This morning Danny walked us through a balance session on skates up at Stowe. Danny has been the head coach at Colby College for the past ten years and he knows better than anyone how important balance is in ski racing. Here at SDSC we use roller blades to replicate many ski fundamentals The session started off with campers in their sneakers while Danny walked everyone through a dynamic warm-up that was specific to balance. He focused on the stabilizing muscles in our ankles and knees, and emphasized the connection between mind and body. Next, campers moved into a jump progression where they practiced jumping over bamboo sticks, hurdles, and walking the balance beams.
After the balance warm-up, skates were on and athletes were cruising through our skate session! Danny coached us on rolling our ankles at the end of our transitions to begin the next turn, and those stabilizing muscles were definitely hard at work. After buzzing through last week’s jump progression on skates (bamboo, small hurdles then large hurdles), counselors set some SL and GS courses for campers to go through. It was really great to see our returning campers improving on last week's session while newer campers pushed themselves in something that they may have been unsure about at first. We were also very impressed with how the athletes were able to translate what they work on in skiing into this skate session. Looking forward to the Waterbury Reservoir for some water fun this afternoon!
No comments:
Post a Comment