Double pole, double pole, double pole, repeat

At the beginning of each training season, I meet with my coach and discuss my training and racing goals for the next year. Last year, my biggest goal was to make my transition from home to the training centre in Thunder Bay as smooth as possible. This May marked the end of my first year in Thunder Bay which meant it was time to write down some new goals.

 I usually separate my goals into two categories, process goals and result-based goals. My process goals are extremely important because they are the things I need to focus on in order to achieve my result based goals. To give you an idea of what I am talking about, I decided to share with you two of my process goals for this training season.

Take advantage of my team’s IST (Integrated Support Team)

To be clear, when I say “take advantage” I don’t mean it in the “exploit them” kind of way but more in the sense that I should use all opportunities that are offered to me. In Thunder Bay, our support team includes a physiotherapist, doctor, nutritionist, chiropractors, massage therapists and our strength coach. The reason we call it “integrated” is that instead of dealing with each support member separately, they communicate information between each other in order to provide the best support possible. For example, during Boot Camp, every athlete does a FMS (Functional Movement Screen) which is designed to assess our body’s strengths and weaknesses. In my case the FMS revealed that I need to work on my ankle flexion and my shoulder mobility. After my FMS, our strength coach, Paul, gave me a series of exercises to do in order to work on those weaknesses. He also communicated this information with our massage therapist Kelly as well as my coach to make sure they knew what I needed to work on. Although the FMS is organised through the team, making appointments, asking questions and doing our personal exercises is our own responsibility, which is why I have made it a huge priority this year.

Functional movement screen with our physiotherapist and  massage therapist

Working with strength coach Paul at Thrive 

Double pole, double pole, double pole, repeat

Double poling is becoming more and more popular on the World Cup. Before almost every single classic race there is the discussion about whether it would be faster to go on skate skis and double pole the race instead of using regular classic skis with grip wax .Some people even claim that double poling is the future of classic skiing. Although I refuse to believe that, I am still convinced that it is an extremely important technique.

                                                                      Erg technique work

Double poling has always been my weakest technique. For as long as I can remember, when I write down my goals at the beginning of each season, I have included double poling in the list of things to work on. I have always blamed this weakness on poor technique and lack of strength. So, in order to improve, I would focus on those two aspects.  It had never occurred to me that to get better I simply needed to do more of it. This year I have taken a different approach to reach my goal: double pole, double pole, double pole, repeat. In fact, I have challenged myself to do at least a quarter of my summer and fall training double poling.
                                                                     Treadmill testing

In exactly a week I am heading to my first training camp in Montreal and Tremblant. This training camp is an alignment camp which means that all 3 Canadian training centres will be training together for 12 days. The first two days will be spent in Montreal to do testing on stationary bikes at B210. After that, we are heading to Tremblant for a volume block.

Thanks for reading!

Katherine