‘Training’ plan for an adult? | Golden Skate

‘Training’ plan for an adult?

heytherewhatsup

Rinkside
Joined
Oct 3, 2017
I have been skating without a coach since September, as I’m on a semester exchange
I will return to my home country in January/February

Right now I try to skate twice a week for an hour each, but every time I feel confused as to how I should structure my practice to make the best use of time, especially when I live very far away from the rink

My questions are:
Do you practise your jumps and spins separately? And footwork?
Is there anything I can do off-ice apart from stretching and jumps that might be helpful for my skating?
Am I skating too little for my level/age?
(I kind of have double sal, toe and loop..?They are all 1/4 - 1/3 under. As for age, I’m 22)

Thanks in advance!
 

zjamic

Rinkside
Joined
Sep 1, 2018
I have been skating without a coach since September, as I’m on a semester exchange
I will return to my home country in January/February

Right now I try to skate twice a week for an hour each, but every time I feel confused as to how I should structure my practice to make the best use of time, especially when I live very far away from the rink

My questions are:
Do you practise your jumps and spins separately? And footwork?
Is there anything I can do off-ice apart from stretching and jumps that might be helpful for my skating?
Am I skating too little for my level/age?
(I kind of have double sal, toe and loop..?They are all 1/4 - 1/3 under. As for age, I’m 22)

Thanks in advance!

Relatively same boat as you, metaphorically speaking. I'm doing my last year of college online due to internships and finances, as well as healing up from an injury. When I go to the rink for me time, aka not teaching LTS, I work on MIFs, which you can find online. I practice jumps, though only singles due to said injury. Other things I work on are step sequences or drills my coach, who is 3 hours south of me, sent to me way back when I first got injured. Off ice, I stretch, practice jumps, weight lift, or do cardio when I'm not doing PT.

Skate when you can. When I was a fulltime student at my college I went 2 times a week for a lesson, skated and hour after my lessons, then went to a public skate either Friday or Saturday to practice. Currently, I'm skating 3-5 days a week, sometimes less die to work and schoolwork to just practice and retain fluidity.

Good luck!
 

cl2

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
I have been skating without a coach since September, as I’m on a semester exchange
I will return to my home country in January/February

Right now I try to skate twice a week for an hour each, but every time I feel confused as to how I should structure my practice to make the best use of time, especially when I live very far away from the rink

My questions are:
Do you practise your jumps and spins separately? And footwork?
Is there anything I can do off-ice apart from stretching and jumps that might be helpful for my skating?
Am I skating too little for my level/age?
(I kind of have double sal, toe and loop..?They are all 1/4 - 1/3 under. As for age, I’m 22)

Thanks in advance!

Your "training" plan will, of course, depend on your goals for skating.

Is your goal to get your double jumps and progress with more difficult freestyle elements? Or do you just want to maintain your current skills? Are you skating purely for fun or exercise? Do you want to test or compete? (As an aside, I would encourage you to try doing adult competitions. They are lots of fun!)

Once you know your goals for skating, you can develop a "training" plan to achieve that goal. On a day-to-day basis, each time I skate, I identify one or two "mini-goals" for that practice session that is in line with my overall skating goals. For example, my current overall goal is to rehab my muscle strength and core balance (just recently returned from an injury), and to improve my skating skills. So some days, my mini-goal is just to focus on core strengthening exercises (lots of power pull exercises, deep edges, etc.) Other days, I want to target flow and extension (lots of basic stroking, large serpentine patterns, etc.). On days that I feel I want need to work on balance and body alignment, I designate it my "Figures Day".

The specific exercises I use were stuff I worked on with my coach. But I'm currently also in a temporary coach-less situation, so I basically have to coach myself during this time. One thing that helped me was very detailed notes I took after every lesson with my coach. Referring back to the notes was very helpful for planning my own practices. Before each practice, I decide on my mini-goal, and I write a list of exercises to work on for that goal. Once the practice session starts, I just go through and check off each list item. It takes extra time and effort, and some discipline, but I find it very effective to separate the planning part from the practicing part.

