Andrea Dupont

This is a motto I endlessly apply to training as I continually tweek my goals to improve on my weaknesses. This year required a huge focus on skate technique, for me. I will be the first to admit that my skate technique is atrocious, relying mostly on my strong arms

So this training season has involved a ridiculous amount of legs only and more recently, at our fall training camp, a lot of one-skating up mountain passes. The later was initially painful but somehow became easier as the long distance days on continuous climbs forced some technique changes to kick-in. Gotta love those moments when things ‘click’ and suddenly skiing feels almost effortless!

Here is a photo from my last long day of climbing up Highwood pass.

I am now well into the second big training cycle of the summer. Now that I am injury free, I can do both the training that I love and that is needed to be in top shape for the race season. This includes everything from running, ski hiking, plyometrics, SSS (More on this another time) and even roller skiing (yes, I said it, I am starting to love roller skiing).

People sometimes ask me how I have the motivation to train as much as I do, but really I don’t know how anyone can live in the mountains and not want to be out running, hiking, biking or roller skiing. I guess I still haven’t lost that mountain awe, I hope I never do

Here are some shots from a training run that I did recently with team mate Dasha Gaiazova running and hiking the west end of Mt. Rundle, near Banff.  Amazing views from the top. I hope you enjoy the pics.

This week our team had our first plyos workout of the summer and let me tell you, there is nothing like the feeling of doing your first plyo workout of the training season. The feeling stays with you all week as you walk, descend stairs, or even try and sit on the toilet. It is the self content and mildly sadistic feeling knowing that this pain is reassuring you that you are building power in your legs.

Now having stated the sadistic nature of plyos, I have to admit that plyo workouts are among my favourite.  Plyos are all about maxing everything; max height, max reps and max power in a short amount of time. So they are also a great workout that can be squeezed into a busy schedule.  My only word of warning is that the max nature of plyos require a good warm up and cool down, or you may be in a max amount of pain for a long while afterwards.

So what exactly is a plyometric? Plyometrics can be any exercise that is designed to produce fast powerful movements. Plyo exercises are designed to mimic sport specific movements with increased speed and force of muscular contraction. Plyometrics are not limited to leg exercises, in fact since cross country skiing is a full body sport, our strength routine involves both upper and lower body plyos.

The key to a good plyo workout is for each rep to be as explosive and as fast as possible and that you fully recover between sets and that you stop as soon as you are losing power.

With any good training program each session will build on the last session but here is a good starting point for a full body plyos workout.

15 seconds max Clap pushups

15 seconds max side jumps

15 seconds max dips

15 seconds max single legged bounds

Start each exercise every minute and take a 45 second break before beginning next exercies. Repeat in order 3 times. When looking to increase difficulty ensure proper posture is maintained throughout exercise and ensure motion is as fast and powerful as possible. In order to maintain the max effort do not increase length of sets, instead perform multiple sets of one exercise before moving on to the next exercise. You should always do a minimum of 3 sets, if needed give yourself more rest between reps or set.

Until next time, enjoy the wonderful feeling of knowing you are building muscular power.