Goals
- This is the stage for more discipline specific skiing and acrobatic skills refinement and the beginning of the specialization.
- A collaborative, coherent approach among coaches, organizations and system stakeholders is needed to support the Train to Train athlete’s continued development toward excellence or transfer into ongoing activity for life.
- Keep in mind that the physical, mental and emotional maturity of individuals will develop at different rates.
Key points
- Girls: Around 11-15 years old / Boys: Around 12-16 years old
- It is at the Train to Train stage—which often starts in early adolescence—where the individuals make the decision to:
- strive for excellence and commit for being an athlete—in the full sense of the word;
- decide to no longer commit the time, energy and resources to achieving excellence in their sport and enter the Competitive for Life or Fit for life stage
- drop out of sport
- Train to Train also marks entry into the excellence stages of Long-Term Development and as athletes achieve success, they will transition in the Podium Pathway.
Athlete Skills
During this period of rapid growth:
- Focusing on maintaining a good technical in acrobatic and skiing is a required component of the athlete training program.
- The physical fitness needs to be prioritized.
- Perfect time to take advantage of the sensitive periods.
- This can be a very challenging time, resulting in poor coordination and skill execution.
- It is essential to maintain fundamental movement skill development in a variety of environments
Physical
- The onset of the adolescent growth spurt is the time for the Peak Height Velocity (PHV).
- Develop all round athleticism and general fitness before sport-specific fitness.
- The spatial awareness should be well developed.
- Work with the athletes on (depending on the maturation level):
- Aerobic
- Strength:
- Introduce free weights with emphasis on correct technique
- Flexibility
- The warm-up (activation) and proper movement preparation between 5 – 15 minutes before starting any training activity should become part of the normal routine.
- Introduce fitness testing (beep test, vertical jump, box jump).
Aerials and Moguls
- Skiing:
- Stable body position
- Ski in line in the rollers with correct turn initiation (timing and edging)
- Proper range of motion with the lower body
- Introduce methods of speed control
- Variety of the mogul line
- Complete mogul run
- Floor skills:
- The work on floor skills is still useful for the body tightness and refine the technical part of the extension and the landing.
- Work more specifically with the individual:
- Progression toward back flip, Front tuck, Standing back tuck
- Trampoline:
- At this stage, athlete should be very comfortable to train on a trampoline and increase their difficulty.
- Focus on:
- Strong take off and core
- Creating rotation from the feet
- Good vision
- Work on progression towards:
- Porpoise, 3/4 front, Barani, Barani ball-out, Rudi
- Cork 7
- 3/4 back, Back full, Back double full, Double back tuck
- Connecting backs and barani ++
- Use the bungee to push the degree of difficulty while working on the proper twist timing.
- Water ramp:
- Girls:
- 360, Front tuck, Back (t,p,l), Back full,
- Double tuck on the single, Lay-Tuck
- Boys:
- 360°, 720°
- Back (t, p, l), Back full, Back double full
- Cork 7
- Lay-Tuck, Lay-Full, Full-Full
- Girls:
- Snow Aerials jumps:
- The idea is usually to have the athlete do a jump on snow that he/she has been practicing for 2 summers on water ramp.
- Girls:
- 360°, Front tuck, Back (t, p, l), Back full
- Lay-Tuck
- Boys:
- Back (t, p, l),Back full
- Lay-Tuck, Lay-Full
- Snow Mogul jumps:
- Girls:
- 2 airs in the moguls run
- 360°
- Front tuck, Back tuck
- Boys:
- 2 airs in the moguls run,
- 360°, 720°, Back tuck, grabs
- Girls:
Halfpipe and Slopestyle & Big Air
- Skiing:
- Parallel switch skiing looking over both shoulders.
- Efficient carving.
- Pressure control skills.
- Holding edge effectively.
- Pipe skiing:
- Effective line in pipe.
- Edging and carving.
- Pumping acceleration.
- Floor skills:
- The work on floor skills is still useful for the body tightness and refine the technical part of the extension and the landing.
- Work more specifically with the individual:
- Progression toward back flip, Front tuck, Standing back tuck, Misty 5, Side flip
- Trampoline:
- At this stage, athlete should be very comfortable to train on a trampoline and increase their difficulty.
