Tazlina Mannix is a member of the Salomon Athlete Force and races for the APU Ski Team. More information on the Saab-Salomon Factory Team can be found at www.skipost.com I hear my coaches say it time and time again, “ski racing is about fitness.†“We need to be the fittest people in the world,†and they’re right. Our sport is one of the most cardiovascularly and muscularly demanding endeavors possible, and there’s no doubt in...
HAYWARD, WI – CXC is pleased to announce training plans and technique progressions directed toward high school coaches and athletes, and master skiers through CXC Academy. Now high school coaches and their team members can find guidelines and templates for overall planning of the winter season and for day to day high school team training plans. This plan will guide subscribers through intensity, strength and distance training to prepare for peaking at the conference and...
The October 31st edition of the New York Times included an article by GRETCHEN REYNOLDS titled “Stretching: The Truth.” This piece examines stretching as part of a warm-up for exercise and presents significant evidence that static stretching not is not helpful, it may actually be harmful to performance. While focusing predominantly on sports like tennis and golf, the studies referenced are more general. Reynolds presents dynamic stretching as an alternative that is shown to increase...
No, I’m talking about the ability to stand on one ski better than anyone else, or your ability to squat large amounts of weight on a Bosu ball. I’m talking about equilibrium in life; your ability to balance being a skier and being a person. It can become very easy, as an athlete, to become robotic; eat, train, eat, train, sleep, repeat. While this may sounds simple and even enticing for some, it is a...
Michael Sinnott races for the Saab-Salomon Factory Team and is a member of the Sun Valley Olympic Development Team. More information on the Saab-Salomon Factory Team can be found at www.enjoywinter.com. This article first appeared in Ski Post – www.skipost.com Call me a head case, but I believe that the single most overlooked aspect of skiing is the mental aspect. To preface, I did spend a lot of time studying the brain in my past...
Everyone who races wants to improve as they progress. And one must remember that in order to achieve this goal, doing specific cross country training in the off season will lead to greater performance gains once on snow. Since the ski season is around the corner (cross country running season soon coming to a close) and snow is starting to fly it is time to increase the specificity of one's training. The sport of cross...
CXC Skiing
Kristina Trygstad-Saari races for the Saab-Salomon Factory Team. MOre information on the Saab-Salomon Factory Team can be found at www.enjoywinter.com. This article first appeared in Ski Post – www.skipost.com October is always an exciting time for skiers. Six solid months of training are behind us and ski season is rapidly approaching…we are anxious to pack up the roller-skis and start testing the new boards. This transition period is also a time to be cautious and...
And the backcountry skiing isn't too bad above the nordic skiing up at Hatcher Pass! Knee deep powder shots in October. Not bad at all!
On September 23rd, USSA announced the release the first part of a new Coaches Education Certification program. Effective October 1st, this program currently provides certification criteria for level 100 only. Additional levels will be added in the future. One of the key components of the certification process is attendance at a US Ski Team approved technique clinic. As part of the announcement, a series of clinics around the country were scheduled, with more to come....
CXC Team Elite Team Athletes Kristina Owen and Heather Zimmerman Report On The Two Week Training Camp At The Lake Placid Olympic Training Center: The CXC Elite Team recently completed a two week monthly camp in Lake Placid, NY. We stayed and trained at the Olympic Training Center, which provided an ideal environment to make huge gains in both fitness and technique. The weather was excellent for the first couple days: chilly, but clear skies....
At the Lake Placid Olympic Training Center a banner in the foyer greets patrons: The US Olympic Committee wish America’s best continued success as you challenge yourself to be the World’s best. Remember always that “the will to win is nothing without the will to prepare.†With this mission in mind, the U.S. challenged themselves and teammates in a thirteen day training camp in Lake Placid. For the fourth consecutive year the US team has...
HAYWARD, WI – The CXC Elite Team ladies, in conjunction with Ski and Tea, are proud to announce a series of women specific clinics in the Hayward area. Ski and Tea is an exciting new women’s training group in the Hayward area. They focus on having fun and building a sense of camaraderie that encourages women to maintain a healthy lifestyle. The CXC ladies are very excited to share their vision by hosting a series...
Even though the calendar says autumn, it was truly a summer-like feel to the final dry-land (hopefully!) training camp of the Far West Nordic season. For the second year in a row, 14 top athletes from the division met in the Eastern Sierra for an all-too-brief weekend of high-altitude/high-intensity workouts at the Virginia Lakes Fall Training Camp. Set in an unbelievably beautiful lakes basin at 9,600 ft. elevation, between the eastern California hamlets of Lee...
On Wednesday the 24th of September five skiers from Burke Mountain Academy’s Nordic Team took advantage of the chance to do lactate profiles and VO2 Max testing under the guidance of UNH Asst. Professor Dain Laroche. Dr. Laroche is a graduate of UNH who went on to finish his doctorate work at the University of Utah. His familiarity with skiers and with ski coaching makes his help particularly valuable. The controlled but informal atmosphere of...
13 CXC Team athletes recently completed their 2 week September training camp at Cresthill Resort in Hayward, WI. The weather threw everything at them and was basically spectacular. The efforts put forth by the athletes mimicked what Mother Nature offered. Following are the weekly reports on the activities by CXC Team members Bryan Cook and Alastair Duncan: Our team dinners cooked by the athletes at Cresthill were great fun with food from all over the...
Getting ready for an Olympics close to home is a big advantage… and we're using it! Today my fellow US Ski teammers and I traveled out to the 2010 Olympic cross-country venue, Whistler Olympic Park (becoming affectionately known as WOP), for a team sprint simulation on skate roller skis. Unfortunately the ski trails are not fully accessible by roller skis, so the coaches improvised and we held the time trial on the access road leading...
Today was Sprint Relay day at the September USST Whistler Camp. This training session is of particular interest to Kris because he’s one of a handful of guys who are on the list as potential members of the two-man team that will represent the US in the sprint relay at World Championships. Today was one of a number of events and training sessions that will be considered in picking the team. Of course, the most...
Even though there’s still a few weeks of summer, the Labor Day weekend traditionally marks the transition to the Fall training season, and Far West Nordic has wrapped up a highly successful series of summer Junior training camps for 2008. JUNE LAKE CAMP (recap by Nancy Fiddler) Our first “all-comers†camp of the season was the ever-popular, traditional June Lakes Camp, held in the beautiful eastern Sierra Nevada area in July. Led by Far West’s...
We are happy to report that the first MBSEF Mt. Bachelor Dryland Camp was a huge success! Instead of basing the group of 20 at one location, we loaded up the vans and moved campsites for the two nights, sleeping out under the stars, finally moving into the Mt. Bachelor Alpine Lodge for the last three nights. During the day, workouts varied from distance rollerskis and adventure hikes with gorgeous views of central Oregon to...