When retiring from NoCo this spring, FasterSkier reached out to the veteran for a tried-and-true workout. Fletcher’s response was simple. For him, nothing beats a “good-old-fashioned hill climb.” The experienced skier’s most savvy advice? Take the gondola back down. “Downhills can be pretty abusive on the knees and your back,” Fletcher explained on the phone. “[This workout] is super-easy way to get long hours in or a good intensity session in, without putting a huge...
It’s May 2 and the overall NorAm leader heading into the 2018/2019 race season, myriad of injuries. Despite a late start, she finished last winter as the first Canadian woman in the overall NorAm standings, earning World Cup starts in November and December later this year. So what’s one of the workouts she’s looking forward to this spring? That would be Rocky Mountain Racers’ “most tried and true workout”, which can be done skiing, rollerskiing,...
Four-time Olympian Kris Freeman may be settling into post-elite-level nordic ski racing by broadening his training opportunities. The 37-year-old New Hampshire native is slated to enter a grueling multi-sport race this Saturday that will certainly test his end-of-season nordic fitness. Here’s a detailed glimpse of Freeman’s workout — as he explained it in an email — to soften the blow to the legs when transitioning from the run portion to the bike. “I plan to...
With ski season winding down, you may be one of the lucky ones hitting the road for some quality family/friend/significant-other time. Here’s a one-hour workout you can squeeze in on-the-go, which we received from Alaska Pacific University (APU) skier Reese Hanneman back in 2013. Hanneman, now 28, and his brother Logan, 24, raced at their first Olympics this past winter in PyeongChang, South Korea.
It’s that time of year when everyone’s raring to get on snow. Let’s say you’re lucky enough to find some — even just a few hundred meters — like the U.S. Paralympics Nordic team did late last month at a training camp at Mount Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid, N.Y. Seven athletes — a combination of high-performance and development skiers — spent a week at Van Ho from Oct. 23-29 for the nordic center’s earliest...
This isn’t Erik Bjornsen’s first rodeo. The 26-year-old Washington native was named to the U.S. Ski Team big leagues — spending the bulk of each winter racing overseas in Europe on the World Cup. And at 6-foot-2 and roughly 175 pounds, according to his
For this Wednesday Workout, we’re bringing back a speed-inducing bounding session Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess shared with us four years ago. These days, Blackhorse-von Jess, 31, is still racing out of the Read the original workout here. *** [circa October 2013] This edition of Wednesday Workout was submitted by Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess, the man who
This week’s Wednesday Workout comes from Central Cross Country (CXC) Team member Felicia Gesior. In her second year with CXC, Gesior, 24, is currently working on coordinating the Bergkönig Trail Run, an annual event that began six years ago to raise money for post-collegiate CXC skiers. Race registration and information can be found here. *** Bergkönig. In German, it translates to “mountain king”. In 2011, it translated to the perfect name for the trail run Northern Michigan...
At the end of Mads Ek Strøm’s senior year at the University of Colorado-Boulder (CU), the 26-year-old Norwegian had some decisions to make. He started by looking for a job in the U.S., specifically in the finance industry, in addition to pursuing a master’s degree in finance. Then the three-time National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion — who won back-to-back races at the 2016 championships and came winningest male skier in CU history, accepted the...
This week, we bring you a Throwback Workout perfect for October from Alaska Pacific University’s Reese Hanneman. Now 27 and married, Hanneman, a Fairbanks native, still lives and trains out of Anchorage, Alaska, and is currently at a (not-so-dryland) U.S. Ski Team training camp in Park City, Utah.
“I have a workout that I like and usually do in the autumn when it’s time to shape up.” Those are the words of Swedish national-team member Hanna Falk. To take Falk’s words literally, it is that time of year: in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s officially autumn and “time to shape up”. In two months, the 2017/2018 World Cup will open with classic sprints on Nov. 26 in Kuusamo, Finland. For the figurative aspect of...
Whether you’re an elite athlete or a master blaster, you want to be strong enough to ski at your fastest in your target event. If strength training isn’t part of your training plan, you’re missing an important fitness component. “Functional training is considered to be training that attempts to mimic the specific physiological demands of real-life activities.” — Ives et al., Psychophysics in Functional Strength and Power Training (February 2003) There are many great fundamental...
Swiss-Canadian skier Heidi Widmer found herself on a tough stretch of road, she recently ended up taking several weeks off training. “When I had a concussion (both in the fall of 2010 and again in 2013), I listened to mindfulness videos on YouTube,” Widmer wrote in an email. “Those were stressful and uncertain times for me, because I didn’t know what was causing my symptoms nor how to get better. The videos helped guide a...
On July 28, Masters World Cup in Minneapolis or other hallmark races like Sun Valley’s
For this week’s workout, we asked for a specific-strength workout from this year’s Junior National Training Group (NTG) Camp, which was held Aug. 2-15 near Park City, Utah. One of three coaches at the camp, Maria Stuber (head nordic coach at the College of St. Scholastica), shared the following, which she described as an “old-school endurance strength workout.” She led the camp with two U.S. Ski Team (USST) staff members, development coach Bryan Fish and...
BEND, Ore. — It’s August. That means a few things to keep in mind. Out West, it’s been hot and dry. Mid-90 temps have been the norm and in places like Bend, it’s in the teens for humidity. Don’t forget to top that with smoky air from surrounding wildfires. On the East Coast, high humidity can turn an early morning workout into a tropical death march. Left or right coast, even in the Rockies and...
If you have a lower-body injury, be it acute or chronic, training for cross-country skiing can be frustrating: there are so many activities which must be cut back if you are trying to protect a knee, ankle, or foot. Luckily, there are good training options available, especially if you have access to a double-pole machine like an Ercolina or a Concept2 SkiErg. “I use the SkiErg a lot because I fight with feet injuries, and...
From late June into early July, U.S. Nordic Combined hosted a major training camp in Steamboat Springs, Colo. Among the sessions was the Fish Creek Time Trial, a skate rollerski race first held in 2007. That year, Johnny Spillane set down the first in a series of course records that would be improved by different athletes in the next decade. The time trial is 8 kilometers and gains 885 feet of elevation, starting just south of...
The following workout comes from Alasdair Tutt, interim coach for the Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks/Fairbanks XC (commonly known as NSCF-FXC). Tutt recognizes that while training in central Alaska has its perks (like reliable snow), it can also be tough for skiers to excel outside of their familiar environment (like on significantly warmer snow). This is true for anyone racing in variable climates and at both high and low elevations across North America. So for NSCF-FXC, the goal is...
When it comes to U.S. Regional Elite Group (REG) training camps, there are a few running themes that remain consistent across the country and from year to year. In the West and