Albums To Train With

One of the toughest things I've found since I started training, is motivating myself to do extra training outside of the scheduled training sessions. Currently I go to training on sundays and if my work schedule is particularly good, I try to make our tuesday "Fresh Meat" sessions, which I enjoy as it tends to focus on the basics of skating rather than the contact side, which is an area I certainly need to improve, if I'm ever going to get through the Ref Level 2 skating exam. The other training session we hold each week is our main wenches practice on friday, which like sundays tends to be more focused for myself and the other members of the "Zebra Squad" on creating our own drills and combining them in anyway we can with whatever main drills are being run.

Still when your skating solo it can be particularly hard to get into the right mindset and it's a problem, that has come up frequently in conversations I've had over the last couple of weeks with many of the fresh meat, with many struggling to get into the right mindset for training, often allowing themselves to get psyched out by the more established skaters, while the other main problem being that it's just hard to get out there and run drills by yourself, which as anyone who has been in this sport awhile will tell you is certainly key to getting better. Now I'm not going to bullshit you and claim that I'm any diffrent in fact I frequently find myself, fighting the urge to see how many episodes of "CSI: NY" I can get through rather than push myself to strap on my skates and get some darn training done, knowing full well that I'll feel all the better for it. My main technique for motivating myself is largely down to having certain albums on standby, which help get me more into a training mind frame. So for anyone struggling for some training music here are some of my current top picks for training.

Album: Spend The Night
Artist: The Donna
Key Track: Who Invited You
Why?: Sure thier bass player Maya Ford is amazingly hot, but there is more to this pick than that, seeing how it is also one of my favourite albums, with the songs on this album having an element of fun, rather than trying to make any kind of statement like so many bands feel the need to do these days. Still for one reason or another "The Donnas" have never really broke the UK, despite remaining steadily popular stateside, which is something I've never been able to explain as they have so many fun and upbeat tunes, but then this country for some reason still considers junkie wasters like Pete Doherty as being who we should be listening to. Still never being one to just listen to just whatever NME or Q magazine tell me I should be, I’ve remained a big fan of this band and got my first introduction to them through this album and was instantly hooked, from the opening rifts.

Album: Sounds of Science
Artist: Beastie Boys
Key Track: Sure Shot
Why?: The Beastie Boys were one of the first bands I got into and this album providing a great overview of their career, taking in not only the hits, but an assortment of b-sides and rarities, showcasing their range of styles from old school hip hop (Shake Your Rump) to rock instrumentals (Gratitude) and even the occasional dip into punk rock (Egg Raid on Mojo). I tend to pick and mix from the two cd’s worth of material on offer here, but something to suit most skating moods, even if several of their earlier tracks such as “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” and “Fight For Your Right To Party” have been noticeable omitted from the collection.

Album: Start Something
Artist: Lost Prophets
Key Track: Make A Move
Why?: I’m not a huge fan of this band, but this is still a pretty solid album with all the tracks mixed from one to the other, which makes them sound a bit weird when you try to separate the tracks for playlists, but when played together sound great with the band still managing to create enough of difference between tracks to help them stand on their own, including the “Incubus” inspired “I Don’t Know”.

Album: Body Count
Artist: Body Count
Key Track: Body Count’s In The House
Why?: Another album to help you get your Derby head on and one that I like to dig out when I’m on my way to training, just because it helps me get pretty amped up for a hard training session or generally keeping unruly wenches in line. Originally titled “Cop Killer”, this album along with the release of N.W.A’s “ Straight Outta of Compton”, helped Ice-T and Co. upset countless parents when they were first released, even though they seem pretty timid in comparison to most modern Rap albums, despite still containing enough F’ing and blinding to still shock the more innocent of listeners, aswell as some great riffs even if the subject matter can get overly samey at times, but even Ice-T openly admitted that the album was more about raw anger with the band also paving the way for the likes of “Rage Against the Machine” and “Limp Bizkit”.

Album: Smash
Artist: The Offspring
Key Track: Come Out and Play
Why?: Once upon a time “The Offspring” were a pretty decent pop punk group, frequently being compared to “Green Day”, who like this band would also sell out for the big bucks of a mainstream label, with their much being more progressively mainstream with each release. Arguably their best album, though I’ve always been hard pressed to choose between this album and it’s follow up “Ixnay on the Hombre”. Still while I might have resisted the urge to list a bunch of Punk rock albums on this entry, while also wanting to avoid the cliché opinion that Punk is pretty much the backbone of this sport and that everything must in someway be related to that particular genre which, might have been true in the beginning but the sport like the image has certainly moved on since those early days.
“Smash” is a great mixture of fast paced tracks and more down tempo stuff, while also containing several personal anthems for myself like “Bad Habit” and “Genocide”, which pretty much part of the late 90’s soundtrack for myself, with this bad certainly playing a big part in the evolution of my musical tastes at the point of my life and it’s this album which not only helps bring back that rebellious spirit, but also help remind of what this band once were.

So theres five of my top picks, but what does everyone else train to?