Saturday, July 20, 2013

Summer Push Training

Usually when I tell people I'm training for bobsled I get the same response, "How do you train for bobsled in the summer when there's no ice?" Then people usually make a funny face while they start trying to imagine just what it is we do with no ice. I always have to laugh to myself a little because in my head I'm always sure people are imagining this:
 

Well... its not exactly like that. What it actually looks like is more like this:


And this:


We call this nifty little training tool a 'push track' because it allows us to mimic what an actual push start looks and feels like without ice and without having to take a trip all the way down the real bobsled track. During the summer we spend hours at the push track pushing sleds of different weights individually and in 2, 3, and 4man combos. All the major countries who compete in bobsled have push tracks for training. Many countries even have push tracks with ice surfaces which identically mimic real bobsled starts.

Canada has an indoor ice facility in Calgary and that is where we will host the US National Push Championships this year on August the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. During that time the top US Bobsled athletes will compete individually and in teams for the fastest push times in the country. The data collected during the push championships will play a large part in the creation of teams for the US National Team Trials in October where US teams race each other to see who is the fastest down the track.

When I get back from Push Championships in August I'll post full results from the competition and give you an idea of how things went down. 

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