Fourth Season of NYSEF Winter Term is Underway!

Well, we’re in the thick of things now. After a phenomenal orientation weekend held November 19-20th at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, our December and Full-Term athletes are hitting the business end of the ski season here at Copper Mountain in Summit County, Colorado.

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Orientation Weekend: 66 and sunny on Saturday, 27 and POW on Sunday. That’s fine. We went hiking both days anyway. #teambuilding #gettinitdone!

Got room for two more if you guys are headed for Copper Mountain!

Our two weeks here at Copper are all about focusing on the FUNdamentals. Copper Mountain historically has more terrain open at this point in the season than most folks in North America, so Winter Term athletes are busy hammering tons of mileage and reinforcing fundamentals: balance, stance, basic turn shape drills. We’ll start sprinkling in gates later this week once we start to feel like serious skiers again!

Coach Eves has done a whole bunch of crazy long Ironman races, so his training advice is generally taken to heart– especially when we’re cranking hard at altitude!

Sunshine, awesome snow, smiles. Pretty much sums up the entire start to our season!

Athletes are packed from dawn to dusk: our days start with a team breakfast, then it’s out the door 50 yards to the Super Bee lift, where we’re on snow until 2:30pm. A brief rest to recover and recharge, and then we’re off to dryland. The focus there remains focused on fundamentals: core strength, light ploys and explosive movements to make sure our legs are ready for serious on-snow work. Ikuo has done an awesome job explaining the fundamentals behind strength, compensation, and the physics behind why strong muscles will help you ski faster.