Shaun Pianta

Remote Paralympic Alpine athlete Shaun Pianta tearing it up in training behind his guide, Jeremy O'Sullivan!

Timeline Photos

For the 1st post of 2017 I thought I would make it an informative piece regarding CORE TRAINING. Research in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning by Stanton et al (2004) and McBride et al (2006) found the following points: - Training on unstable surfaces may no be as beneficial for athletes as people think - Training on unstable does not always result in greater "core" muscle activation - Unstable surfaces may compromise force generating capacity - Generally does not translate to athletic performance - May increase injury rates - Research in the Journal of Dynamic Medicine by Lehman et al in 2005 concluded that using a stability ball in place of a traditional bench shows NO INCREASES in activation of the spine stabilisers The depiction below (research by Nuzzo et al in 2008) shows the activation of the Multifidius, a key muscle in the "Inner core unit" (not to be confused with the outer core unit), during various exercises. The back squat clearly taking the cake for most activation here!

Timeline Photos

Merry Christmas to all Snow Performance athletes, families and friends from coach Rhys at Snow Performance!

15 year old Boarder Cross athlete, Reece Smart, continues to show improvement smashing all of his personal bests in recent testing including a nice deep 130kg back squat! With testing figures similar to that of older national team athletes Reece will be in a great position this season as he heads over to Park City on the weekend to begin his northern winter campaign. Best of luck to Reece!

Whilst most ski and snowboard athletes are well underway into their northern winter campaigns I am manning the fort at home working on some single leg squat variations! If any athletes have a single leg squat variation post below 🤘🏻

PGS athlete, Harvey Edmonson AKA "Carvy Edge-monson", leaves for Canada this week to get stuck into some on snow training before the 2017 competitive period. Whilst Harvey has only been training with Snow Performance for 2 months we have made some excellent progress finishing off a cycle of fundamental movement skills and more recently getting comfortable with the barbell. All the best Harvey!

Sport Science Collective

Strength and conditioning programs for snow performance athletes do not need to have a big focus on using cones and ladders etc for the sake of increasing agility performance. The good folks at Sports Scientist Collective have made a great post explaining why. Using a variable stimulus to force an athlete to react is far more specific and effective than simply using cones etc This is reflected in a post I made earlier in the year about athletes reacting to a change on a computer screen picture during the hex agility test.

Patrick Jensen

Snow performance Paralympic remote athlete, Patrick Jensen, snatching up a 3rd in the Pitztal GS! Also achieving a personal best point result. Keep it up! 🤘🏻

Last week we said goodbye to boarder cross athlete, Emily Boyce, as she made her way to the U.S to start her northern winter racing campaign. Emily has done exceptional this year in her strength training achieving significant PB's in her recent testing including a 90kg squat. She has also nailed 2 complex weightlifting movements: the clean and jerk and the snatch. We wish her all the best. Get used to that podium!

Timeline Photos

As strength and conditioning professionals it is important to understand our scope of practice. That is: not to take on the role of other industry professionals such as nutritionist or physios etc. it is also important to know when to refer and who to. After months of mobility work with ski cross athlete, Will Payne, it was a struggle to increase squat depth in a comfortable position. At this point we did a functional test for FAI (femoro-acetabular impingement syndrome), for which he tested positive. He was then referred to a physio, also testing positive. After this he saw a hip specialist who, after some scans, confirmed a mild case of FAI. Discovering this is a great find as it gives us better direction for the strength and conditioning program.

Boarder cross athlete, Reece Smart, demonstrating the Nordic hamstring curl. Research in the American Journal of Sports Medicin shows that hamstring injuries can be prevented by up to 50% from programs that included the Nordic hamstring curl. Whilst hamstring injuries are not a common injury in ski and snowboard the ACL rupture is very high, often from poor hamstring strength (relative to the quads). The main objective here is to increase performance on snow but off snow is a great time to help reduce chances of injury before on snow training and competitive periods.

Boarder cross athlete, Lucas Gordon, has worked his butt off in the last 6-12 months! Not only losing a few unwanted kg's but progressing through basic fundamental movement patterns into the bigger lifts as shown in the video below. The hard work is paying off and puts Lucas in a great position to send it over in the U.S late December!