Get Coached - S&C for Figure Skating w/c 1/9/2014 & 8/9/2014

Welcome to the latest blog from Get Coached, apologies for missing a week. That means that I will cover the two weeks here and bring all things Get Coached - S&C for Figure Skating up to date!
The week commencing 1st of September saw some of the Get Coached skaters in final preparation mode for the Ayr Open starting Friday the 5th.
The Olympia and Gain the Edge groups both had skaters competing across all levels in Ayr many of whom had great skates and performed really well.
My final sessions with them looked to include mobilisation and muscle activation using exercise bands for clamshell, monster walk and hamstring curl exercises and finishing this set with the bands around the knees for resisted squats. This was followed by split squat with a rotation over the forward knee and single arm overhead split squats for core activation and hip stabilisation work. We also completed progressive sets of arabesque with squat variations for hip strength and coordination.
A big part of figure skating performance are the jumps, and for every up there is a down so landing practice in the form of a hop with a held landing focusing on technique and body position was a central part of the programme. Controlling the deceleration from jumps where the landing forces can be up to 10 to 15 times body weight for doubles and triples needs high levels of strength and coordination to ensure success.
To put this into perspective; a 50kg skater landing a double or a triple jump will have to withstand momentary landing forces in excess of 500kg, on one leg!
Having seen the Ayr Open through it was onwards to focus on the next competition which for some is the Lombardi Cup, and others the Southern Open at Lee Valley, London.
Similar focus and programme adjustments being made to accommodate the various competition schedules and individual needs.
With regards to the ongoing development of Get Coached I am now starting to push out the seminars I delivered at the NISA Coaches Conference and the Performance Camp to the clubs across Scotland, and if they continue to be well received then across the rest of the UK. If successful, this will be a big step forward for Get Coached and a move towards it's aim of being a platform for quality coaching and education for skating.
As always, thanks for following me this far and any comments and feedback regarding all things S&C for skating are appreciated.