2) TRAINING DOSES
With main concern for jumps.
We should also remember that once body's segment is overloaded...even normal load is too big. That explains why the bone can be fractured during elements with lower load (double jump, split jump, off ice jump).
Skaters with known stress fracture history are highlighted, not confirmed with stress fracture are underlined.
What we can look at?
1. ICE TIME and OFF ICE TIME
2. NUMBER OF JUMPS PER PRACTISE
3. INCREASED LOAD IN TIME BEFORE STRESS FRACTURE
1. ICE TIME and OFF ICE TIME:
OFF ICE - I do expect that single skaters are doing jumps with rotations (single, double, triple, quad) on the floor, simulation of all kind of jumps with rotations on the floor, different kind of jump exercises. All of these elements are demanding as well, so number of repetitions would be important to know. As to other activities - running and different sort of athletic preparation can add additional load as well. Ballet, dance class, gym...
ON ICE - once again we would need to know how many repetitions of certain elements (mainly jumps) were done rather than how long practise lasted. The structure of skater's ice practise can vary.
-
@Ic3Rabbit -
"Depending on the elite skater and their team it usually ranges between 2-4 hours per day on ice and then there’s off ice depending. And that’s not every day of the week either. Usually get 1-2 days off for rest.
ETA: There’s also a variance in training time depending on if it’s season or off-season." (
https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/elite-skater-only-2-hours-day-on-ice.71403/#post-2035880 )
-
Kiira Korpi -
"…But for example, in the USA, where you live now, isn’t the degree of athlete’s freedom is higher? – Absolutely not. At 10 years old, they are already trying to pull the child out of school, get him to study at home, he must spend from three to four hours on the ice, then this time grows. And as a result the majority get injured and leaves figure skating, this is a tragedy." (
https://fs-gossips.com/5582/ )
-
coach Aimée –
"…Serious competitive skaters spend 10 to 20 hours on the ice, every week. That's three to four hours a day, six days a week. Seriously, it's true. It's almost impossible to succeed at the highest levels of such a technical and complex sport, without that level of commitment.“ (
https://skatewithaimee.com/blog/f/figure-skating-lessons-practice-are-you-practicing-enough )
EXAMPLES:
- Starr Andrews - "...only trains on ice for two hours per day!" (
https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/threads/elite-skater-only-2-hours-day-on-ice.71403/#post-2034311 )
- Michelle Kwan – „…By age eight, she skated several hours a day, every day of the week. Before school, after school and on weekends, she was at the ice rink.“ (
https://www.passiton.com/inspirational-sayings-billboards/13-dedication )
- Evan Lysacek - "...My daily routine works around my training. I wake up and do a workout, including some of the exercises designed to prevent another stress fracture in my hip. I then have a quick bite to eat and head to the rink. I practice on ice between three and four hours. After practice I get a good stretch then head back to the gym. That's when I do a more vigorous weight workout, then it's time to rest up for the next day." (2004) (
https://skatingmagazine.azurewebsites.net/article/Skating_200411_17 )
- Nina Pinzarrone - "...I was about 13 when I felt that I could really make it. ... But with only talent, you are nothing, you have to work hard. I spend four hours on the ice every day, and additionally, I put many more hours into ballet training, cardio fitness, and stretching."
