Online Coaches Ed: A plan for the summer

By Published On: June 6th, 2007Comments Off on Online Coaches Ed: A plan for the summer

With summer here and snow far from reach for many, now is the time to make a plan for your off-season training. A year-end season evaluation should not only consist of critiquing one’s ski season, but also should involve a plan for summer conditioning so you don’t fall behind.
    Ski Racing
’s Hilary Lund caught up with USSA’s Sports Science specialist Per Lundstam to see what physically assessing an athlete’s plan for off-snow conditioning is all about.

Ski Racing: When is a good time to evaluate an appropriate summer training schedule?
Per Lundstam: We try to do it in May. This gives athletes some time off after the season ends. Giving athletes time to adapt to the off-snow environment is important because if you access too early, you will still have ski responses in the body. Take time off from skiing and training, and then make a starting point for an off-snow training program.


WITH SUMMER HERE and snow far from reach for many, now is the time to make a plan for your off-season training. A year-end season evaluation should not only consist of critiquing one’s ski season, but also should involve a plan for summer conditioning so you don’t fall behind.

    Ski Racing
’s Hilary Lund caught up with USSA’s Sports Science specialist Per Lundstam to see what physically assessing an athlete’s plan for off-snow conditioning is all about.

Ski Racing: When is a good time to evaluate an appropriate summer training schedule?
Per Lundstam: We try to do it in May. This gives athletes some time off after the season ends. Giving athletes time to adapt to the off-snow environment is important because if you access too early, you will still have ski responses in the body. Take time off from skiing and training, and then make a starting point for an off-snow training program.

SR: What are the consequences of not beginning a summer conditioning program on time?
PL: If you don’t test, you will have a harder time finding an appropriate off-snow conditioning program for the athlete. Many athletes need to access their season and current physical state to further create a plan for the summer. If you don’t do it in time, you wont see as strong results from the training, and consequently will not perform the way you want to come next season.

SR: How much does the success of a season, or lack thereof, play into an appropriate conditioning schedule?
PL: For the U.S. Ski Team, we collect all of the data along with trends from the ski season and tailor a summer program to that. As far as the success of a season, we don’t use very much of that and we try and steer away from results. We don’t try and be too specific because we know that skiing can take care of a lot of the specific conditioning when the athlete gets on snow. It’s a very complex sport and has a lot of different components that we can’t capture within a summer. Conditioning is merely one of the components that is crucial to the success of a season, so we don’t focus too much on the exact results of the season.

SR: What is the difference between summer conditioning and fall conditioning?
PL: That depends on how old the athlete is. The U.S. Ski Team athletes start to adapt their training programs to meet the start of the season. In the fall we start tapering off and try and really focus more and more on the skiing. Conditioning training is more of a supportive tool and in the middle of the summer that’s all we can use to construct an athlete. As a younger athlete, you do more volume training all the way through leading straight up to the ski season.

SR: How does on-snow training fit in to all of this?
PL: I think it’s always a battle. What we have tended to do the past few years, is that we have cycles where we push more for conditioning at times and others we don’t. We try and show the coaches during some years the importance for summer conditioning and for others the importance of laying off summer conditioning to tailor to the year. For example, the year after the Olympics we use as a building year so we push a lot more off-snow training. Years leading up to the Olympics, we push more on-snow training. It clashes and where to put the focus on is always a tough balance.

SR: What is some advice for young athletes making a summer plan?
PL: You want to have extensive meetings with the coaches from your team to plan a summer program. Before you split off from the program for the summer, to have an assessment and discuss what an appropriate training program would be essential to creating a productive summer schedule. We try to expand what we are doing on the U.S. Ski Team into the club level. Coaches and athletes should work together to come up with an assessment.

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About the Author: Pete Rugh