XCSO Coach Seminar Presentations & Resources

Beyond our training and competing, our team is committed to outreach and improving many aspects of cross country skiing in our region and beyond.  Coach development is an important part of our sport, and along those lines, we co-hosted the Cross Country Ski Ontario Annual Coaching Seminar May 31 - June 1 (full schedule here).

We are grateful to the uOttawa researchers and others who took the time to share their expertise with our ski community (see speaker bios here).  This year's program included  and athlete-centered focus, with athletes as presenters and in the audience: we think this worked out well help provide more targeted information with a wider impact. We were thrilled with the quality of the presentations and the level of audience engagement.  Our coaches and athletes took home a wealth of information in many areas related to training and competing in cross country skiing. 

Below we provide a brief recap of some of the presentations and further resources that you might find helpful. Also, we have included the presentations of some of the speakers for general viewing. 

Paul has been the National Training Development Centre (Thunder Bay) strength coach since 2011, and he is also the strength advisor to Cross Country Ski Ontario.  He shared his expertise through a terrific presentation, followed by a practical session in the uOttawa High Performance Gym.   The videos below are a tremendous resource, and we highly recommend that coaches and athletes check them out. 

Patrick is a full professor at uOttawa’s School of Psychology where he is the director of the Laboratory for research on Achievement, Motivation, and Regulation of Action (LAMRA). In his research, he tries to understand and intervene on motivational processes to optimize the success of athletes and students. He is fascinated by the delicate balance between learning and achievement and by the many challenges involved in the pursuit of excellence.  Patrick touched on many of these areas in his presentations, and covered how many factors, including coach mindset,  the relative age effect, practice structure, coach feedback, and an emphasis on talent ID instead of talent development impact athlete self-confidence, retention, and achievement.  For more information about Patrick's research you can view his research publications here.  

Mike has been actively involved in the nordic ski community for years at all levels: at the club level as head coach of two Ontario clubs (Nakkertok Nordic, and currently Kanata Nordic), provincially he has been XCSO’s high performance advisor,  and at the national level he has coached at the World Cup Academy,  and was Cross Country Canada (now Nordiq Canada)’s Manager of Coaching Development.  As a Coaching Association of Canada Master Learning Facilitator he continues to share his passion and expertise for by leading courses for nordic ski coaches.  He presented a terrific overview of interval training for nordic skiers in the presentation below. 

Anneke is a Master’s student in the Human Performance Laboratory at the University of Calgary, studying exercise physiology, and Sheila is a health promotion consultant and nutrition researcher.  Both are active coaches in the nordic ski community. Their talks focused on how to fuel appropriately for nordic ski training and the consequences of underfueling. Their presentations and additional resources are linked below.

• Nutrition Strategies for Health and Optimal Performance

• How Much Protein Do You Need?

• What Should I Eat Before I Workout?

• Refueling for Recovery

• The Iron Needs of Athletes: Who Needs More, and How to Get it Through Your Diet

• You Carefully Fuel your Workouts, but How Does the Rest of your Diet Stack Up?

• Healthy or Hype?

• IOC consensus statement on relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S): 2018 update

• LEAF QUESTIONNAIRE (The low energy availability in females questionnaire (LEAF –Q), focuses on physiological symptoms of insufficient energy intake). 

• Validation/Research Article: The LEAF questionnaire: A screening tool for the identification of female athletes at risk for the female athlete triad (British Journal of Sports Medicine 48(7) · February 2014)

General Resources on RED-S or coaches, parents, athletes:

• Health for Performance

• Trainbrave.org

Sports Dietitian

https://www.csiontario.ca/notre-expertise/sport-nutrition

https://www.csiontario.ca/margaret-hughes-med-rd-cde-ioc-dip-sport-nutr 

Stuart is a Ph.D. student in Human Kinetics at uOttawa under the supervision of Dr. Brad Young.  His current research examines factors influencing the long-term development of expertise in athletes, including recovery, self-regulation, and skill acquisition.   He presented about the importance of considering psychological and cognitive recovery. You can view his presentation below, and a SIRCuit Canada article provides another great summary of this research.

XCSO Technical Director Victor Wiltmann presented on technical aspects of cross country skiing, including (1) What is "good" technique, and (2) Factors that influence technique. He also addressed practical aspects such as assessing technique and providing feedback.  His presentation below includes some terrific checklists and links to technique videos. 

XCSO Coaching Development Coordinator Katja Mathys reviewed the XCSO policies and guidelines which better reflect the health and safety of our athletes and coaches, based on the Responsible Coaching Movement,  a multi-phase system-wide movement, coordinated by the Coaching Association of Canada and the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport.  At the seminar coaches reviewed and discussed these policies.  XCSO recommends that all Clubs and coaches to review the documents below and strongly encourages coaches to complete the Commit to Kids Online Training. 

1.      XCSO Responsible Coaching Guidelines

2.      Rule of Two

3.      Coach Code of Ethics and Conduct

4.      Team Travel Template (resource for clubs) 

Angus Foster, athlete representative for Nordiq Canada surveyed all athletes for feedback and presented on their perspectives on staying in xc skiing (summarized in his presentation below). Laura Inkila presented the findings of her research on sports-related anxiety in adolescent females. We also had terrific insight from Zoe Williams, Katherine Denis, Kate Mason, and Laura Inkila. 

Young Nakkertok athletes presented on the health and environmental harms of HF waxes and provided evidence to support a wider ban on these waxes. 

Additional Resources: HF Product Waxing Policy Proposal