Core Training with 2010 Winter Olympic Freestyle Skier Shannon Bahrke

If there is one word to describe Olympic level athletes, it’s discipline.

They perform early morning workouts even when they’re tired, eat food to fuel their bodies even though their taste buds might not like it, and they carry on their pursuit of perfection even after massive injuries and setbacks.

American Freestyle Mogul Skiier Shannon Bahrke is no stranger to discipline.  Right now, she is training for one of the most important competitions of her careeer: the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

The Salt Lake City, UT resident and October 2010 Bride is focusing on maintaining her strength, agility, balance and focus in the weeks leading up to the Olympic games. “Right now we are really focusing on quality, not quantity” says Shannon from the official U.S. Ski Team training camp.

[Read Shannon's Real Bride Story and Hawaiian Wedding Plans]

Her hour and a half power and core session in the morning is followed by lunch, then a 2 1/2 hour training workout on the slopes. After her hour long recovery walk and dinner with friends Shannon will spend the evening on her laptop working on the Silver Bean Coffee Co. which she runs with fiance Matt Happe.

“My head will finally hit the pillow around 11pm, and that’s a pretty standard day right now.”

Strong legs are clearly a part of a freestyle skiers arsenal of weapons, but so is a strong core. Shannon shares with Bombshell Bride her favorite core exercises:

• regular planks (3 X 1.5 min.)
• side planks (3 X 45 sec each side)
• Bicycles, but you have to come off of the ground and balance on your bum when you come up (3 X 25 each side)
• Single leg lowers 3 X 12 each leg)
• Hands on the floor, feet on the ball, and bring your knees to chest (3 X 30)
• Hanging from a bar and bringing your feet up above the bar (3 X 10)
• Back extensions (3 X 30)
• And of course holding a 35 lb weight with one arm and crunching on the side (3 X 20 each side)

Watch Shannon Bahrke in the 2010 Winter Olympics on Saturday, February 13th.

Update: Shannon Bahrke wins a bronze medal in Freestyle Mogul Skiing. She joined her USA teammate Hannah Kearney, who won gold, on the podium.

Photo: Jonathan Selkowitz