Men's team tests provide surprising numbers

Innovation is a key word in Sasha Rearick’s vocabulary. As the head coach of the U.S. men’s ski team, he knows in order to get (or stay) ahead of the rest of the ski racing world it is critical to think out of the box.

Last week five “of the healthy guys on the team” engaged in what Rearick terms “pre-race testing week.”

Running each skier through a battery of tests measuring their physical abilities, the idea was to isolate what works best, individual by individual, for the days preceding racing.

“We have done this type of thing before,” Rearick says, “but we haven’t tried to individualize it before. We tried to tie specifics to individuals and the interesting part is that we got different responses for different guys.”

Innovation is a key word in Sasha Rearick’s vocabulary. As the head coach of the U.S. men’s ski team, he knows in order to get (or stay) ahead of the rest of the ski racing world it is critical to think out of the box.

Last week five “of the healthy guys on the team” engaged in what Rearick terms “pre-race testing week.”

Running each skier through a battery of tests measuring their physical abilities, the idea was to isolate what works best, individual by individual, for the days preceding racing.

“We have done this type of thing before,” Rearick says, “but we haven’t tried to individualize it before. We tried to tie specifics to individuals and the interesting part is that we got different responses for different guys.”

Marco Sullivan, one of the athletes involved, said what worked best for him, and “what got surprising numbers” across the board, was the heavy load of work each muscle group needed before it worked at peak efficency.

“Mine in particular,” he said, wanted a good work out before being primed for maxiumum performance.

“It was great in what we learned about ourselves,” Sullivan said. “Per Lundstam (of the team’s sports science staff) should get all the credit, he came up with the concept.”

“Sure, we try to be innovative. I thought we were last year, but this year is much more specific and the testing is more thorough.”

There will be another conditioning camp at Park City with tests next week, and at the end of July there will be a community service project aimed at fostering camaraderie and team building. “We’ve done team building (projects) the last four years,” Rearick says. “You have to continually do that. This year we’re going to fire-fighter school.”

At the beginning of August the speed skiers will head off to New Zealand for on-snow camps with the technical team and Europa Cup men catching up 10 days later.