On and off the water

First of all, I will tell you if this week was indeed easier on m muscles than the first two weeks. On the one hand yes, the muscles that were hurting in the first two weeks due to starting of intensive training, were not hurting anymore this week. On the other hand, some muscles are hurting more than before because of extra training I have started outside of the water. In order to reach the next level from where I am now, I need to spend a lot more time outside of the water, for example on the trampoline practising tricks and the correct posture for slalom. Furthermore, I am doing other exercises, like working on abs and shoulder muscles. Therefore these muscles hurt more than the first couple of weeks. This is definitely worth the investment though, because this will greatly reduce the time that needs to be spent on posture on the water and also makes it easier to improve, because I'm stronger.

This week there have been a couple of sets which were challenging and didn't go the way I wanted them to go. One way to improve this is to continue exercising outside of the water, because it is important to print the movements into my brain so that I don't have to think about it on the water. When I think to much on the water, I ski worse than when I don't. In slalom this is apparent, because I will run my first few passes, and do 5 bouys at 14 meter line length. Then after I'm assuming to get all 6 bouys, because I was so close. But instead, I only do 2 or 3.This is because in those last attempts at 14, I start thinking too much and not relying enough on the posture that I am printing in my brain by practising on the trampoline.

There are a lot more things that I

need to do outside of the water than when I first started skiing. These are not all fun, because ultimatey I just want to ski and enjoy the feeling of freedom I get when I go through the slalom course, hit the ramp, or learn new tricks. However, in order to keep improving its inevitable that I spend time on less enjoyable things, like drills and off-water training. Not to say these are all bad, I sometimes enjoy them, but nothing beats the feeling of really skiing. However this week one of the drills I have been doing had paid off. I finaly hit the ramp after 2 weeks of practising the cut on my jumpers. I hadn't been over the ramp in roughly a year, so it was really exciting. The first jumps were still cautious, naturally, but the last jumps of my set were technically better than any of my jumps from last year. There is a video on my Facebook page, from which this photo is taken.

I am really happy that the previous training was surely worth the investment, since now the jumps are already better. If I had been jumping all this time it would have taken longer to learn the right technique and more room for injuries and it would be quite bad for my knees. I now know that all these drills and exercises will be worth it eventually, case in point, and thus I'll gladly keep on doing them!