December 3-9 training recap

Greetings from Canmore. 

Check out the summary below for a quick recap of the week that was…December 3^rd – 9^th.  We had a pretty decent week of training at Nakiska.  

The snow is perfect...grippy, chalky, dry and durable surface that is perfect for technical skiing and gate training.   

U14 group weekly recap 

• Monday, December 3^rd : GS technical skiing
• Tuesday : GS technical skiing
• Wednesday : GS – SG technical skiing
• Thursday : GS – SG technical skiing  
• Friday : GS technical skiing / GS gates
• Saturday : rock climbing and laser tag in Calgary
• Sunday, December 9^th

 

U16 group weekly recap 

• Monday, December 3^rd : GS technical skiing
• Tuesday : GS technical skiing
• Wednesday : GS – SG technical skiing
• Thursday : GS technical skiing / GS gates on Mapmaker
• Friday : SG gates on Mapmaker / GS gates on Mapmaker  
• Saturday : rock climbing and laser tag in Calgary
• Sunday, December 9^th : rest

FIS group weekly recap 

The FIS group was in the final week of the Sweden project, with the final training push at Kabdalis, and racing at Storklinten (solid performances from all...top 10 from Rose and Zanna, PB from Zac).  

On snow training focus

The focus for the past week was to own the basics of GS, while the SG mileage at this stage of the progression is intended to increase comfort at speed, improve position & stability (longer skis at higher speeds require more stability)
and help the athletes push the limits in GS.  
It may also be worth noting that going fast on big skis is seriously fun...! 

For our purposes right now, the basics are;

1. Position – balance
1. Fore – aft (front – back) balance
2. Rotational balance  
3. Vertical balance
2. Lower leg skills
1. Symmetry
2. Ankle flexion
3. Lateral mobility
3. Pressure management 

Physical training focus

The physical priorities for the week were;

• Injury prevention (pre-hab sessions)
• Movement skills & athleticism (movement prep sessions)
• Pillar (core) strength, whole body strength and energy System Development (ESD) emphasized through daily physical training sessions

The Calgary climbing centre is an absolute climbing paradise.

This has to be one of the best views from a grocery store ….

Out for now…the next blog update will follow next week. 

Durability Session

The arc is becoming shorter all the time.  This results in increased forces working on the athletes, & 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 ‘Durability’ 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 Durability?  

The 'Durability' session is a system based preventative program designed to minimize injury risk by developing key physical capacities. The session not only provides us with a consistent daily session to work on these physical capacities, we've found that this session provides the coaches with a good overall sense of athlete readiness (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 concept of pre-hab (durability session) 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 

the #'s add up...based on a 15 minute session done 5 times per week, your annual #'s would look like this...

Durability session benefits

• Target individual limitations (flexibility & mobility) 
• Focus on individual dysfunction
• 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 can be 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 is a video which goes through a basic pre-hab framework.  This framework is intended to be simple with minimal moving parts to make it relatively simple to do well at home where supervision may not be available.  

Here is a peak at what a Durability session will look like; 

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."

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

Booker 

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 Performance

December 18 - January 1, 2018 training update

Happy new year everyone…

It’s January 2^nd, and the cold weather is officially behind us.  

Warmer than average seasonal temperatures and decent weather coming our way.  Check out the text and images below for a breakdown on the last few weeks. 

Rabbit Hill North Zone Open races

Shinae, Chiara, Lucy, Maddie & Kitzi travelled to Rabbit Hill in Edmonton for a 2 day sprint slalom series.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with this format, a sprint works like this…

4 race runs per day

• 2 runs on the 1^st course (best run counts)
• 2 runs on the 2^nd course (best run counts)
• Fastest run from course 1 + fastest run from course 2 = result 

This is a very cool format, particularly for the first race of the season.  This format allows for good competitive volume and encourages intensity & risk.  The girls had a great time…

