- The USST is putting a major focus on basic movement skills and postural stability. Every morning we did a series of drills focused on maintaining a neutral pelvis while going through a variety of movements. I think this is a really great thing - lots of skiers have great strength and fitness but terrible posture and limited mobility. We occasionally touch on this stuff on our team, but it's one of those things that often falls through the cracks with our tight schedule and limited workout time. I really liked having this as a regular component of the training and would love to figure out how to make time for it in our workouts.
- Hills - got to have them. Here at Bowdoin we have to work pretty hard to get some quality time on hills - the immediate area around Brunswick is pretty flat. I loved being surrounded by hills - so good for strength and aerobic fitness. The VT terrain does make it a bit tougher to do easy/fast workouts - that's one thing that I think is a big advantage of our topography - but having all those hills and mountains at your door is pretty great.
- Bryan Fish hates the endless plank as much as I do (or, as he calls it, the "2-minute brace"). I knew I liked that guy. It's not that there's no value to a plank/brace - I love this exercise! It just doesn't make sense to hold it forever. First, most people quickly slump into a bad position and let their spine sag out of alignment, and that defeats the purpose (and hurts your back). Second, if you're the rare person who has the stability to hold that position for more than a few seconds, why not make it more challenging and add some movement/instability? I was really glad to hear this message coming from a USST coach.
- Rollerski loops are a great thing. We did a distance workout on the rollerski loop at the biathlon range in Jericho. This was great for two reasons. First, no other users - no cars, no bikes, no pedestrians. Amazing how much stress a closed environment removes from a rollerski workout. Second, a loop allows you to see the skiers so much more frequently - good for filming, technique work, and just checking in. It would be amazing for timed intervals as well, where you can repeat the same course each interval and compare times. It's easy enough to train on a loop on snow, but short rollerski loops are hard to come by, at least around here. I'm super jealous of this setup!
Overall, a very fun and productive week for me (and hopefully for the skiers as well). Thanks to the good folks at NENSA, GMVS, and USST for making this camp happen!
