Hey Ski Post!

With this month being all about giving you some training insights or little hacks we athletes have I wanted to use my article to talk a little bit about mental health and motivation. I have always struggled with knowing when to take that off day even if your plan says differently. Listening to your brain and body are the most important things you can do as a professional or amateur athlete. I can not speak for you but about 95% of the time I wake up pretty psyched to get after it, but that 5% can really ruin your week, month, training block, or whatever in your brain but not in fitness. Learning to listen to that lack of motivation has become just as important as most workouts. So here are a couple of ways I escape and hit the reset button on a day where I do not feel like putting the sneakers on.

1. Yoga

To a Nordic Dork like you yoga probably does not cross your mind as a workout which is actually the point. It is a great off-day activity and to not sound voodoo and hipster it has helped me immensely on and off the ski jump. Mindfulness can go a long way!

2. Find your bench

Ever see a man sitting on a bench? I bet he was pretty happy. Sometimes being outside is all I really want but really a bench sit or a little walk will do the trick.

Zen Bench

3. Sit inside!

I think just completely turning the athlete switch off and watching tv or reading or doing anything but doing sports is the only thing that I want to do. These days can sometimes feel great and sometimes feel like garbage but if it's what I want to do sometimes I'll just binge a Netflix show. Definitely does not happen often but sometimes it happens.

All in all, just listen to yo bodies! I am currently hanging out in Europe and just had a couple of summer World Cup competitions in Kazahkstan and Russia. I am still in summer training mode and these were a good check-in to see where I was at. Turns out I got some work to do. I managed to grab a couple of top-30's but definitely want to be a little higher up the ladder come November.