Lake Placid REG

Last week I attended the Eastern REG camp in Lake Placid.  I helped run the training sessions, worked with several other coaches, and met a great group of top junior skiers - a very good week.  I really enjoy stepping outside the usual routine of running my own program - there's always stuff to be learned from working in a different environment.  Here are a few thoughts from my trip:

- One of the tests the athletes did was an agility course.  This one included all sorts of tricky stuff:  180s, backward skiing, obstacles to hop over, and an off-pavement section.  Kind of goofy, perhaps, but also a good indicator of how well people can handle their skis and adapt to new challenges.  I was struck by how comfortable the top juniors were on their skis - really impressive how well some of these kids moved.  Some of our skiers would have done well in this test, but honestly, some others would have struggled.  There's no question in my mind that these skills translate well into technique and speed development, so this is a significant advantage that some of our athletes are missing.  I've always been a big believer in the value of agility training, but I've only made it happen sporadically during our workouts.  Perhaps a bit more focus on this could help.

- Bryan Fish (USST Development Coach) gave a few presentations at the camp, including a discussion about general strength training.  One thing I found interesting is that the USST has reduced its focus on general strength work - their athletes average about 2 GS workouts every 10 days, according to Bryan.  Also, they've de-emphasized core strength work, reasoning that the athletes can develop core strength/stability through their other training modes.  This was music to my ears - in our program, I've cut back significantly on GS and core work in recent years.  This isn't to say that USST has suddenly adopted my minimalist approach to general strength - they do a decent amount of periodized weight training - but it's still gratifying to know that I'm not the only one thinking that less can be more in this area.

- I gave a presentation on speed development on one of the evenings.  I really hope the athletes got something out of it, but if nothing else, putting together the presentation was a good learning experience for me.  I was reminded that a great way to learn something is to try to teach it to others (I think this is what my teachers/professors were trying to accomplish when they assigned all those presentations in high school and college, although I didn't really get it back then).  It's one thing to design workouts based on stuff that you've learned and now take for granted - it's entirely different presenting this information in a way that others can learn from and hopefully use.  I didn't want to put anything out there that wasn't backed up with research or experience (or both, ideally) - this meant that I had to check my own knowledge by going back and re-reading some of the materials that have influenced my approach to speed development.  In the process, I learned some new stuff and re-learned some old stuff, some of which caused me to question my own methods.  Now that it's all done with, I feel like I understand speed development much more thoroughly than I did a few weeks ago - maybe I'll make a few tweaks to our speed plan and we'll get more out of our training this fall.  Overall, a very interesting experience - hopefully I'll have more opportunities to do this kind of thing in the future.