How do timing systems effect training for U10-U16 skiers?

The Holy Grail of ski training, at least for this lowly club-level ski coach, is portable, quick, easy, wireless timing (a chronometer). Since 1995, when I first began coaching, I have only ever dreamed of having regular access to a wireless timing system (like a Brower). Very rarely, my club-team would have an opportunity to train with a regional or provincial team, and they set one up. Last Saturday, I trained for the first time with a system that I can access for the remainder of the season. Words cannot express the warm-fuzzy I was feeling. I even snapped a photo.

Brower Timing System

Why do clubs not prioritize timing for training? Is it just a matter of cost and logistics or are there more deep-rooted philosophical aversions to timing at the club level? My feeling is that costs/logistics alone cannot explain the slow uptake of timing among clubs, but that’s a topic for another post. Here, I want to discuss the immediate and most notable changes in training that timing seemed to engender when we used it last Saturday.

Effect #1:

The first effect is unsurprising: All the athletes trained like they race. They were pushing out of the start, tucking for the finish, and making sure they finished each run as quickly as possible. In his book, Beyond Training, fitness guru, Ben Greenfield, makes a strong case against medium-high intensity training (call it, "training at 75%"). His argument is that this type of training is most physically strenuous (leading to injuries) without the gains of either extended periods of low-intensity training or very short periods of high intensity training.

Club-level programming forces us to do most of our training at 75%. A typical training day is a 3.5 hour morning of freeski exercises (probably a 65% intensity level) followed by a 2.0 hour afternoon of gates (probably at 85%). These types of number will result in consistent improvements, but at what costs? Athletes are giving up their entire weekends to skiing and still finding it necessary to do one or two evenings of training during the week, or a regular Friday session, to stay competitive. If I was a 14-year-old, I would find today's training requirements to be over-demanding. Balancing school, family, social life and skiing is not just difficult, it might be impossible.

With timing, we can do shorter blocks in gates because the intensity is higher (2 hours total, including multiple sets, call it 4-8 runs). And the intensity at which we do freeski training can also come down to 35%-45% (by using flatter terrain and spending more time mastering specific, individual skills). I'm not suggesting that we can start re-inventing the standard Club-level program structure; instead, we can give ourselves some breathing room in the existing structure. Increase the intensity at which you train in gates by regularly timing each run.

The effect that timing has on intensity is obvious. But, I think that timing has effects on ski training outside the scope of raising intensity levels.

Effect #2:

Timing also effected our coaching style: we gave less verbal feedback and changed the course more frequently. Let me explain:

Since it was our first time using a chronometer, we were pre-occupied with making sure it worked. Mostly, we had one coach at the start and the other at the finish. The coach at the start gave little-to-no technical instruction or feedback to the athletes, even if they asked; he was there primarily for safety considerations and for assigning each athlete a number (for the timing system).

The coach at the bottom (which was most often, me) also gave very little feedback other than the athlete’s time. Based on the run I observed, I would guess how much they could probably improve their time and I would simply instruct them to go faster. Something like this:

“Juliette. You got a time of 32.24. Try to finish your next run in the 31s.”

Usually, the athlete would go back up and improve their time. These athletes are skiing faster, independently. But the timing system not only causes us (coaches) to give less technical feedback and instruction, it also changed the way we assessed the training environment.

Instead of accessing the course based on the visible deterioration of the track, or the amount for time remaining in our hill-space, or a perceived decrease in the level of the athlete’s enthusiasm, we changed the course based on how much more the athletes could easily learn from that particular set (or how much they could immediately improve their time). After about three runs, the athletes times began to plateau. They might be able to shave off a tenth of a second here or there but, generally, they stopped improving their times on the third run, so that's when we set a new course. We set three different courses in our two-hour block.

Later in the season, or when these skiers are no longer development-level athletes (U18/FIS), they can start trying to shave-off tenths-of-a-second but, for right now, and at development-levels more generally (U16 and under), the focus is on more glaring (maybe “fundamental”) technical issues. With timing, the skiers are addressing these issues in three runs or less.

Effect #3:

The third (and last) significant effect is probably the most important and it's closely related to the first two. It is also probably related to the slow uptake of timing in club-level training. It has to do with what we know, or more precisely, what we think can be known about the right way to ski.

This is the current model: Coaches know what fast/good skiing looks like. Coaches observe their skiers and notice when/where skiers diverge from the fastest/right way. Coaches communicate to athlete the necessary changes (“plant your pole earlier,” “stop leaning back,” “turn above the gate” etc.). Athletes do their best to ski as their coaches prescribe.

Timekeeping changes this model.

With timing, coaches no longer need to know what fast/good skiing looks like beforehand; instead, they need to know how skiers have become faster/better in the past. As the athletes improve, coaches are also learning about fast skiing.

Alexandra, for example, improved her times by skiing much rounder for left-footed turns. Alexandra did not notice that she was making the change; she knew that she needed to run a cleaner ski because she could feel the skidded turns were running slower. It's amazing what athletes feel when they know they are being timed.

The athletes (including Alex) will eventually encounter technical deficiencies that they can’t easily (in three runs) overcome. Most likely, the athlete will know what the deficiency is but, if not, video comparison and consulting with the coach will probably allow them to identify it. The coach can advise on how to address the problem in free-skiing, without timing. When the athlete feels comfortable with the changes, they try it again in a course, with timing. The fastest or best way to ski remains unknown but is instead always in the process of development. Instead of D&C (Detection & Correction), the interactions between coaches and athletes should be described as R&D (Research & Development). Athlete-centred coaching means that athletes are the lead researchers and coaches are merely lab assistants. This is how it should be, even for U10s!

It may seem as though I’m splitting hairs but the difference between the two models is substantial. I learned this in disabled skiing. For para skiers, the D&C model simply does not work. There is no way that coaches could know, a priori, what the fastest/best way for Adam Hall to ski (seven World Cup wins; three World Cup “overalls”; one Paralympic gold medal). Or how to model a ski run that involves two skiers, like Jon Santacana and his guide. These skiers are not doing compromised versions of able-body skiing, they are reinventing the sport on their own terms, so watch and learn.

Crucially important, the same applies in nondisabled contexts! Did Bode, Ligety or even Hirscher find their speed because they had coaches that prescribed the fastest/best way, or did they find it through trial and error, shaving off tenths-of-a-second here and there? If coaches are being honest with ourselves, we must admit that skiing is not our expertise but rather skiing pedagogy. Skiers ski; coaches coach. Skiers ski better when coaches try keep clear demarcations between knowing how to coach and knowing how to ski.

Conclusion:"The Revolution Will Not Be Supervised"

Hanna Rosin recently wrote an article in Reader's Digest, "The Revolution Will Not Be Supervised" (2014). (It also appears in The Atlantic, titled "The Overprotected Kid"). Rosin is arguing for less parental control of children's play. She writes,

"Researchers have started pushing back against parental control. But the real cultural shift has to come from parents. We can no more create the perfect environment for our children than we can create perfect children. To believe otherwise is a delusion, and a harmful one; remind yourself of that every time the panic rises."

Her title reminds me of Pierre Ruel's mantra for development-level skiing: "From start to finish, as fast as possible, without falling, and without supervision." Many people are confused about the "without supervision" part of his motto. Is club-level reluctance to invest in timing systems for training similar to parental reluctance to allow unsupervised play? Are coaches that disapprove of timing in training for U10s-U16s too concerned about technically imperfect skiing? What exactly are we afraid of?