OctobeR NEG

This year I was back in Park City working as a coach with Bryan Fish for a week long NEG, NTG training camp. Since many of the athletes attending were skiers I had already worked with earlier in the summer it was so cool to see how everyone was progressing with the season approaching. 

October training camp in Park City is especially productive for NEG athletes since Bryan and I try to match almost all workouts with the US National Team including two interval sessions and many distance workouts. One important lesson I explained to to the athletes at the beginning of camp was the importance of prioritizing workouts in the Fall. 

At a Fall training camp we are no longer using distance workouts to improve base fitness like we do in summer training camps, instead we are tying to focus on quality speed sessions to improve power and velocity, and hard interval sessions to improve capacity.  I think successful skiers have a mental shift in October and adjust the intensity and duration of their distance training days in order to be at their best when it counts. Understanding which workouts to prioritize is a learning process for all developing athletes and something I wanted all NEG campers to work on. 

Even with some fresh snow and wintery conditions we had a great L3 workout and everyone got to hop in behind some fast skiers. Sometimes in order to work on faster motions in skate technique we do L3 intervals on flatter terrain. These workouts are perfect for young skiers to work on drafting and practice skiing fast and relaxed in a group. 

We capped off the week with some natural intervals at Soldier Hollow and a few really quality strength sessions in the COE with Tschana the National Team Strength coach. Tschana and I both really stress the importance of learning correct running mechanics and plyometric technique in the gym in order to best apply power while skiing. It was really fun to see such improvement in these young athletes from the beginning of the summer, everyone was moving quirking and dynamically. 

These athletes are going to have a great season! Can't wait to cheer them on along the way.