Cory has registered for Bob Vial's Thanksgiving 2011 Race Camp at Loveland, Colorado - a week of race training starting November 19 - to get his race season started. This is how he started his season last year, and as he has said, it was a very good season with great results so why not approach it the same way.
Cory's dryland training will focus on two areas that we believe he needs to improve - his leg strength and developing quicker feet. We know he also has to keep his feet further apart when he skis, and move his hips further forward too. So we'll try to incorporate that into his dryland training too. We're still trying different types of drills to see which ones work best for him.
For a change of pace, we throw in some biking or swimming, and some basketball too, as Cory will begin his basketball program in early October so it's a chance to get some early practice.
For building leg strength, Cory is doing some Squat Press work, though we need to get him to squat a bit lower than he's doing here:
And then some side-stepping to work on developing quicker feet:
Some frontward/backward running around a square:
Back to side-stepping but adding a slalom element:
And then a very good dryland training drill for ski racing, what we call hop and drop...the hopping builds leg strenght while the dropping simulates the body motion required for good racing:
And finally another drill for developing quick feet, the double quick step:
So it's all pretty boring stuff compared to racing through a course on the Olympic Downhill at Whistler, but this lays the foundation for a successful year, a year that will determine whether Cory fulfills his dream of being selected to Team Canada in 2013. And now only 8 weeks to snow!