- Focus on:
- Strong take off
- Create rotation from the feet
- Train with forward and switch bounce
- Good vision and feeling
- Work on progression towards:
- Cork (7,9,10)
- Misty (7, 9, 10)
- Rodeo (7, 9)
- Bio (7,9)
- Flare
- Rudi, 1 ¼ back, Back full
- Halfpipe:
- Girls:
- Strong take offs & landings
- Drop in perfected
- Spin both directions
- 540° down the pipe
- Grabs on every spins
- Flare one direction
- Allyoop both directions and switch allyoop
- Boys:
- Strong take offs & landings
- Spins down the pipe both ways 540°, 900°
- Grabs every spin or flip
- Flare both directions
- Allyoop 360° and 540° both directions
- Switch 540° down the pipe both directions
- *Keep working on pumping skills on in-line skate or bmx on pump track.
- Girls:
- Jumps:
- Girls:
- Carve on the jumps
- 360° both directions
- 540° both directions
- 720° mute and tail ++
- Boys:
- 9’s foward
- Switch 10’s
- All different axis 3-5-7-9’s
- Initiation to big jumps
- Start doubles only when all above are completed
- Girls:
- Features:
- Girls:
- Slide Rail both ways,
- 270° off L/R foot forward
- Lip slide, switch lip and switch tails on urban tube
- Boys
- Switch 270°on and both 270° on,
- All 450° off,
- F/B swaps combos
- Girls:
Tactical
- Skiers are encouraged to develop their course inspection skills during training and competition.
- Learn to strategize good line in a park.
- Self-awareness on readiness to take different size of jumps, rails and other features.
Psychological
- Ensure environment promotes fun and friendship.
- Develop ethical approach to sport including respect for opponents and fair play and commitment to doping free sport.
- This is a critical stage to understand the rules of sport, values and consequences of one’s actions.
- Failure is part of the learning process if the athletes are pushing their limits in training, they will fail, but can learn from their mistakes with the proper mindset.
- Mental training plans – planning comp runs weeks prior to events, relaxation skills, anxiety control.
Training Structure
- Get involved in the Canfree program of the freestyle ski club and by the end of this stage, some athletes will be on a provincial team.
- We also encourage to participate in the sport-school programs for freestyle skiing which provide a year-round training program.
- Training, recovery and meaningful competition are critical components.
- It is important to increase progressively the training volume and intensity. This cannot be achieved in a limited time period.
- Careful monitoring of athlete growth and response to training will enhance the development of a plan.
- Freestyle ski activities recommendations, aim for:
- Ski 60 + days per year.
- Trampoline approximately 150 hours per year (structured and unstructured)
- About 500 to jumps on the water ramp/air bag.
- Other structured and unstructured sports and activities.
- By the end of this stage, athletes can participate in an off-season ski camp.
Example of the programming for this stage:
- December to March:
- Ski 2-3 days/week with the ski club
- Trampoline 2x 2h/ week organized by the ski club or a gymnastic club
- Physical conditioning programs 1h/week should be included in the ski or trampoline session
- April:
- Ski with friends in unstructured environment
- Do other activities
- May and June:
- Trampoline 2x 2h/week organized by the ski club or a gymnastic club
- Physical conditioning programs 1h/week should be added to the trampoline sessions.
- July & August:
- Water ramp 3-4 days/week or in more intensive training camps
- Trampoline 2h/week
- Physical conditioning programs 1h/week should be included in the water ramp or trampoline session
- September:
- Do other activities
- October and November:
- Trampoline 2x 2h/week organized by the ski club or a gymnastic club
- Physical conditioning programs 1h/week should be added to the trampoline sessions.
Coaches
- Coaches need to keep on taking those following coaches’ courses:
- Skiing skills
- Moguls skills
- Park & Pipe
- Air 1 to 4
- Basic Mental Skills
- Nutrition
- Design a Basic Sport Program
Terrains
Events & Competitions
- At the beginning of this stage, athletes participate to 3 to 5 formal regional and/or provincial events.
- By the end of this stage, athletes participate to 3 or 4 provincial events and 2 or 3 national events (Canada Cups, JR National)
- Formalized rankings are starting to be used.
- Competitions should:
- Offer equal competition opportunities by keeping participants in events rather than eliminating them.
- Focuses on the process of competing, not on results.
- Be in the “challenge zone”, resulting in close competition without blowouts or humiliating defeats.
- Be design for fundamental technique and basic tactical skills transfer from training.
Judges and officials
- For the regional event, judges will need a license E and D.
- For the provincial events, judges will need a license C for the MO and AE events and AFP Bronze for the SS, BA and HP.
- Officials are trained at the provincial level.
- They have their official level from 1 to 3.
- National events are organized by clubs that are part of Freestyle Canada.
- For the Canada Cup events, judges will need a license B for MO and AE and AFP silver for SS, BA and HP.
Other Influences
To come
