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