(
https://fs-gossips.com/12077/#google_vignette )
- Susanna Poykio - "...skates for about two hours every day. She does weights, jogging, modern dance, and jumping on the floor for about 5-8 hours a week in off ice training." (
https://www.goldenskate.com/finlands-poykio-makes-skating-history/ )
- Johnny Weir - "...Five days a week, Weir hits his training rink in Delaware for 75 minutes in the morning and two hours and fifteen minutes in the afternoon, without breaks. Kill drills...." (article from 2006) (
https://nymag.com/health/features/15922/ )
- Jeffrey Buttle - "...During his competitive days, he divided his time between two training bases," (
https://www.starsonice.ca/skaters/jeffrey-buttle-0 )
..."Buttle usually trains for three or four hours a day on ice, six days a week. He also does an hour or two of off ice work every day. “I started with more strength training after my injury so I could handle more impact,” he said. “Now I’m doing more plyometrics, Pilates and ballet.” (2008) (
https://www.goldenskate.com/buttle-bounces-back/ )
- Christine Zukowski - “They actually let us out at 12 p.m. so that we could train,” Zukowski said. “I skated four 40-minute sessions, and then I would work out and do ballet, and then I’d get home around 6 and start my homework.” (
https://temple-news.com/zukowski-begins-new-life-chapter/ )
-
Agnes Zawadzki - "...My day typically has a late start. I'll head to the rink about 10:30 a.m. to warm up, skate from 11 to 11:45, take a break until 1:15, when I skate again until 2. Another break, and one more 45-minute skate from 4 to 4:45. After I'm done on the ice, I will either do some strength training, run, or do yoga." (
https://www.espn.com/espnw/athletes-life/article/10216264/agnes-zawadzki-figure-skating )
-
Elizaveta Tuktamysheva - "...My day usually starts with a workout at Yubileiny ice rink. ...In addition to the usual warm-up, we work on a simulator that allows skaters to develop the resistance of the vestibular apparatus to fast rotations. This is a unique development of our coach Alexei Mishin, it helps to progress in jumping technique and spins....Training on the ice lasts about an hour, during this time I manage to go through my programs a couple of times and work on some elements separately...After the morning workout, there is time to have lunch and a little rest before the second workout. Usually we train twice a day, we spend seven hours a day at the rink. In addition to working on the ice, you need to work on choreography, general physical training and a cool down." (in September 2022) (
https://fs-gossips.com/9015/ )
... "I wake up, get breakfast, go to the rink, then after the first training, we have 1-1.5 hour of break. Then after the second training, we do other things. Then around 6-7 p.m., I go home and rest. Off-ice, we do muscle work, warm-up, some exercises for jumps, or we work on the choreography because that improves it on the ice." (in November 2018) (
https://figureskatersonline.com/new...-way-that-i-can-compete-with-the-other-girls/ )
For Liza I found 2 articles from 2018 and 2022 - the same training schedule.
-
Evgeny Plushenko - "...I train five to six hours each day -- morning and evening, each time two to three hours of ice and about an hour at the gym. I'm used to this from childhood." (
https://ptichkafs.livejournal.com/14007.html )
-
Alexei Krasnozhon - "...training day take 4-5 hours a day. Usually 3 practises per day - ice practise, physical off ice training or choreography, stretching (flexibility) and second ice practise..." (
https://www.tulup.ru/forum/topic/5827/message81789.html )
2. NUMBER OF JUMPS PER PRACTISE:
In a book
FIGURE SKATING LIKE A COSMIC FLIGHT by
Alexei Mishin, it was once again confirmed that the most injury prone elements are jumps, where load on bones and joints are enormous. Landings in triple jumps are around 5 to 10G - force.
Jumps on the ice VERSUS on the floor - in my opinion overloading will be bigger on the ice as entering speed will be higher. Also skates have more weight than off ice shoes.
How many jumps (double, triple, quad) are leading to overdosing body...it is interesting question. I didn't find any mention about number of jumps reperitions which are "safe" and which are already "dangerous".
But let's look at Internet sources about jump repetitions.
Following article mentions 50 jumps a day –
“Skaters do at least 50 jumps a day, every day that they’re training, and they train at least five days a week if they’re competitive skaters,” Ridge said. “They have a lot of force that they’re landing with, over and over again, and this contributes to overuse injuries.” (
https://news.byu.edu/news/figure-8-skaters-feel-eight-times-their-body-weight-when-they-land-jump )
Also "safe" number of jump repetitions will be individual based on every figure skater's individual physical ability and other factors like age, growing period, bone density, current tiredness...
