After much anticipation, the first day of ELITEAM Park City finally arrived! In typical ELITEAM fashion, the campers hit the ground running and immediately started to pursue our goal of 1,000 pushups by Friday. We started with 50 pushups at registration and ended the day with a tally of 250!
From registration it was on to orientation where the campers worked on their hand-eye coordination with our brand new Fit Light System, practiced balance and teamwork on the “whale watch”, got know everyone with Andrew’s name games, and completed Doug’s “numbers” challenge. From there we took to the hill next to the NAC to work out with our ROCKS! We did pushups, squats, presses, rows and throws with nothing but our rocks as equipment – who knew rocks could be so much fun? Several names for the rocks that emerged through out the morning were Chow, Freddy, Kevin, and my favorite, Puke!
After filling our bellies with sandwiches and salad it was off to the Center of Excellence for a quick lesson on Physiology by Doug. Then it was into the gym to meet and listen to Alex Moore, Strength and Conditioning Coach for the US ski team. Alex explained to the campers the importance of training and being a well-rounded athlete. He talked about how they test the athletes to find their strengths and weaknesses so they can tailor their training programs to best fit each athlete’s needs and work on improving each athlete’s overall fitness. They have found that the fastest racers are generally the most fit.
The campers then got the chance to test their power on the same Force Plate that Ted Ligety and Lindsey Vonn test on and the same Broad Jump machine that Alex Schlopy set the record on! That was followed by the COOLEST obstacle course I have ever seen, “Alex’s Olympic Obstacle”, that included a tramp, rope swing, and running through the Skate Park.
Then, it was off to mountain biking, or as Coach Andrew Whiteford likes to refer to it, “shredding the brown pow”. We got to shred some awesome trails that pushed everybody’s limits, as one of the girls recalled “Matt’s Flat’s wasn’t very flat”. One group was even lucky enough to see a moose!
After an awesome dinner of spaghetti and meatballs it was down to the field to play some bamboo pole games and to practice our agility. Coach Andrew then led the group in a hysterical series of “high-knee butt-kick skips” and some creative relay races. After a quick journal session, the campers are fast asleep recovering from an awesome first day.
Written By Coach Dan Bell
