Sisu Year-Round Group 8: More Bounding

After sitting out last week because of worries about my knee ache I was glad to be participating again. 


When:  Tuesday June 28th, 6:30pm    
Where:  Battle Creek Winthrop St. 
What: Dryland/Bounding.Fun?!?!?! (2 of 3)
Coaches: Jason Kask - Coach Ben's sub...he will be gone fishing with his kids...slacker!  work hard for him!
Notes:
Knee drop, quickness, power, balance...need it all to bound - so lets try it.  Jason will work you hard...come ready!  

The gradual ones were the ski walking reps, the spiky ones were the
bounding reps. 

• Warm-up
• Ski walking: hip rotation and emphasis on knee drop to get the kick. 7 reps of 225 m
• Bounding, with hip rotation, knee drop and trying to crunch while poling
• Cool-down

Sisu Year-Round Group 6: Strength Training in lieu of Classic Skiing (rain)

Weekly e-mail was a little off due to heavy downpours:

SISU Weekly Updates
When:  Tuesday June 14th, 6:30pm  
Where:  Battle Creek Water Park
What: Classic Rollerskiing (4 of 4 - Last one)
Coaches: Ben P, Mike N
Notes: Classic Rollerskiing - look out, here we come....again.  Last classic ski for a bit.

Instead of rollerskiing, we did a strength circuit in the Battle Creek East picnic shelter. The cigar smokers took off after a while, too much wholesomeness for them, but the bicycle bum in his sleeping bag could not be bothered. This is what we did:

Three sets of each series:
Series 1
45" abs leg spread-leg lift
45" arm dips on bench
45" quick up-down stepping on single stair
Series 2
22" abs touch heels left-right 22" static lift
45" push-ups of table or bench
45" jump step on bench
Series 3
60" sideway jumping
60" sideway up steps
60" frontal up steps
Series 4
45" knee bends heel fore, heel side, toe back

Sisu Year-Round Group 5: Classic Skiing

SISU Weekly Updates (our weekly e-mail reminder):

When: Tuesday June 6th, 6:30pm
Where: Battle Creek Water Park
What: Classic Rollerskiing
Coaches: Ben P, Mike N
Notes:Classic Rollerskiing - look out, here we come....again. More on upper body this week. Still balance drills too.

Our expectations were for a repeat of last week's training. The reality looked a little different because of the weather: at almost 40 C (102 F) it felt like training in a sauna. I am glad we did not have any bounding in the hills of Battle Creek West, that would have been harder. The squirts from my water bottle, the wind, rolling down the hill along Lower Afton Road between laps of double poling and some cold Gatorade from the coaches' ice chest provided the relief to make the session bearable.

This session included the following:

• Warm-up (if you can call it a warm-up when the temp hovers above 35C)
• 1 lap crunch double-pole
• 1 lap crunch-medium-full double pole
• 8 laps full double pole
• video review
• anther series of 7 full double poling (instead of the classic ski technique which I cannot do because I have skate-only roller skis)
• cool-down ski back to parking

Garmin Connect provides a great visual of the intervals, both in terms of HR and elevation

Coaches comments, especially during the video review were very helpful. During my first couple of laps Mike urged me to make sure to relax my shoulders. Correcting that was a matter of swinging my arms forward more dynamically. Subconsciously I must still quite afraid of falling on something other than snow and I have to work on turning this fear into something more akin of respect. Ben's comment on my hips and center of gravity being too far back made perfect sense and I tried to take that leap of faith of falling into my double pole plant. Amazing what a difference this makes. Both Ben and Mike gave me positive feedback, Mike said it's like cheating.

For next week I have to make sure I don't forget my helmet. Just as when biking or motorcycling I do not like to tempt fate ...