They may be a few months away from hitting the slopes, but kids on the Fernie Alpine Ski Team (FAST) are already well into training for the season. A small group of dedicated FAST athletes were hard at work Thursday night with dry-land training, taking on a slack line and other balance exercises.
“Dry-land is super good because it gives the kids that athleticism background,” said K1 Head Coach, Ben Cohen. “We work mostly on balance and core strength and agility at this stage. Especially for the younger kids we do lots of games and try to have lots of fun.”
Cohen went on to say, “It’s all about the athletic background, we’re really big on playing lots of different sports. They do lots of lacrosse and rugby skills, just to give them the background of all sports.”
Dry-land training is offered twice a week to all FAST members, as they get ready for winter. FAST offers a variety of ski programs for kids, from ages four to 19. Cohen elaborated, “I really feel any sort of structured ski program is really good for the kids. It gives them the fundamentals whether they’re looking to go into free skiing or racing, or just skiing for fun, it really gives them a good background of knowledge to draw from.”
Cohen believes the kids get a lot more than just ski skills out of the program. “Lots of friendships are made,” he remarked. “I know that a lot of my best friends now I made when I was their age at races. You get to know lots of kids and you get a good athletic background.”
Cohen added, “It’s not just soccer once a week, you really get that feel of a full intensity program, and so it sets the kids up better for things like going into
university sports, or even university in general.”
On mountain FAST ski programs will begin as soon as the ski hill opens in early December.