oping athletes who want to know the right training routine (specifically off-ice) for them?
Early on the primary coach is most in
charge of your technical learning and help- ing you put together the right training rou- tine. Everyone reacts differently to training so it becomes a process of trial and error and gets more specific to you as you get older and more advanced. It’s important to know where your strengths and weakness- es are to help program your training, and work with your coach.
The S.T.A.R.S. program evaluates ath-
letes in three areas: 1) Agility, Balance and Coordination; 2) Strength and Power; 3) Flexibility. Particularly under the IJS system, athletes have to be well trained in all of these areas to execute skills that score well. Do you have any advice on how to improve and maintain athleticism to support your on ice skills?
It’s important to learn how to balance
your training time and improve all areas of your fitness so you can put out a balanced package on the ice. Once you have one area of your training or skill set consistent, you need to make sure you maintain it while you work on other things. I have always ad-
mired Evan Lysacek as someone who once he learns a skill, he seems to be consistent and keeps it forever. I know that for myself, even though I am considered to be athletic, certain aspects are really hard for me. For example, I am not naturally flexible and I work really hard at stretching three times a day. I think learning about these things ear- ly on in your development, like in S.T.A.R.S., can help you focus on what you need to im- prove.
Given that S.T.A.R.S. features off-ice
tests that are the same from year to year, it allows athletes who participate to track their progress as they grow and develop. It spans from age 6 (pre-preliminary moves) all the way up to International Selection Pool athletes. How do you see participating in S.T.A.R.S. helping an athlete to improve?
When you have the ability to track your
progress you can learn a lot not just from your successes but even more so from your failures. If you won every single compe- tition you entered, what would push you to improve aspects of your performance? I think we will see a lot of correlation be- tween the athletic abilities measured in the S.T.A.R.S. tests and what you are seeing on the ice.