Homemade Wax Benches: Everyone who bought one! Are they working for you? They're a bit rustic and may need some adjustments. So please feel free to contact me about them. If they're not working for you I'll take them back. Plus I never took measurements off of any of them so now if I want to publish plans I don't have anything to measure. Anyone willing to work with me to take some measurements?

Snowmaking venues: Start thinking about where you'd be willing to drive to for Tuesday night class. There are 3 snowmaking operations available to us. Trollhaugen over in Dresser Wi, Elm Creek Park Reserve and Wirth Park. Check out the links on our web site to these locations so you know where to go if the opportunity arises. This Tuesday maybe, The next week for sure given all this cold weather we're having. Watch Monday class e-mail messages.

Clothing Order: It's going out this week. There's still time if you hurry. I can add items to the order for a week or so. We are also looking into Casual Clothing such as t-shirts, sport shorts, denim shirts, t-necks with just a simple logo on the left chest. let me know if you're interested. Good for golf, workouts, or ski parties.

E-mail chatter: Pardon for all the e-mail chatter about workouts on weekends. Take advantage of it if you like, otherwise it's just the hard core people trying to find workout/ski partners. That's what the e-mail list is for. You can contact everyone to ask questions, find carpool people (good idea if we start driving to snow on Tuesdays), workout company, etc. Remember however, a reply all, will send your message to everyone. Do a simple reply if you just want to send to the sender. When conditions are questionable the e-mail traffic will be high as people try to figure out where the best conditions are. Oh for the days of just meeting at Como and skiing, back when we had reliable snow. Just show up and ski. No stressing about where to go. ;-(

ABR Trip: We're rescheduling the ABR trip. for later in December. See dates in the weekly e-mail. Let me know your interest.

In addition to the regular dryland work this week we did some strength, agility, and balance work. See the descriptions of the drills we did after the reports We had plenty of instructors on hand so Steve T stayed in the parking lot with Arvid to administer the drills. Every 15-20 minutes a different dryland group showed up and were abused by Arvid and Steve. I'm sure everyone was sore the next day. "A Success!" Next weeks "plyo's"

Drills

Here's a list of the drills we did last Tuesday. Also some descriptions of others that we didn't have time to get to Strength.

• Arm dips: Find a bench or a car bumper. With your back to the bumper put your hands on it. Straighten your legs out and lock your knees. The lower and raise your body using your arms. Don't lever yourself up with your waist. Be sure to drop straight down. Go as low as you can with comfort. Do 10, rest and repeat 2-3 times. Great in the middle of a poles hike on a Park Bench. Works the poling muscles (the triceps)
• Balance Lunges: A variation of the standing lunge where you step forward onto one foot and lower your body down to almost touch your other knee to the ground. In this variation you stay stationary, no stepping. Press the bottom of one foot (toes) to a tree or car bumper, wall or bench. Maintain the pressure. Take a hop outward on the other foot far enough out so that when you lower your body straight down your front shin stays vertical. You don't want your knee to go past your foot. Do one footed squats while still pushing the rear foot against whatever you have found. This is a great exercise in that it helps develop one footed balance. Is really stretches your gluteus as you press the rear foot back and it works your quads as you lower your body. Do 30 and then switch to the other leg
• Arm bungees: these were pretty much self explanatory. you can do double pole or diagonal (alternate arm) the big thing to remember is to drive your hands straight down, don't worry about pushing backwards, that will happen automatically. Push down with a quick speedy snap. try to concentrate your power as early as possible. We used the nice bungee's from CXC and some old bike innertubes. The bungee's work really well. Get yourself a set.
• Medicine balls: Medicine balls are just heavy balls that allow you to do core and arm work in different ways then with dumb bells. They're awkward and as a result you use your core to help you stabilize them when you catch them. We had 8 pound balls. We found at Fleet Farm for under $10. We did a number of different exercises.
  • For triceps you take the ball in both hands and lower it behind your head. Lower and raise straight up and down as far as you can
  • For core work stand back-to-back with a partner and pass the ball to each other by rotating your trunk with your elbows locked to your ribs. We also did this in a group of 5 or 6 in a circle with 2-3 balls. Really got moving fast around the tight circle.
  • More core work. Sit on the ground. Lift legs and balance on your butt. Have a partner throw the ball to you from the side and you throw it back all the while keeping your feet off the ground. Incredible core work. Variation: let you partner in on the action. he sits along side of you and you toss the ball back and forth. Be sure to switch sides. Usually worth a lot of laughs
  • Stand facing a partner and just play catch. Try to catch with your arms not your body so you have to use your core to slow the ball down. Can be done in a circle randomly tossing the ball to unsuspecting people.
• See this link from Ben's training plans for more core work (not done)Sample Core Set Document

