Week 2 Spots Available

As week 1 closes, I wanted to let everyone know we are staffed to take on two more campers for our week 2 session.  The first to confirm with the Round Hearth will be reserved.

Explosion with Tom Sell, KMS

Our final featured coach of the week was Tom Sell, the Athletic Director of the Alpine Programs at Killington Mountain School.  Tom has over 25 years of ski coaching history, including his time in the 2000's with the USST coaching the World Cup Tech as well as Development level.  In 2009 he returned to KMS and has been leading the charge of preparing young skiers from his program to earn spots on NCAA Division I rosters as well as the USST.


A lot of what we do throughout the week for dryland preparation can be incorporated in explosive strength.  Running (speed), jumping (agility), change of direction, etc. all incorporate the need for explosive movements. Today's workout consisted of A LOT of jumping (double leg, single leg, lateral, forward/back, tuck, rebound, multi-height, etc.), and we even got our box jump test in for the USSA Skills Quest data and end of week testing evaluations.

Evening Activity - Chad Couto and Movie Night!

Tonight we welcomed Chad Couto as a guest speaker to work with each half of the group for 30 minutes. Chad is the fitness director at the Stoweflake Inn, a personal trainer, and nationally ranked triathlete who comes every year and always delivers very informative sessions. This year he focused on nutrition, energy, and the effects of dehydration on the body.

After quite a demanding week (I can't believe we are almost done!), we all deserved a restful evening at the Round Hearth home cinema. We featured Mall Cop 2 for the younger campers and Guardians of the Galaxy for the older group.


Tomorrow we finish our last full day with an explosive instructional session, swim at The Swimming Hole, and our final night cookout. Let's finish strong!

Second Skate Instructional with Danny Noyes

Today we took to the parking lot for our second skate instructional session of the week.  Over the two weeks, the lesson plan for skating progresses through 4 phases.  Monday we focused on Basic Athletic Stance, and today we reviewed what we did Monday and introduced Parallel Position.  I saw MORE progress and fielded MORE questions and had MORE detailed conversations than ever before in my 11 years as director at SDSC.  I was very proud of the kids today and they should all feel that they worked hard to improve and feel accomplished.

To compliment our topic of the day (speed), I put the camp through a form running/speed progression on sneakers as well.  Having good running form, even for skiers, will strengthen movement tracks and make dryland activities that include running more efficient and effectively open the door for better training and more gains.

Back to the woods, and bring your bikes...

Thursday we returned to the Cady Hill trails for our second real mountain bike adventure of the week.  While we are on bikes almost daily, there are two sessions we designate the alternate session hours to learning and challenging our skills on the single treks in the woods.  SDSC favorite trails of Florence, Snake, and Bear give our athletes another avenue to work their motor skills, balance, and stamina.  As I've been saying to the kids all week, "Connect your brain to your body," shortening up the time between mental processing and physical reaction.  

Of course nobody wasted the opportunity to get in the water on the return back to camp.  Potential rain and thunderstorms on the radar for the afternoon.  While we greet the adjustment in temp with open arms, we are still hopeful to complete the calendar and curriculum as scheduled.

Please use a desktop to view this cool video.

Evening Activities - Guest Speaker Jerry Murphy, Slip and Slide, AND Skit Night!

Tonight may well have been the most eclectic night of evening activities in SDSC history. We not only heard from Swix representative Jerry Murphy, but we also set up an epic slip and slide AND hosted our annual skit night. It was quite the line-up!

After dinner, everyone watched Swix technician perform a ski waxing clinic before heading to the backyard for a slippery reward for their great effort all day in the hot sun. Then to wrap up the day we finished with skit night when each team had to come up with a skit based on random items given to them before their performance. One of the highlights certainly included counselors Sam and Max lip-singing "Barbie Girl" to finish the night.

Amazingly enough we have already made it past the halfway point of camp, and we are excited to return the Stowe Mountain lot for a second instructional session with Danny tomorrow!

