Week 1

The training year is officially here! Some skiers might be motivated and fired up to start pushing toward new goals, others might still need some easier training days. In either scenario the first week of May is when we should ease back into structured training. There is no need to log big hours rather our goal should be to get the body used to daily training and make sure we lay a good foundation so our body is ready to absorb more training later in the month. 

Moving forward I am going to post example training weeks every week! Feel free to take these suggested plans and modify them to fit your schedule. I will post one 'Elite' weekly example which is based off of an approximate 700hr per year plan, and a 'Junior' which is roughly based on a 500 hr per year plan. Click the image title to download. 

            Junior-week-1.png                                                                        Elite-week-1.png                       

You can see on these plans there is no intensity scheduled on the first training week. This makes sense for most elite level skiers however for young athletes in school or skiers participating in spring sports this is likely not the case. Intensity through cross-training sports is great this time of year! These plans are ski specific and therefore don't include that, I will be adding in more intensity later in the month. 

Week 1 Goals: 

- Get the body used to daily training. There are two obvious micro cycles within the week. By having a few days of training and then another easy day or off day (Friday) we want to ensure our body is absorbing the new training load. 

- Keep the distance L1 . This can be tough if you are running or cycling a lot and are not yet in running or cycling shape:) Try not to log all your cross-training modes in L2. 

- Get used to strength training again 

- Wide variety of non ski- specific training (no roller skiing yet) 

- Feel free to use 'fair weather modes' . Meaning if it's nice out, go ride a bike. If there is still snow, go skiing if the conditions are nice. In May I like to 'fair weather train'. Keep the goals of the week in mind but you have the freedom to cross-train in a wide variety of ways.