Balance

• One footed balance: Simple way is to just stand on one foot with a soft knee and hold the balance for 1 minute. Try the other foot. Too easy?, Squat down a bit to stress your quads. Try closing your eyes. Use props like a short length of 2x2 or one of those foam rods used by kids at the beach. Cut a short length (1 foot) and then slice it down the middle. Put it curved side down and balance on it. Really works and you skiing will improve a lot if you master these items
• Teeter boards: Take a length of 2x4 and place it across a length of 2x2. A mini teeter-totter. Get up on it with both feet and try to balance

Agility and Quickness

• Curb step-ups : Stand facing a curb and step up onto it with one foot and then the other. Then go back down one foot at a time. OK, now do this over and over as fast as you can. I mean it!, REALLY FAST. Do 100. For a bigger challenge choose something higher (up to about 16 or so)
• Box jumps (not done) : We didn't do this one but it's a goody. Stand next to a box or bench 12 inches high. Bunny hop up on top then off the other side and repeat. Do it fast as you can. Try a higher step if you can.
• Grapevines (not done) (but we will!) Likewise we didn't do this one but give it a try. One a level surface step sideways with your leading foot alternating in front of the stationary foot than behind. Lots of fun. Good for a few crashes. Try it up a small incline as well

Advanced skate did a power workout. Skiing is power endurance and simulating power needed to ski effectively on dryland is tough. We used elastic cords and a partner to offer additional resistance and help with correct body position/lean while doing a plyo type workout. Skips for distance, cross overs, bounding, bounding with poles, accelerations…it was fun. Bookended with warump/cooldown hikes.

Tuesday might I gave a "homework" assignment to the classic group, requesting that everyone get your ski equipment out and ready for next week. Find your ski gloves, wash your socks, and scrape off the storage wax. I also assigned the new skiers to try on their new equipment, and practice putting on the skis and taking them off. Then do it with gloves on and the lights off. That way you'll be ready for the first night on snow. But after thinking back to the buying event at Finn Sisu, I realized that you probably didn't get any instruction in how the bindings work. So here are some general guidelines, to minimize your frustration. So get your boot and ski out, to follow along:

Regardless of which technique - skate or classic, nordic binding systems involve a horizontal rod across the toe of the boot, which is locked into a groove-like clamp on the binding. Sometimes there is a second rod an inch farther back. Don't worry about the second rod, for now. If the front clips in, the back will follow.

Some bindings have a clam-shell clamp on the front of the binding, or a tab to pull up. Others ("step-ins") don't. If you have the non-step-ins, pull up that tab and you'll see the clamp-groove. To activate the binding, you'll place the front rod on your boot into that groove, then push the front plate down to secure it. To release, you'll pull it up again, lift your foot and wiggle a bit to disengage the second rod. For step-ins, the clamping mechanism is the same - rod goes into a groove-like clamp. But instead of a lift-up first, you merely have to position your toe (rod) over the groove, and step down to push it into the groove. The force will open the spring-loaded clamp, which will then spring shut over the rod. The problem is locating that sweet spot of rod-over-groove, so that it slides in. Force needs to be a little bit up from horizontal, but not a ballet stand. That's what I want you to practice. To get out of the bindings, you'll need to press on the top of the binding, in front of the boot, sliding a "button" towards the front of the ski. This opens the groove, allowing you to lift your boot off the ski. It takes a LOT of force to open it, so don't be surprised. The button you push usually has a divet/depression on the top, to help get a grip on it. In fact the easiest way to activate the release is to push the tab with your ski pole. From a standing position, weight on the foot you want to release, position the tip of your pole into that depression. Then lean hard on the pole, pushing down and slightly forward. The concentration of force on that small ski tip works much easier than trying to apply enough force with delicate fingers like I have. If you have the two-rod type (like Salomon Pilot) after lifting the toe up, you'll need to wiggle your foot to release the second rod. But it will just pop off. If done on snow, you sometimes have to chase down your ski, if you are on a hill.