Johnson SK8TE Park

Our alternate session on HUMP DAY!! was across the notch in Johnson, VT.  The Johnson Sk8te Park provides a wonderful challenge for all abilities to defeat ramps, rolls, rails, quarter pipes, and a new feature of a bowl.  Already having a day on skates working on balance and athletic stance instilled confidence in our young daredevils, and the park once again proved to be a highlight of the week.

Campers challenged themselves for an all too short 1.5 hours, and new highs were reached.  Even one of our counselors, Kara from Clarkson University, dropped in to a quarter pipe for the first time in her life.

Another day of beating the heat in the books, and some less demanding activities scheduled for the night activity session.

(Another video supported by desktops)...

Agility and coordinated play with Tom Barbeau, WV/BBTS

Our guest coach for Wednesday is Tom Barbeau from Waterville Valley BBTS.  Tom has a remarkable history for coaching, having been to three Olympic Games as a coach.  He is also a Certified Master of the Burdenko training method of aquatic and land resistance training, therapy, and recovery. 

Our young athletes were instructed on 30-40 different movement patterns that take into account flexibility, core strength, and agile motor skills.  Tom was able to keep it fun and educational, allowing each athlete to identify their weaknesses within different movement tracks.  As Martin Guyer pointed out yesterday, you operate in movement patterns to the best of your ability, which equates reaching your MAX.  The next time out you go a little further, pushing yourself to a new MAX.  And then the next time even more.  

Both guest coaches this week have given our campers tools to identify their strengths and weaknesses, and now it is up to the campers or parents or coaches at home to encourage repetition to see dramatic improvement.  Two weeks with us will identify the baseline, and begin the journey of improvement, and in most cases the two week improvement is remarkable!  However, there is a lot of time between now and ski season, and to see continued progress there needs to be continued growth.  

The two videos below need a desktop to play.  Blogspot does not support mobile devices.  

Evening Activity - Ski Video Technique and Tactics...and SWIM!

For tonight's evening activity, each team spent time with their counselors and coaches analyzing video of the counselors' skiing. It was great to see how, at even as high a level as the US Ski Team, counselors are working on much of the fundamental elements of skiing that we incorporate into the SDSC curriculum. Basic athletic stance featured prominently when looking at the transition between turns, and all groups moved on to thinking more about body position throughout the turn as well as the tactical elements like turn shape.

Finally, after a very hot day with amazing effort from all campers during the two sessions, we jumped into the river to recover before tomorrow's agility session and trip to Johnson Skate Park!

Tuesday's Alternate session - Hiking Mt. Mansfield

Heading up Hazelton Trail, each group reached higher elevations than EVER achieved here at SDSC.  Parts of Austria, France, Italy, Germany, and USA made it too the top of our normal hike... and more than half of those campers went further.  USA made it all the way to the end of the ridge, something that has never been done at this camp before.

Below I posted three videos from the hike.  It doesn't support a mobile platform, so you'll have to use a desktop to view.  

Balance and Functional Movement with Martin Guyer

This morning we had the pleasure of having Martin Guyer run our instructional session on balance and functional movement. Martyn is the currently the United States Ski Association Regional Development Coach, and before that coached at Green Mountain Valley School for 11 years. As Martyn put it, he now works for the US Ski Team coaching athletes before they are named to that team.

Martin put the groups through a variety of functional movement activities, and emphasized the importance of playing a variety of sports in the development of world class ski racers. He showed us how important your core is for any movement, whether it's barrel rolls, somersaults, GS turns, or playing goalie in soccer.

We were honored to have him join us for the day!

Evening Activity - Team Building Challenges

Tonight's evening saw us working through a series of team-building challenges. It's important that as we progress throughout the week, teams become more cohesive and many of the memories from camp come from the friends you make while here at SDSC. After a tiring day, the campers showed tonight that they are well on their way in this process. We had groups crossing deserts with magic shoes, hoola hooping together, walking together on skis, and playing a new favorite camp game: Tank. Tank is played with blinfolded players trying to pick up a pinnie and throw it at each other while being directed by their teammates who are watching the whole scene unfold. Great for team chemistry and great for laughs.


