--- title: How They Train: Aerial Skiing | TIME description: Follow World Champion aerial skier Ryan St. Onge as he trains for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, and watch TIME’s Sean Gregory knock himself out cold on the trampoline! canonical: https://time.com/video/E4XikU7i/ og:title: How They Train: Aerial Skiing og:description: Follow World Champion aerial skier Ryan St. Onge as he trains for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, and watch TIME’s Sean Gregory knock himself out cold on the trampoline! og:url: https://time.com/video/E4XikU7i/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/E4XikU7i/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How They Train: Aerial Skiing twitter:description: Follow World Champion aerial skier Ryan St. Onge as he trains for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, and watch TIME’s Sean Gregory knock himself out cold on the trampoline! twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/E4XikU7i/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # How They Train: Aerial Skiing > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: How They Train: Aerial Skiing [Watch (HLS stream): How They Train: Aerial Skiing](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/E4XikU7i.m3u8) (6:08)  _Published 2009-12-11. Follow World Champion aerial skier Ryan St. Onge as he trains for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, and watch TIME’s Sean Gregory knock himself out cold on the trampoline!_ --- Jul 27, 2023 1:17 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Climber Kyra Condie Trains TIME's Sean Gregory on New Olympic Sport](/video/6MqlQjDZ/) ### Climber Kyra Condie Trains TIME's Sean Gregory on New Olympic Sport [How They Train: Fencing with Sean Gregory](/video/TeZ5hoMc/) ### How They Train: Fencing with Sean Gregory [How They Train: Synchronized Swimming with Sean Gregory](/video/wTK70mH0/) ### How They Train: Synchronized Swimming with Sean Gregory --- ## Transcript >> Ryan St. Onge is a little sleepy. But with a little stretching, a little music, and a hop on the trampoline, you'd quickly realize why he is one of the best aerial skiers in the world. >> I did my very first jump ever when I was nine years old. And I remember skiing into the jump and thinking, " Just stay upright. Just stay up. Don't flip ." And before I knew it, I was upside down and I was like scream and kick in the air. I had no idea, I was looking at the water coming at me. I landed right on my face. I came out of the pool laughing and crying, and you know, I knew right then I wanna keep doing it. >> On the slopes, aerial skiers launch themselves off a ramp and hurl themselves 55 to 60 feet in the air. But landing on the snow is harsh, and they can only do about 20 raining jumps a day. But on the trampoline, they can get in close to 100 jumps a day, giving the skiers more repetitions to hone their tricks. >> You know, when I'm thinking about doing " double full, full, full" on the water ramps or on snow, I come here to the trampoline first and try and make sure that I've got great extension coming off the trampoline, good reach to the ceiling, and then, initiate my twist with a flight arch and then, snap into it. And you know, those small details, including how straight your body is, how straight your arms are, where to put your hands, and when to put them down-- all those things, we can accomplish here on the trampoline and carry over to the water ramps or the snow training. >> Ryan's teammates work under the watchful eye of Dmitriy Kavunov, their coach. >> You ready? I'm ready. too. >> In practice, he judges his team on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being a perfect score. >> He, he was in center. He keep good level [ unk ] if higher and good control, every jump almost same, pretty clean, no mis-- technical mistakes. I'm very [ unk ]. He need just every time do like this. But unfortunately, it's not full-- >> Four out of five? >> Yeah. It's 4. No. Five is like when you're on the roof. >> After watching Ryan catch air for a while, I thought that the trampoline looked easy enough. So, I decided to ask him for a quick lesson. Before we do that, would you mind if I just give this a try real quick? >> Are you ready for this? >> I'm ready. >> Okay. >> Now, it all started out well enough until right about here where I left hooked myself with my knee right in the face. Ouch. >> Are you okay? >> I'm all right. Oh. >> Take it easy. >> How did that happen? >> Lay down for a second. >> I'm good. Thank you. >> Lay down for a second. >> All right. Ready? >> Let's have a seat. >> So, after that calamity, do you think I have any chance in aerial? >> You know, it's never too late to start aerials, but I would suggest something more like curling. >> I knew you were gonna say that. >> I walked away totally humiliated and shake off the birds dancing around my head. Ryan's training also includes hours in the gym. Aerial skiers must fight against tons of G force as they transition from flat to 70- degree pitches going 40 miles an hour. They lift a lot of weights to maintain their strong, tall positions. >> Just get in a nice, comfortable normal standing position, and just start sinking. When you get to the bottom, you wanna let it go as deep as you possibly can, and then, just gently pick up with your back straight, tight core. Just keep going. Nobody can consistently be perfect with the technical stuff. So, you have to use your strength and you have to have those muscles developed in order to recover from the positions that you get yourself in that aren't perfect. And also, we take a lot of hits. And if you drop out of 55, 60 feet in the air, and you land on your back, you wanna be as strong as possible to take that hit. >> To replicate ramping on the snow- covered mountain, Ryan heads to the water ramps. His competitors nickname can crush for obvious and quite painful reasons. But today, Ryan looks just fine. >> The stairs have been the bane of my existence. I hate them. There's a small chance I might retire after this year. And so, all summer, I have been counting down, you know, 497 more times up the stairs. 296 more times up the stairs. And down-- I'm down to like the last 50. It's kinda sad. >> In what might be his last training days, he'll climb these wooden stairs and launch himself into a freezing pool in the freezing rain again and again and again. >> You know, in ice sport, the window of opportunity is fairly small. At best, you can try and compete in three Olympics-- on average, two. But even in that day, it comes down to two jumps, only two jumps. And each of those jumps are three seconds. I mean, your Olympic experience is less than 8 seconds total. And think about that. Think about I'm training 17 years during every single day, I'm going out and adjusting everything in my life to do what I can for 8 seconds. It just seems crazy. But you know, that's the fun in it. 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