Toko: Get Ready for Next Year

Get Ready for Next Year!

If you are a racer or want to become a faster skier, I recommend you make sure to go through a process that I find always yields improvement.  Sometime around now or just after your season is over, consider your strengths and weaknesses from this past season.  Then consider how you can neutralize them or even turn them into strengths. Then do it!  It is a very simple formula, but most people don’t go through the process, they just “try and try”.

I did this one year and decided that my biggest weakness was in skating up steep uphills (not extended ones, but shorter very steep types).  My competitors on the World Cup were really good at jump skating up them and seemingly not losing any momentum.  My technique seemed adequate, but what seemed to be lacking was explosive power and perhaps my strength to weight ratio was on the poor side.  I made a goal to lose 5 pounds by the next competition season and to improve my explosiveness through sprint workouts (7×15-20 second sprints up a steep hill and also 7 more on a gradual hill) that I did on a weekly basis.  I achieved my weight goal and did the workouts as planned and had my best season ever the following year.  I really think that the only difference between me the year before and the new improved me was this targeted weakness that I was able to neutralize.