Kelsey Serwa's cool workout videos all part of her Olympic plan

If you aren't following Kelsey Serwa on social media, you should start.

The ski cross silver medallist from the Sochi 2014 Olympics has been documenting her preparation for the upcoming Winter Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea with weekly videos featuring the hashtag #WackyWorkoutWednesday.

"I didn't even know it was possible to jump from one [exercise] ball to another until I saw my teammate Britt Phelan do it," Serwa says about a memorable post from September. "I think it kind of incorporates a lot of skills that are transferable to the course, but mostly it's just fun."

The workouts in these videos are just part of the preparation by the 28-year-old from Kelowna, B.C., and the rest of Canada's ski cross team as the Olympics approach. They also include weightlifting, agility training and gymnastics. Once the team is on the course, though, Serwa says it's all about "being prepared to be surprised."

"When we start training on snow, [we] also incorporate a variety of scenarios there," Serwa says. "So mixing up the people that we're going head to head with, going in variable weather conditions and all day on the track with hundreds of other people so the course is changing from run to run."

Even workouts with the added benefit of looking cool serve a practical purpose.

"Skiing in our sport, ski cross, it's a lot of feel," she says, adding that each exercise ball she lands on varies in inflation. "It's about landing and reacting quickly and feeling and being supple, which is also important in icy terrain.

"And then it's recovery. If we collide with someone in the air, are we able to recover before the next [course] feature comes."

'I have a lot more to accomplish'

Recovery, albeit of a more serious kind, is something that's very familiar to Serwa in her athletic career. After sharing the podium in Sochi with Canadian gold medallist Marielle Thompson, Serwa took the 2014-15 season off after struggling with two knee injuries leading into those Olympics.

"I think it played a big part in making it possible for me to show up at these Games and be competitive at these Games," Serwa says. "In my mind I still felt like I had a lot more to accomplish in this sport and I wanted to be there and healthy, most importantly, to give myself an opportunity to do that."

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Ski cross is hardly gentle on athletes' bodies. Races consist of four skiers hurtling down a course that requires them to exhibit several alpine disciplines while navigating features like jumps and banked turns. Crashes are as unavoidable as high levels of stress on joints and ligaments, and the crowded field makes head injuries like concussions a risk.

"You are an athlete, you want to compete — go, go, go all the time. You don't want to take a step a back. It's who we are," Serwa, who sustained a concussion in 2015, told CBC Sports's Jamie Strashin.

Competitive but supportive team

The ski cross landscape changed when Thompson, who was favoured to repeat as gold medallist at the upcoming Olympics, ruptured her ACL and MCL during a training run in October. Thompson still has her sights set on the Games, but is sidelined from valuable World Cup competition while her teammates keep racing.

"I feel that if I'm skiing well on the World Cup circuit before the Games, then that's nothing but confidence going into the Games itself," Serwa says. She won bronze at the World Cup season opener in France, but settled for 16th at a weather-shortened event in Switzerland, where final placing was based on qualifications.

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Serwa relishes the unique environment on a deep Canadian team that includes crossover Olympian Georgia Simmerling and Phelan, a 26-year-old from Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Que., fresh off her first World Cup podium.

"It's really cool what we have going on because we are individuals, competing as individuals, but in a team environment," Serwa says. "You never have to look far to look for something to improve on yourself, but also for that support and confidence and motivation as well.

"If we can have multiple teammates on that Olympic podium, that's incredible, because it speaks volumes about how hard we've been training and how well our team works together."