-hab has been around for a long time, and is widely used in many sporting contexts. Good programs (across all sports) have been using this structure for years. We certainly aren’t reinventing the wheel. This is a simple concept, that when done consistently well has a big impact on an athlete's durability - their ability to train at their best throughout a long & very demanding season. It is that session that allows for continued incremental gains over time. "Little hinges swing big doors", as coaching guru John Wooden would often say 
• the #'s add up...based on a 15 minute session done 5 times per week, your annual #'s would look like this...

Pre-hab Benefits

• Target soft tissue & flexibility limitations
• Target mobility restrictions
• Focus on individual dysfunctions
• Activate isolated patterns of weakness
• Should be specific to session focus
• Increase durability
• Increase quality of movement
• Maximize on snow time 

As an athlete's body matures within a sport, their body adapts to the physical demands of training. This may cause tightness, strength imbalances, as well as inter and intra muscular coordination issues. These imbalances occur naturally with activity and are reinforced with each session. These imbalances are often the root of many training injuries and may predispose athletes to greater risk of injury during training and competition. 

Here are 3 short video clips, outlining a few of the staples that we use 
(demonstrations by Harrison Coull (97 born) and Iain McFie (94 born))

1. Here is a bit of foam roller work on the hamstrings (tissue quality focus) 

2. Here is a glute bridge with shoulder reach, blending stability and mobility

3. This is a front bridge (or plank if you prefer) with a twist in the form of a lateral roll.  

Here is a peak at what a daily pre-hab program would like for one of our athletes. 

Getting it done at home...

- Gear : foam roller + a decent mini band(s) are helpful 

- choose a consistent time 

- Build into the daily schedule, find a consistent time to get it done (before breakfast generally works well)  

- Keep it simple ...simple things done savagely well every day pay off big time in the end. Remember that "...little hinges swing big doors."

Pre-hab should be the backbone of the physical training program.  

Referenced material:

1.BOYLE, Mike (2009) Functional Strength Coach 2 p. 76-94

2.SWAIN et al (1994) Target HR for the development of CV fitness. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 26 (1), p. 112-116

3.WILMORE, J.H. and COSTILL, D.L. (2005) Physiology of Sport and Exercise. 3rd ed. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics

4.POLIQUIN, C (2011) Theory Manual

5.ROBERTSON, M (2012) 21st Century Core Training

6.VERSTEGAN, M (2008) Core Perforjmance

On behalf of the IR team, thank you for reading.  

Booker 

European Blog 5 by Sarah Dennis

Ciao from Italia 

So finally it arrived, these 2 days seemed so far off; "Oh but Topolino is not until the beginning of March!" But now the beginning of March has come and gone.

Madi Hoffman (46) in the GS start.  The winner, Lara Della Mae, is bib 47

Friday was the U14 GS and the U16 SL, as well as Annie's 14th Birthday. The weather was very different to in Leogang, fog covered the sky and a light rain drizzled for most of the day. The snow was slushy but thanks to our best friend Mr. Salt the courses were as hard as ever. The day began early for the U16s; with the first forerunners starting at 8:40 we were all up before 6. The U14s ran a half hour behind us. 

Annie's B-Day Cake

Folgaria was a very convenient race hill; we could drive to the bottom of the race run and park in the lot there. Almost the entirety of the 3 courses could be seen from the bottom.

For the most part it was a fantastic day with Alec Scott scoring a 4th in the SL and with Annie Hough coming 13th and Madi Hoffman coming 20th in the GS; however, Friday also brought some frustrating news for Robbie Morrison who injured his ACL in the GS, we all wish you the best for your recovery!

We woke on Saturday to the sound of rain patting against our windows, always what you want to start a race day. With spare goggles, gloves, coats and  socks packed we set off for the hill knowing that we had the upper hand: you aren't an Australian ski racer if you haven't raced in the rain at least once before. The rain had mostly stopped by our first inspection and we actually saw the sun for a brief moment. 

The rest of the day was quite filled with drama. There was confusion with the course set for the U14 girls SL second run and they had to inspect twice, almost three times. Lexxy was bombarded by a large group of old Italian ski  patrollers who refused to accept that everything was okay.  Brett managed to cut his hand on his tape measure and was taken to hospital. It began pouring rain, bucketing down, and they cancelled our second run of GS. Amazing job to the U14s for sticking it out in their second run despite the down pour. Saturday also brought some very good results with Annie in 13th and Theo Coates in 17th for SL and Oliver in 19th for GS.

Prize Giving for the races

These few weeks have been an amazing experience. For most us, all of the IR crew at least, it was our first European race, and hopefully there will be many to follow. We have made new friends from all over the world: Sweden, Chile, Great Britain, Japan, Canada and The Netherlands and hopefully our paths will cross again in the future.

We have had such an adventure here and are sad to be leaving. We have lots of fun memories to take away with us; almost loosing all of our baggage, surviving the autobahn's fast lane, nearly puking at the smell of some Austrian macaroni cheese, almost fainting at the sight of the pitch and sidehill of the Kitzbuhel Downhill, only slightly drowning on the second race  day, surviving 2 trips to the hospital and discovering the delights of Almdudler and Milka chocolate. I think it is fair to say that we conquered Europe. Well done everyone!

Sarah=