The weather gurus say it’s a strong La Nina year–which in a nutshell means the jet stream shifts north and places like Jackson, Bridger, and Whistler get killed. Colorado and Utah rest on the southern border of the area of enhanced precip…so statistically speaking we have no greater or lesser chance of an epic year. Early season snowfalls have been encouraging, though, so I’m stoked I did my ski-prep at the Alpine Training Center this fall.
The ATC came to town as “Mountain Athlete,” an offshoot of the Jackson, Wyoming-based gym famous for its ski- and climb-specific workouts designed to turn the puniest of guides into backcountry Lou Ferrignos. Okay, that’s a bit much, but you get my drift. Connie Sciolino, owner and head coach at the ATC, decided to take the gym in her own direction, so she’s broken away from the MA name, but still shares many of the core approaches to training.
Uberalpinist Micah Dash first mentioned the ATC to me, but it was Joey “The Matador” Thompson who got me in there. He’d just won “Guide of the Year” at the Colorado Mountain School and was prepping for a ski-guide course…and he raved about the workouts at the ATC. One session and I was hooked. I’d been to a couple different CrossFit gyms and while I liked some of the activities, in general the pace was too slow and the workouts too low-volume.
The ATC, on the other hand, focuses about three times the volume into the same hour as the CrossFit workouts I’ve seen. I began going religiously when the wife and I had twins in July–time was pretty limited, so I needed to fit in the most I could in hour chunks…so the ATC was perfect.
As fall approached, Sciolino mentioned she’d do a 9-week ski-intensive block of training. Why the hell not? She had us to a pre- and post-test, to gauge everyone’s progress. The training consisted of some raw strength, but mostly power-endurance, plyometrics, and lots of hammering on the core. Test results were great across the board for the folks who committed to the full tour of duty.
Below I’ll paste in some results from participants. The individual exercises were as follows: “Tuck” is bending into a ski tuck and holding it, thighs parallel to the ground, hands not touching the floor or legs–just like a ski tuck. “FS” is a front squat. “PC” is a power clean, or lifting an Olympic bar from the ground in one motion to the upper chest, in front squat position. “FLB’s” stand for “Full Leg Blaster”, which is a round of leg exercises. One FLB consists of 20 air squats, 20 lunges (10 each side), 20 jumping lunges, and 10 jumping squats. No weight, just moving through the motion as quickly as you can, without losing too much form. Participants counted how many complete sets of FLB’s they could do in 15 minutes. “SBGU’s” are “Sandbag Get-Ups,” or simply laying down, then standing back up with a sandbag perches on one’s shoulder. Simple…and heinous. Sciolino started the clock and one had 10 minutes to do as many SBGU’s as possible.
You’ll see below a “Pre” and “Post” row indicating values before and after the block of training. The first number after SGBU’s indicates the weight (in pounds) of the sandbag she or he used.
