Freestyle Alberta Coach Education Page
140 canada olympic road Calgary, AB, Canada

There continues to be more discussion around sports returning to regular training. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Mt Hood looks promising for August. We will find out about Whistler in a few days. It’s looking pretty conceivable for us to conduct a Ramp and Tramp training camp in a few more weeks. After a long wait, it will be easy to allow ourselves to get overly excited about potential training opportunities. I may be saying this as much for myself as anyon...e else, but it’s super important to be patient and stay focused on what we can do day-to-day. There are bound to be unexpected issues that arise in the coming weeks so as we plan, we should be ready for further barriers and obstacles to training. I think I’ve shared this before, but Krush Performance is a great resource for general training info with lots of great tips specific to our current COVID situation. FB: https://www.facebook.com/KrushPerformance/ Podcast/website: http://krushperformance.com/krush-radio/ Jeff Krushell is from Westlock, close to Edmonton, and had kids in the Jasper Freestyle club and was very involved with that program for several years. Jeff and I were roommates while I attended the University of Calgary. He is a good friend and a great resource. He also was the Head Strength and Conditioning coach for the Toronto Blue Jays for several years. He continues to work as a professional trainer as well as a consultant for Major League Baseball amongst other things. If you have time, check out some of his podcasts and suggestions on his FB page.

If you have time check out the Sergei Shupletsov video. A number of old mogul skiers shared this video recently as it would have been his 50th birthday on April 25th. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbdKV2jDB-4 A lot of old school mogul skiers consider Sergei to be one of the best of all time. At first glance, this video may appear to be very old school. No prepared landings; the jumps look semi-random on the course with very irregular moguls.... But look closely at the technique. Watch the video at least 4 times pausing randomly 5 or 6 times during the run. The first time just watch it to get the overall impression. The second time you watch it, focus on just the skis and how much they are on or off the snow and most importantly, what is the ski direction at any given moment. You will notice you don’t see a lot of sidewall in this run. The third time through, focus on the hips. Again, pausing the video several times, notice the direction the hips are facing relative to the skis and the location of the next mogul. The quality may make some of the paused images very fuzzy but you can see tremendous separation of lateral movement from the knees from any steering of the ski from the pelvis. Finally, watch on last time and really focus on the upper body and head. How many head bobs can you count? Not many. It’s not a perfect run, however, the technique stands up well. Although the sport has changed a ton since Sergei’s time, the basics are still the same and this is a great example. If you don’t know the story and the history it’s worth looking into. Here is a start: https://www.fis-ski.com/DB/general/athlete-biography.html

Frustrating times for training. For those who have time and motivation, and want to delve deeper into the mental side of performance, this is the classic Canadian mental training book and a great place to start: https://play.google.com/books/reader