- Joined
- Jan 10, 2014
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Several posts from the broader "Angelica Krylova interview" here and here discuss the appropriateness of the more extreme methods she uses to ensure her skaters maintain an appropriate body weight; including, paraphrasing from the interview: "daily weigh-in; say[ing] unpleasant things [and] scold[ing]."
Taking a step back ... does anyone know:
I can only speak from my own experience (...which admittedly was ~15 years ago) but when skaters/coaches spoke of 'weigh-ins', it was more about measuring and monitoring their "body composition" (or % body fat) than it was about the skaters "body weight". Does the same holds true today??
Certainly when I was training, it was commonplace at the big national training centers here in Canada that your weight and (more importantly) your % body fat was tracked. Specific to my training center: monitoring started at the pre-novice level, and we had our weight and % body fat tracked bi-weekly. Nowadays, it would not surprise me to learn that the number of 'body/conditioning parameters' monitored has increased both in count and in frequency!
With bi-weekly body mass index monitoring, only slight changes (if any) would register week-over-week. You'd never see any 'big' swings week-to-week -- nobody "gets fat" overnight! Instead, you'd see small incremental increases in % body fat over many testing periods.
One advantage to having such frequently tracked measures was it allowed coaches (or nutritionists nowadays I suppose) to intervene and determine what was causing the changes; which ranged from:
Where I trained, the bi-weekly results (for men, and women) were not only distributed to everyone, but also listed ALL the skaters in order of their % body fat from highest to lowest (or visa-versa ... it's been so long I cannot recall).
Bon Appétit!
Steve
The monitoring and tracking of skaters' weight, body mass index, % body fat, VO[SUP]2[/SUP] max, and other body/conditioning parameters.
Several posts from the broader "Angelica Krylova interview" here and here discuss the appropriateness of the more extreme methods she uses to ensure her skaters maintain an appropriate body weight; including, paraphrasing from the interview: "daily weigh-in; say[ing] unpleasant things [and] scold[ing]."
Taking a step back ... does anyone know:
- What conditioning or physical body parameters elite skaters are monitored/tracked for nowadays?
- Is it similar between most countries?
- What about within countries (e.g. between the various national training centers)?
- What 'measures' receive the most focus?
I can only speak from my own experience (...which admittedly was ~15 years ago) but when skaters/coaches spoke of 'weigh-ins', it was more about measuring and monitoring their "body composition" (or % body fat) than it was about the skaters "body weight". Does the same holds true today??
Certainly when I was training, it was commonplace at the big national training centers here in Canada that your weight and (more importantly) your % body fat was tracked. Specific to my training center: monitoring started at the pre-novice level, and we had our weight and % body fat tracked bi-weekly. Nowadays, it would not surprise me to learn that the number of 'body/conditioning parameters' monitored has increased both in count and in frequency!
With bi-weekly body mass index monitoring, only slight changes (if any) would register week-over-week. You'd never see any 'big' swings week-to-week -- nobody "gets fat" overnight! Instead, you'd see small incremental increases in % body fat over many testing periods.
One advantage to having such frequently tracked measures was it allowed coaches (or nutritionists nowadays I suppose) to intervene and determine what was causing the changes; which ranged from:
- issues directly related to diet;
- sleeping conditions;
- stress;
- depression;
- fatigue;
- issues unrelated to skating (such as family problems or relationship issues);
- etc.
Where I trained, the bi-weekly results (for men, and women) were not only distributed to everyone, but also listed ALL the skaters in order of their % body fat from highest to lowest (or visa-versa ... it's been so long I cannot recall).
Bon Appétit!
Steve