S .T.A.R.S .
Brown and Cain visit with S.T.A.R.S. athlete Brandi Pang about recovery after the combine.
ago, I was an athlete who never really thought about nutrition or that how I fueled my body could affect my performance, and now that I fo- cus a lot more on my eating I have more energy and can get more training done and don’t feel as fatigued.” Brown and Cain related how they evolved
Assessor Rachele Lee cracks up at Isabella Smallcombe’s ability to smile while performing the dreaded push-up test. Brown is featured in the S.T.A.R.S. educa-
tional hand-out discussing the changes he has made to his eating habits. Less than two years ago, Brown’s training diet consisted of chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. He began working with esteemed dietitian Dr. Dan Benardot to change his fueling to support his activity and his goal of maximizing his muscular power with a lean body mass.
“I was someone who would never eat on competition day, because I would get butterflies, and food and a nervous stomach don’t mix well,” Brown said. “Ten I would be skating my pro- gram and instead of thinking of what I need to focus on in the program, I would be imagining what to eat when I got off the ice because I was so hungry. Now I know that I need to have smaller meals and snacks more often. I’m better fueled to perform well, but I’m not thinking about food when I’m skating.”
Cain is the first athlete since Olympic cham-
pion Kristi Yamaguchi who has qualified to rep- resent the U.S. internationally at the senior level in both singles and pairs. She now skates singles exclusively. “While I really miss pairs and I love skat- ing pairs, it is nice to have more time especially at competitions, where sometimes I would have only an hour between events,” Cain said. Pairs, she said, contributed a lot to who she is as a singles competitor. “While it’s great to have someone there sup-
porting you, it gave me a lot of confidence in my abilities as a skater that I take to my singles perfor- mances,” Cain said.
SKATING 45 She also recognized the challenges of fueling
as a pairs versus a singles skater. “Since I quit skating pairs, it has allowed me
to gain more muscle mass in my legs, which has definitely helped my jumping,” Cain said. “When I was training in two disciplines, sometimes it was hard just to eat enough calories to support the overall amount of training I had to do. Four years
from young, developmental skaters like those in the S.T.A.R.S. audience to the elite athletes they are today. Smith summed up the overall S.T.A.R.S. ex-
perience. “It was a treat to have Jason and Ashley come
visit the Bay Area combine,” Smith said. “Te S.T.A.R.S. athletes were so excited to meet both skaters. It was a great opportunity for the devel- opmental skaters in the Bay Area to learn from the elite skaters’ experiences, not just about nutrition but how they approached off-ice training.” Peter Zapalo is the director of sports science and medicine at U.S. Figure Skating and heads the S.T.A.R.S. program.
S.T.A.R.S. assessors, left to right, Bart Lunsford, Dr. Peter Gerbino, Crystal Smith, Dr. Lara Salamacha, Rachele Lee and Liana Martin-Hernandez, with Cain and Brown, help make the S.T.A.R.S. combine in Redwood City a huge success.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84