We can't forget the difference between prepubertal - pubertal - grown-up body...
I took a part of my post from
Thread Eating Disorders just to show how much different and more demanding skating is for grown-up one in comparison with skater with prepubertal body:
https://www.goldenskate.com/forum/t...rs-public-or-silent-enemy.96565/#post-3187944
https://www.topendsports.com/testing/vertical-jump-power.htm
- “A heavier person jumping the same height as a lighter one has to do much more work to move the larger mass.“
I made an example - to jump 44 centimeters Anna (Shcherbakova) needs 576.2 Watts while Mae Berenice needs 1005.4 Watts. So Mae Berenice needs to put much more effort to jump as high as Anna (almost twice as much).
If skaters try to keep the same number of jump repetitions being in prepubertal and postpubertal stage… Being even only 10 centimeters taller and 7 kilograms more heavy (in reality elite skater mentions even 200 grams of difference)…each jump will take much more energy. Which logically means that keeping the same number of jump repetitions with grown-up body (comparing to prepubertal body) CAN lead to injuries or overtraining. Are skaters warned that child’s training approach is much different comparing to pubertal or grown-up skaters approach?
But let's come back to number of jumps per practise.
EXAMPLES:
- Christopher Bowman - "...What Bowman had was a stress fracture of his fibula, a result of a training regimen in which
it was commonplace to do 35 triple flips, landing on his right leg..."(
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-07-27-sp-1703-story.html )
- Michael Weiss - "...Weiss made changes in his training this year, stifling his tendency to go hard all of the time. ...He no longer attempts quadruple jumps during both his morning and afternoon training session. Now, he tries the body-jolting quads only in the afternoon and, instead of
grinding out 20 a day, he prefers to do around five." (
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arch...lympics/50bd2c82-46bc-4fa0-8c9f-23242b28f23b/ )
- Shoma Uno - "...I remember that interview last season after summer training camp (in 2013) where he himself admitted that the 3A had become the main thing on his mind skating-wise, to the point that
he would be training up to 100 a day and only landing a handful, without even getting the rotation right on most of those, while the rest were falls for the most part. And that, although falling hurt, he wanted to keep jumping until he at least got a good one since he "hadn't gotten seriously injured yet from all those falls." (
https://www.fsuniverse.net/forum/threads/the-shoma-uno-fan-thread-go-for-número-uno.94182/page-2 )
- Daisuke Takahashi - "...According to the Japanese media, the injury happened on Tuesday, 26th of November (2013); but they also showed a video recording from Saturday, 23th, the last day of the weekly practice, when Daisuke Takahashi, attempting quad jumps, fell
more than 30 times in one hour and a half..." (
https://www.insideskating.net/2013/...se-healing-process-and-long-term-consequences)
- Diana Guseva - "...At the same time as Anya (Shcherbakova - season 2017-18), I had an injury - a stress fracture, very unpleasant. It took me a long time to recover, and after I got on the ice, I couldn't train like before. My workload was significantly reduced and I was unable to recover. Then Eteri Georgievna advised me to try dancing... I understood that after the injury I would not be able
to jump two hundred jumps per training." (
https://www.championat.com/figuresk...nie-s-zagitovoj-vostorg-ot-tuktamyshevoj.html )
- Alexandra Trusova - "...I jumped so many times... To learn the
Axel I jumped 50 times per training after two free programs with five quadruples, for a month. Every time." (
https://www.sports.ru/figure-skatin...-sezone-cherez-tri-dnya-vyshla-na-led-s-.html )
-
Timothy Goebel - "...when we started putting in the numbers on the really hard stuff, if we had waited until we were older — when I was learning the