And lest we forget, we had a reminder on our ride home of just how lucky we are to have camp here in Stowe. What a perfect way to end such a great day.

Alternate Session - Cady Hill single trek

The design of our daily structure at SDSC brings us three separate sessions each day.  We will have an instructional dryland session, an alternate session, and an activities session.  The alternate session (mountain biking, hiking, swimming, skate park, etc.) allows us to do different activities at extension while still focusing on strength and conditioning components.

While we were on bikes last night, today the camp took to the Cady Hill paths for some real mountain biking.  Going up switchbacks and down rolls and bank turns is great for balance and getting that motor revved up and pushing.  The town of Stowe cut a new trek this year, and everyone enjoyed the variety that this destination continue to bring us.

A dip in the river on our return to base camp cooled us off on a very good work day.

Basic Athletic Stance with Danny Noyes, Colby College

Today I led the instructional session in the Stowe parking lot.  We started off in sneakers for our warm up, (led by former USST member and current University National Team member Brian McLaughlin), and after everyone was loose we had a refresher on basic athletic stance.  By refresher I mean... 45 minutes.


Now, on a scale of 1-10, Basic Athletic Stance scores a generous 5 for excitement.  However, on the same scale it scores a 10 for importance.  In ski racing, athletes are only in this position for a split second each turn and spend most of their time on the edge of the skis either initiating turns, creating pressure at the top of the turn, accelerating in the fall line through the apex, or accelerating through the completion of the turn.  Despite this differential, basic athletic stance is so important because it allows skiers to enter each turn in the proper position.  A balanced position in the transition reduces potential mistakes and makes body movements to start each turn more efficient and the athlete operates within the correct movement track.

Once of skates we transitioned through a balanced jump progression into GS and SL turns.  I was extremely impressed by the improvement for all of our campers.  The counselors were also fantastic, working with each camper and showing the special attention and direction we pride ourselves on here at SDSC.  We finished up, as always, with the SL Challenge to push some limits.

Evening Activities - Day 1

After digesting a delicious pasta dinner cooked by the Round Hearth's famous cook Sue Miller, the camp sped down to the Top Notch Fields for our first evening activity. Everyone rotated through 4 stations: speedball (a perennial camp favorite), capture the flag, a mountain bike obstacle course, and swimming time down the Stowe Rec Path.

We like to begin camp with this session to familiarize the campers with each other as well as with their bikes before we head into the woods for our mountain biking session tomorrow, and it was great to see the kids already start trying new things, whether that was riding up a narrow ramp, swerving through cones and gates, or even jumping over small hurdles.

Outside of the obstacle course, we saw some fierce competition between countries in both speedball and capture the flag, before they cooled off in some very "refreshing" water at a swimming spot about a half a mile down the Rec Path.


Great start to the week, and we are looking forward to mountain biking and our first instructional session with Danny tomorrow!

SDSC 2015 Hits the Ground Running... Drop Off Day

The Staff has been here since dinner time Saturday night going through rules, expectations, and training sessions and have been itching for the campers to show up.  Well... show up they did.  The camp exploded into action today with 2 hours of registration, greeting old faces, and meeting new faces.  It is so exciting to see campers return year after year, and equally exciting to have new campers who are ready to take on a new challenge.  A great week lies ahead.

After the departure of parents, we gathered the group for introductions of staff and rules, and broke into teams for camper orientation with name games and other ice breakers, which led us right to our first meal as a camp.  The food is delicious, and the kids will get plenty this week, replacing all the calories they burn off and repairing tired muscles for the next adventure.

A busy activity is on the schedule for the first night.  Stay tuned throughout the week, and please share this site with other parents who may want to follow the activities of the week.