Sometimes as we are training we naturally gravitate to the exercises
we think have the greatest impact on the muscle groups we use for
our sport.

The problem is that we sometimes overtrain some muscles while
neglecting others. We find it easy to understand the importance of
our push muscles, I would say that many skaters have great push
muscles, however, there are two main basic movements in push, one is
the actual push, the other is retracting the leg to put it into the
push position. You can have the fastest push in the world, if your
retraction time is slow, you will be sub optimal.

I put my two girls in a summer camp for sports fitness, they do a
lot of drills where they practice fast feet and a lot of drills
stepping or jumping over hurdles. The change in all aspects of
their skating has been dramatic.

I was watching the Tour De France coverage and they were talking
about the diet that Lance follows, of interest was how much he
stressed empty calories. If you only have a certain amount of
calories a day to take in, then make sure they contain the maximum
amount of vitamins and minerals. Calories from fresh fruits,
vegitables and grains are rich in these building blocks. With
empty calories, like sugar, you get all the calories and none of the
fantastic side benefits.

Secondly he pointed out the fact that when you dehydrate your blood
gets thicker, this means you have to increase the heart rate to get
the same oxygen flow. Keep hydrated to keep your heart rate down an
you will get the maximum from your workouts.

Pre season conditioning should be complete or near complete, your
emphasis now should be on general sports conditioning with a heavy
emphasis on core.

Now is a great time to increase your leg strength, emphasize
stretching in all your workouts.

Talk to your coach if you are not sure what you should be doing this
type of year.

Later Skater