• Chiara : first u14 races are now under the belt…valuable early season benchmarking opportunity.  13^th on Saturday / DNF on Sunday.   
• Shinae : solid series…5^th u14 on Saturday / 6^th u14 on Sunday.  
• Lucy : great intensity and consistency…16^th on Saturday / 17^th on Sunday. 
• Maddie : these were Maddie’s first starts in 20 months (2016.17 season lost due to an injury sustained at Kabdalis, SWE in November 2017).  The consistency was lacking in the first couple of runs, but she got it going on Sunday, highlighted by a 3^rd on Sunday afternoon (8^th overall for the day)

Panorama FIS races 

Rose, Georgia & Tommy Z (along with Markus & Luc) were in action at Panorama for 2x GS’s & 2x SL’s.  The fields were deep, and conditions excellent.

• Rose had solid days in GS…taking big steps in relation to her peer group from last year, and nabbing her first 2 top 30 results (from bibs 72 & 77…not a bad jump).  On both days, Rose was inside the top 10 for Canadian 01 borns…solid Rose.   
• Georgia had an up and down series with some illness and a bit of a stack on the last day.  7^th in the first SL, and good moments in the 1^st GS (DNS 2^nd GS due to sickness).   Georgia is currently out of action due to concussive symptoms – we are expecting to see her back in action shortly. 
• Tommy Z had an encouraging start to the season…solid performance in both GS’s and good lessons learned in a couple of tough SL’s.

Pre-Christmas training

We had a sweet block of GS, with the primary focus on;

• Depth
• Arcing
• Level  
• Movement – power 

The weather turned cold on December 23^rd (& stayed cold until December 31^st)…although the cold weather affected volume, and forced us to adjust our schedule, we didn’t lose any days and had good productivity over the holiday period despite the cold. 

Tess warming up Maddie's toes...great teammates make great teams (quote by Duane)

Christmas day

We moved from our annual tradition of brunch at the Banff Springs to Christmas dinner at the Banff Park Lodge – although the spread at Banff Park Lodge wasn’t quite as extravagant as the Springs (the difference between 5& 4 star), the food was excellent and the environment just right. 

Boxing day

We were welcomed at the Capture the Flag paintball ranch with a temp of -24c, and we left on a high of -18c…it was ccccoold out there, but as paintball requires a good amount of moving around, we all stayed pretty warm (well pretty warm may be a bit of a stretch, but certainly warm enough to have epic games and a really good time).  Paintball…this is always such a cool outing…team building, new challenges & loads of fun (+ a great tool for active recovery)…we always love it.  

December 28-January 1 training for the u14.u16 groups…

• December 28 : SL technical skiing & drill courses
• December 29 : SL technical skiing & drill courses
• December 30 : off due to cold
• December 31 : SL technical skiing & drill courses
• January 1 :  all mountain ripping @ Sunshine (replacement for December 30 lost day) 

December 28-January 1 training for the FIS group

• December 28 : SL technical skiing & drill courses
• December 29 : SL technical skiing & drill courses
• December 30 : physical training (strength & power)
• December 31 : rest
• January 1 : SL drill courses 

The groups did a great job in the colder temps…they focussed on being purposeful and making the most of every turn on every run.  The cold absolutely impacted the amount of volume that we were able to ski, but we still got in plenty of turns.  Average session volume in SL was between 700& 1000 gates per athlete, dependent on how much warming up the individual required).  We must say that the heated socks were a huge help…thank you Michael Cater from Lenz for the always great support. 

Nick, Elise and Mathieu en route to Canmore from the airport 

Lucy happy with the new boot...thank you Sporting Life & Sandy Webster for the great service 

Chiara doing some boot work with boot guru Sandy Webster 

u16's enjoying a day of all mountain ripping @ Sunshine 

On behalf of the coaching, operational and teaching teams...we hope that you have a great start to the new year.  Out for now…the next update will follow in mid January.   Please refer to the updates sent via e mail for January monthly planning for all groups. 

Walker, Astrid, Cathy, Jennifer, Markus, Martin, Duane, Luc, Jeff & Justi