Back to your question, do you practice jumps and spins and footwork separately. Back when I was preparing for my first ever IJS competition, there were days when practicing jumps/spins and footwork separately made sense. But it was only done in a way to achieve a specific goal (e.g. reworking technique or improving IJS points), with very targeted exercises. Other days, the goal would be different, say, getting the program into muscle memory, in which case the practice would consist of lots of run-throughs and sections.

My opinion is that there is no such thing as skating too little for your level or age. But there is such a thing as skating too little/too much for your goals. Perhaps, try to figure out your skating goals, then figure the best way to break down those goals into chunks that can be accomplished on 2 hr/wk of coach-less skating.

Provided your goals are realistic, taking a goal-oriented approach can be very effective, not just in skating but also in Life.

Good luck!
 

heytherewhatsup

Rinkside
Joined
Oct 3, 2017
Thanks guys! Glad to hear from people who are in the same boat

Sorry I forgot to mention my goals! Jumps wise, I want to get all my doubles by the end of 2019 - so I need get my double sal, toe and loop consistent and fully rotated, and get my double flip and lutz). Also I want to improve my spins, particular layback and camel, and footworks (I hate working on them to be honest, but they are important) I want to do adult competitions as well
I’m not sure if my goals are too ambitious?

I will try to skate as much as I can when I return, say 4 days a week.

One question: do you guys film yourself when practising? I want to keep track of my progress especially when I don’t have a coach now

Thanks!
 

zjamic

Rinkside
Joined
Sep 1, 2018
Thanks guys! Glad to hear from people who are in the same boat

Sorry I forgot to mention my goals! Jumps wise, I want to get all my doubles by the end of 2019 - so I need get my double sal, toe and loop consistent and fully rotated, and get my double flip and lutz). Also I want to improve my spins, particular layback and camel, and footworks (I hate working on them to be honest, but they are important) I want to do adult competitions as well
I’m not sure if my goals are too ambitious?

I will try to skate as much as I can when I return, say 4 days a week.

One question: do you guys film yourself when practising? I want to keep track of my progress especially when I don’t have a coach now

Thanks!

You'll definitely want a coach to reach your end goal to do adult competitions, but for now work on your elements. I hate spins, they are always my weakest element - even before my injury. However, my coach (yes I love her to death) made me practice them until it became like second nature or I got so dizzy we had to stop for a few minutes. When it comes to jumps I can't really comment to much because jumps were and are like breathing for me. Keep practicing your double to gain confidence, but listen to your body; if you are hurt then stop.

I always film myself for jumps and spins, something my coach made me do so we both could fully analyze the element, but mostly so she could teach me. I reccomend getting an app, if you phone doesn't, to slowmo your original videos to see if you lean to far there or if your knee isnt here and so on and so forth. I mostly use videos to see if my strength is back, which translates to height and distance for jumps, and to see if I'm pre-rotating (thankfully I've never had this habit ... yet 😉). Because you mentioned underotation for your jumps you should watch your videos to see what can be critiqued to improve rotation.

Good luck with you goals!
 

cl2

Final Flight
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Thanks guys! Glad to hear from people who are in the same boat

Sorry I forgot to mention my goals! Jumps wise, I want to get all my doubles by the end of 2019 - so I need get my double sal, toe and loop consistent and fully rotated, and get my double flip and lutz). Also I want to improve my spins, particular layback and camel, and footworks (I hate working on them to be honest, but they are important) I want to do adult competitions as well
I’m not sure if my goals are too ambitious?

I will try to skate as much as I can when I return, say 4 days a week.

One question: do you guys film yourself when practising? I want to keep track of my progress especially when I don’t have a coach now

Thanks!

I do video myself occasionally, and usually if there's something that I've been struggling to fix and the coach's instructions (or, my recollection of them, since I'm coachless atm) do not seem to sink in, and it is used only to check if what it looks like matches what I think it feels like. (Usually the conclusion is no.) I try to rely on video sparingly, but that said, given my woeful sense of body awareness, videos of my skating often reveal my extremities and other body parts in completely non-viable position that I was quite unaware of, so there's no question that videoing myself has been educational and enlightening.

