Monday, January 1, 2024

DN Interval training overview and comments

 


DN training for advanced skiers (and those intermediate skiers preparing for an event or adventure!) over the next few months – we will have interval sessions each Tuesday night

General goal: build efficient & relaxed speed on skis in a long-term healthy way

For some, the goal might be a big ski trip to the mountains in March, for others it might be a specific event like the Finlandia or the Birkie.   A few principles to keep in mind throughout all your training:

1)     Maintain injury-prevention strength work year-round. We tend to assume that we DESERVE to be able to do all the physical things we want to do, but that’s not the case!   Our bodies were not built to be skiers, cyclists, rowers, etc., so a small amount of injury-prevention strength work once or twice a week needs to be maintained year-round – see our videos on the things that have helped members build injury prevention strength for skiing and other sports.

2)     Regular easy aerobic activity.   Hard endurance training day-after-day leads to a lot of negative stress that can turn into really unhealthy chronic stress.    To help build your body’s ability to handle a bit of harder training on other days, you should be aiming for 2 to 3 sessions every week of only light aerobic intensity – e.g. brisk walking or light skiing for an hour+.

3)     Enjoy the outdoors.  We are lucky to be able to be outside in the winter and enjoying the beauty of beautiful winter days!

Plan – this plan can be modified for specific goals and each person’s strengths and weaknesses – feel free to reach out to discuss in more detail.

Interval sessions should not be overly hard.    Goal is to maintain relaxed & efficient speed to the very last interval effort.   We want to ingrain good technique, rather than push too hard!!

Week 1 – interval session – 4 to 5 x 30 seconds pick-ups with 1 to 2 minutes easy skiing in between – good technique but at a faster speed; can add in a bit of terrain

Week 2 – 4 x 1 minute pick-ups with 2 minutes easy skiing in between; should not be breathing too hard at the end of each interval

Start adding in a longer and hillier ski each week – these skis can get longer or a bit more intense as you progress over the next several weeks.  E.g. 1 hour hilly ski … then 1 hour 30 minutes hillier ski … building to 2 hours plus of hillier faster skis on terrain closer to your goal

Week 3 – 4 x 2 minutes with 2 minutes easy skiing in between; should have great relaxed technique throughout; should be a bit faster than goal pace, but not too fast!

Week 4 – 4 x 3 minutes with 2 minutes easy skiing in between; if goal is to race really fast, then you can be breathing fairly hard at the end of these, but otherwise keeping technique relaxed and efficient

Week 5 – 4 x 5 minutes with 2 minutes easy skiing in between

Week 6 – 3 x 8 minutes with 3 minutes easy skiing in between

Week 7 – 3 x 8 minutes with 2 minutes easy skiing in between

Week 8 – 2 longer hillier skis

Week 9 – easier week of skiing before bigger goal skis / event

See below for one injury-prevention exercise Jessie Diggins does year-round - go to 5:50 into the video for the exercise


Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Options on downhill corners!

Here is an interesting picture on downhill cornering.  For the advanced group on Thursday, we will play around with downhill cornering options!


Downhill at France world cup last year -- watch how Klaebo looks to the turn and picks the outside line in the deep snow - this allows him to control the turn better.

Klaebo is third in line with the yellow bib:


Klaebo - looking at conditions on the outside:



Klaebo sliding into the loose snow





The only skier to use the loose snow to turn, rather than go through the icy corner apex


At times, a corner gets so icy and scraped, that it's easier to step into the loose snow to do an easier and safer turn.   This is often the case at big events with lots of laps or lots of skiers (like the Birkie)

                          

Saturday, December 16, 2023

Registration and awesome coaches for 2023-24

Registration will close on Monday afternoon (December 18th).   We will start instructional sessions on Tuesday December 19th at 7PM on the training grid area.

Here are your awesome coaches for 2023-24!!


Athletic Beginner:

Katrina



Intermediate
John M

Jim






Daylight and Athletic Beginner and more Coach
John K



Advanced
Steve




Wednesday, November 8, 2023

Adult program registration is now open!

Adult program registration is now open.   We will have more details shortly - but we plan to have instructional sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays starting as soon as we have enough snow!


Register here:

https://zone4.ca/register.asp?id=33442




Thursday, March 9, 2023

Tandem skiing

 An interesting little video on the latest developments in tandem skiing…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JF5FK-rbGH4.    

Stay tuned for part II

Friday, December 9, 2022

Your adult program coaches for 2022-23

 Your awesome adult instruction coaches ...

Athletic Beginner:

Anne-Marie





Katrina





Intermediate
John M

Jim





Daylight and Special Coach
John K



Advanced
Steve




Friday, December 2, 2022

Adult program update - December 2nd

 Hey skiers,

Adult programs are now hopefully starting the week of December 12th.  

Be sure to register by December 9th and you will be updated via email of all the details!

Steve



Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Adult program update!

 A couple of things:

1) Dryland training has ended (get out and ski! Birds Hill Park and Wildwood golf course have skied in tracks)

2) below is the latest on our club plans for the season

Here are the plans for the season once we have skiable snow:

We will have 3 instructional sessions in each of classic and skate at Windsor Park for Athletic Beginner and Intermediate skiers starting as soon as there is skiable snow at Windsor Park (note that WP plans to make snow - if needed - this year, so hopefully we will get going by early December at the latest)

Athletic Beginner skiers - 3 x Monday (classic) and Tuesday (skate) - 7PM

Intermediate skiers - 3 x Tuesday (Skate) and Thursday (classic) - 7PM

Advanced skiers - drills and technique work most Thursday evenings and occasional daylight and other sessions.

Start date TBD - but we hope to start by early December.   We strongly encourage AB and Intermediate skiers to attend all 3 sessions for a given technique

Also be prepared to be adaptable/flexible as every winter is different and conditions can vary greatly from day to day!

After instructional sessions we plan a combination of occasional evening / weekend (and possibly an overnighter) social skis, interval training, and occasional daytime and evening ad hoc instructional sessions over the rest of the winter.  Please reach out if you would like to help organize a social ski or two.   Also, there will be a CANSI ski instructor training session in January -- check that out and let us know if you are interested in this program.


Registration is at zone4.ca -> see the link in one of the posts below





Wednesday, October 12, 2022

DN Dryland training

Dryland training (for those that want) will start on Thursday, October 13th at 6:45 PM at Westview Park ("Garbage Dump hill").

We meet on the north side and there is a small parking lot there.

Steve




Sunday, October 9, 2022

 

Swap Shop Cancelled (for the 3rd year in a row)

CCSAM has again decided to cancel the annual Swap Shop. It had been held in mid November for over 30 years.

In recent years, the vast majority of equipment for sale at the Swap Shop has come from local ski shops who are clearing out previous years’ stock. Again this year, there is little to clear out, so the Swap Shop would have had a shortage of items for purchase.

There are a number of online buy & sell platforms that individuals can use to buy or sell cross country ski items — Facebook Marketplace and Kijiji are the two most obvious. In particular, there is a Manitoba Cross Country ski gear Buy, Sell and trade Facebook group that has almost 2600 members.

Wednesday, October 5, 2022

Registration open now and dryland training starting October 13th

 Hey - Registration is now open!  https://zone4.ca/register.asp?id=29959

We haven't yet finalized winter plans, but dryland training at Westview Park (north of Polo Park area) will start Thursday, October 13th at 6:45 PM

Here is a little bit of what we do for dryland training:

Downtown Nordic: Downtown Nordic - Transition to Skiing - Episode 1

... So we can get ready for this: