Introduction
Gabriel Ferrero was a competitive skier who is now a a physiotherapist. He traveled with the French Olympic team in 2018 working as the physio with the snowboarding/ski-cross team.
Athletic Career & Training
When you were competitively skiing, what did your training schedule look like?
“During the week, when I had school, it was about two hours of training per day. Depending, on the week, almost every day. During the racing season, every weekend. And I did, between 10 and 20 hours training per week. During the holidays, I trained to times, once in the morning, another one in the afternoon.”
What is something that you think is important, but is often overlooked by young athletes?
“At the beginning, you don’t think about food. What you eat is very, very important. The trainer, and the mental preparation, that is today’s big thing. Everybody needs to do that, how to control your stress and how to be more focused on what you need to do. And hopefully obviously take care of yourself, and physio, not just when you have some injuries, but preventive stuff and all.”
Perspective & Advice
What advice would you give to students who want to pursue sports seriously?
“You train the best you can, and sometimes the results are not good, but that happens, it is life. And just sometimes, you just need to think about why you do sports.”
Why did you decide to become a physiotherapist?
“When I did a lot of sports I’m lucky, I didn't have a lot of injuries, but I knew the physio and how they work. I like sports, I do a lot and I like the movement. And I wanted to know about how it works and stuff. I love biology, physics, and it’s a bit, you know, just like that. You go on this way of the movement and sports, and if you want to stay on that way, then physio is a good, a good job to do.”