A video tip I learnt recently: if you don't have a tripod or a friend to video you, just stick your phone into the slit of your skate guard and stand it up, voila, you have yourself a makeshift tripod!
 

heytherewhatsup

Rinkside
Joined
Oct 3, 2017
You'll definitely want a coach to reach your end goal to do adult competitions, but for now work on your elements. I hate spins, they are always my weakest element - even before my injury. However, my coach (yes I love her to death) made me practice them until it became like second nature or I got so dizzy we had to stop for a few minutes. When it comes to jumps I can't really comment to much because jumps were and are like breathing for me. Keep practicing your double to gain confidence, but listen to your body; if you are hurt then stop.

I always film myself for jumps and spins, something my coach made me do so we both could fully analyze the element, but mostly so she could teach me. I reccomend getting an app, if you phone doesn't, to slowmo your original videos to see if you lean to far there or if your knee isnt here and so on and so forth. I mostly use videos to see if my strength is back, which translates to height and distance for jumps, and to see if I'm pre-rotating (thankfully I've never had this habit ... yet [emoji6]). Because you mentioned underotation for your jumps you should watch your videos to see what can be critiqued to improve rotation.

Good luck with you goals!

Same here I hate working on spins! The variations annoy me[emoji87]
Mind sharing what app you use? I have only filmed myself a few times using the phone camera. I have always wanted to film more but since I’m alone in a foreign country and we don’t have private sessions here I don’t feel safe doing so
 

heytherewhatsup

Rinkside
Joined
Oct 3, 2017
I do video myself occasionally, and usually if there's something that I've been struggling to fix and the coach's instructions (or, my recollection of them, since I'm coachless atm) do not seem to sink in, and it is used only to check if what it looks like matches what I think it feels like. (Usually the conclusion is no.) I try to rely on video sparingly, but that said, given my woeful sense of body awareness, videos of my skating often reveal my extremities and other body parts in completely non-viable position that I was quite unaware of, so there's no question that videoing myself has been educational and enlightening.

A video tip I learnt recently: if you don't have a tripod or a friend to video you, just stick your phone into the slit of your skate guard and stand it up, voila, you have yourself a makeshift tripod!

I also have terrible sense of body awareness
Sometimes I feel great about my jumps but when I record it I realised how slow/low they are

I will try filming that way Thanks for your suggestion :) I’m just a bit concerned about filming in public sessions because they are always crowded and i don’t want to have my phone stolen :(
 

Ic3Rabbit

Former Elite, now Pro. ⛸️
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 9, 2017
Country
Olympics
Please don’t try to teach yourself doubles. Wait until you have a coach available to teach you proper technique.
 

jf12

Final Flight
Joined
Dec 8, 2016
Would it be fine to work on the doubles that my coach has taught me before? Or should I just work on singles until I return? Thanks!

I think you could work on the doubles you’ve already been taught and are pretty stable but don’t try doing new ones until you get back to your coach. You could get a lot of bad habits. Do your singles and walk-through and backspin exercises your coach has given you as well. That will help more than just trial and error. You could email your coach and ask them what exercises to do while you’re gone.

It’s only a short time before you get back again, and it takes so much longer to unlearn bad habits than to learn something correctly the first time. Don’t be in a rush to get your goals so quickly that it sets yourself back long term!!
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Where do you live/where would you plan to compete? That will have some effect on how to approach your goals.
 

Ic3Rabbit

Former Elite, now Pro. ⛸️
Record Breaker
Joined
Jan 9, 2017
Country
Olympics
Would it be fine to work on the doubles that my coach has taught me before? Or should I just work on singles until I return? Thanks!

Ones you have been already taught are fine, just don't try any you don't know yet.
 

zjamic

Rinkside
Joined
Sep 1, 2018
Same here I hate working on spins! The variations annoy me[emoji87]
Mind sharing what app you use? I have only filmed myself a few times using the phone camera. I have always wanted to film more but since I’m alone in a foreign country and we don’t have private sessions here I don’t feel safe doing so

I use videoshop. I can slowmo, accelerate, and even add music to make a video collage.

Echoing the others because I didn't read into the lines: don't practice doubles you don't know because you can or will learn wrong technique and so on and so forth.

Lastly, if your jumps or low/slow then I'd work on singles for a stronger foundation. My coach had me do singles, in general, all the time to focus on power and control that led to my singles having a lot of height and distance, which made transition into doubles and some triples easier and faster; it also means your confidence in jumps increases that makes jumps easier.

Good luck!
 
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