Changes We’re Making to 2025’s Backcountry and Dryland Ski Training, and Why

By Emmett Shaul, MTI Coach

Background

Since incorporating T/J/T to Box into our Backcountry and Dryland Ski plans, we’ve progressed it with intervals. We’ve adjusted and tweaked those over the years, but intervals have a hard limit: there’s no assessment setting the work.

The biggest issue was that the work per work interval wasn’t dictated or individualized for each athlete. Athletes weren’t required to meet a rep standard each interval; they could take a round off or simply not push for more reps.

This season we’re moving T/J/T to Box to an assessment-based protocol to fix that. If you’ve done our programming, you’ve seen this model elsewhere. In many of our max-effort strength progressions we begin with a 1RM and load the work from the most recent percentage of that 1RM, which means the plan—not athlete effort—drives the training. This approach automatically scales to an athlete’s current fitness and keeps the effort honest. As the plan runs, we often include a mid-cycle re-assessment and reset the percentages so the second half of the cycle keeps pace with the athlete’s improvement.

Several of MTI’s bodyweight exercise progressions operate in the same way – an initial assessment, follow-on progressions based on the assessment results, and mid-cycle re-assessment to keep pushing the athlete as his fitness improves. In this way, the programming automatically “scales” to the incoming and improving fitness of each individual athlete.

We’re applying that same sequence to this year’s T/J/T to Box intervals for our dryland ski programming: initial assessment, follow-on progression, re-assessment, then updated progressions. This not only pushes the athlete appropriately; it also gives us a clear read on improvement by comparing the first and final assessments.

Changes to 2025 Ski Fit: T/J/T to Box

We’re shifting T/J/T to Box to an assessment-based Every Minute On the Minute (EMOM) progression:

• Assessment: 2:00 max-rep T/J/T to Box. Record max reps.
• Progression: Two sessions at each progression.
  Progression 1: 20 rounds EMOM (Every Minute on the Minute) at 25% of your assessed max
  Progression 2: 20 rounds EMOM at 25% + 1 rep
  Progression 3: 20 rounds EMOM at 25% + 2 reps
• Re-Assessment: 2:00 max-rep T/J/T to Box. Record max reps.

Why we’re making this shift

Time-based intervals progress the clock; they don’t bind effort to a standard. An assessment-anchored protocol sets a required rep count to hit every minute and scales the session to the athlete’s current fitness. Under intervals, an athlete might push one round and ease off the next with no requirement to meet. Assessment-based progressions remove that slack by dictating required work each work interval.

What we learned in testing

In a previous article we asked whether a 2-minute assessment is long enough to set work for a full 20-minute effort. We tested it. At 25%, it worked. All four lab rats cleared 20 minutes at 25% of their 2-minute max-rep score, and the effort matched what we want compared to our current T/J/T to Box intervals.

We also tested percentage increases, as we do in max-effort strength, pull-ups, sit-ups, and push-ups. For T/J/T to Box, these percentage bumps were too much: the jump in reps was large enough that athletes couldn’t sustain it the session’s latter rounds.

Percentage-based rep increases taken from an assessment also create uneven outcomes. Higher initial scores turn a small percent into a large absolute jump (for example, +5% of 60 = +3 reps every minute), while lower scores may round to no increase at all. We still need to increase the work at each stage to drive fitness forward, so we moved to rep-based progressions. Small +1-rep steps proved more sustainable and kept everyone moving.

We’ve done this before – specifically in our progression methodology for the 10-Minute Sandbag Getu for Reps assessment in MTI’s Operator Ugly Tactical Fitness Assessment. In that case, we began the work intervals (10 Rounds, every 90 seconds) with 10% of max reps … then added a slinge rep each progression. We had great success with this in improving assessment results.

We’re not rigid about this progression. If pre-season data show athletes are pushed too hard or not enough, we’ll adjust in-cycle—for example, +1 rep for the first 10 rounds only, or +1 every other round. At MTI we always “program in pencil” and if whiteboard theory doesn’t pan out in practice, we’ll adjust on the fly as needed.

A note on testing and adjustments

T/J/T to Box is mentally demanding. Athletes new to this intensity may under-perform on the assessment or back off during the work sets simply because they haven’t pushed hard in this mode before. The reverse happens, too: a great assessment day followed by a flat progression day. Because of that variability, we won’t make big changes off a single session. We’ll look for consistent patterns across the group, then adjust.

What’s not changing: Leg Blasters

If you’ve run our Backcountry or Dryland plans, you know Leg Blasters aren’t assessment-based. We build from Mini to Full Leg Blasters. If we converted them, the only honest assessment would be jumping lunges, then intervals prescribed from that number. We believe that this would be too intense for the athletes mentally and physically, in combination with the T/J/T to Box Intervals, so it stays.

Questions you may have

Why rep-based progressions instead of percentage jumps?
Percent progressions off an assessment are uneven for this event. A higher assessment score multiplies into a much larger absolute jump, for example, +5% of 60 is about +3 reps every minute for 20 minutes. A lower assessment can round to zero, so the athlete doesn’t progress that stage. A +1-rep progression is simple, predictable, and our testing—plus our experience with the 10-minute SBGU—shows it holds up. We also avoid the mismatch you’d get from applying the same percent to 40 vs 60 reps; one athlete would be asked to add far more work than the other in absolute terms, which isn’t how we progress max-effort strength either.

What if athletes can’t make the progression—or it’s too easy?
We’ll adjust on the fly based on assessment and session data. The point of testing our own programming is to learn and refine. If most athletes miss early, we’ll apply a small early-minute bump (for example, +1 rep for the first 10 rounds or every other round). If it’s too easy, we’ll make a similarly small, targeted increase.

Why two sessions at each level?
Two exposures per progression have been proven to work in past progressions. It gives enough time for adaptation to occur and allow for the athlete to progress at the appropriate time. However, we will adjust on the fly in needed as we work through the cycle.

Questions, Comments, Feedback? Email coach@mtntactical.com

Check Out the Backcountry Ski Pre-Season Training Plan HERE

Check Out the Dryland Ski Training Plan HERE

Check Out the 30 Minutes/Day Dryland Ski Training Plan HERE