[quad] salchow I was doing 20 to 30 a day at least, maybe more. When I was talking to Audrey, trying to figure out why I couldn’t really train, I was like, this is how I used to train, and when I told her the amount of repetitions I did when I was starting on stuff, she was like, “What were you thinking?!” And I know that the success I had from 1999 to 2002, it was a tradeoff. What I gave up for success early on, I lost in real longevity. Even with Frank I was doing six to eight of each quad on every session every day. That’s a lot." (
https://manleywoman.com/episode-49-timothy-goebel/ )
-
Roman Savosin - "...was mentioned in one of Petr Gumennik's interview - "...Roman Savosin recently talked about his training process in the “Skate Move” podcast and noted that
he does quadruple jumps in small quantities - only a few times per session." (
https://sport.rambler.ru/figureskat...at-mira-malinina-syao-him-fa-shou-tutberidze/ )
-
Petr Gumennik - "...If everything goes well before the competition, then you shouldn’t do quadruple jumps just like that. Between competitions you can do a lot of jumps. The day before yesterday
I did a 3-4 cascade about 30 times, there were few successful attempts, but overall there were a lot of attempts. Now I’ve decided to improve my quadruple toeloop, and it works well separately." (
https://sport.rambler.ru/figureskat...at-mira-malinina-syao-him-fa-shou-tutberidze/ )
3. INCREASED LOAD IN TIME BEFORE STRESS FRACTURE:
EXAMPLES:
- Adam Rippon - "...After over-exercising and heavily limiting his caloric intake for about two years, Rippon received a lot of praise for his appearance and performed at a quality he was happy with. This encouraged his unhealthy lifestyle. He began to associate a feeling of being hungry with working hard. That was until his body became so fragile that doing a simple off-ice jump led his foot to fracture."(
https://udreview.com/how-toxic-injury-culture-is-perpetuated-in-elite-figure-skating/ )
- Andrew Torgashev - "...He was training a lot of jumps, putting a lot of reps in, and was very motivated after a fifth-place finish at the 2020 U.S. Junior Championships and an eighth-place finish at the World Junior Championships." (
https://usfigureskatingfanzone.com/...-skate-america-with-an-eye-on-the-future.aspx )
- Amber Glenn - "...The intense training led to some overuse injuries, including multiple stress reactions in her foot and an ankle cyst that needed to be removed, forcing her to withdraw from the free skate of the Cranberry Cup in August 2021 and take three weeks off the ice to heal. She trained quads this summer and was getting close before her body decided enough was enough." (
https://usfigureskatingfanzone.com/...amber-glenn-is-peaking-at-the-right-time.aspx )
- Lina Johansson - "...I practised jumps extra hard. It started to hurt my left foot, the one that was fractured before. I thought it was stress, overstrained. I continued to train but couldn’t go on the ice at the Swedish team camp in September (2008) because it hurt so much. ...I went to the hospital for an X-ray. It showed a stress fracture..." (
https://www.absoluteskating.com/index.php?cat=interviews&id=2009linajohansson )
- Laura Lepisto - "...She then missed much of the season due to injury, having developed a stress fracture in her right hip as a result of practicing too many triple loops." (autumn 2006) (Wikipedia)
- Bradie Tennell - "...She also worked on including a triple Axel into her routines, which was ready at the beginning of the season, but a stress fracture in her foot in July 2019 prevented her from using it." (Wikipedia)
- Jeffrey Buttle - "...In August of 2006, Jeffery Buttle suffered a stress fracture in his back due to over training, and was off the ice entirely for two months." (
https://www.goldenskate.com/buttle-bounces-back/ )
For more precise outcomes further and more detailed research would be needed.
To determine if:
- more jump repetitions are connected to bigger prevalence of stress fracture (I think so)
- longer ice practise time is connected to bigger prevalence of stress fracture (I think it is possible)
- increased load in ice time or increased number of jumps repetitions is presented few weeks before stress fracture happened. (I think so)
for this thread, @sisinka. I especially appreciate the whole post about sleep and its importance in recovery and rebuilding ... including the brain and concentration.
