Do You Want The Same Rock Solid Legs Like Skiers
Don’t miss any powder day’s this season from weak legs or ski injuries!
Every time I sit down to read a skiing magazine or see another so called ‘expert’ recommending specific exercises for skier’s, I have to cringe when I see some of the workouts they recommend! After all, isn’t the goal of an effective skier fitness training routine to reduce injuries while also building incredible strength and endurance in your legs and core?
We all want to tear up the slopes as long as possible each day and avoid the dreaded ‘jello legs’ that might cut our day of skiing short, and even prevent nagging injuries that may even cut our skiing season short.
Here’s the problem I see with traditional exercise routines that are being recommended for skiers are that they not only use inefficient exercises that don’t carry over that well to actual skiing mechanics, but also may even be setting you up for an injury. For example, if you’ve seen workout routines that are recommending machine leg presses, machine leg extensions, and machine leg curls, please run screaming from that workout recommendation as fast as you can! It will only set you up for injury, and won’t even help your goal of strength and endurance that’s actually applicable to skiing mechanics.
The same can be said if you see authors recommending smith machine squats or any smith mechanical exercises whatsoever… they should all be avoided as smith mechanical movements follow unnatural patterns (which are not biomechanically correct) that can create excessive back stress and possible injury here or in your knees.
Now what about wall squats workouts (aka ‘wall sits’)? Almost every fitness program for skier’s in existence recommends this skiing exercise, I don’t find it to be the best. It’s a step in the right direction compared to machine based exercises that I mentioned previously. But, wall sits are still not a great and effective workout that carries over directly to strength and endurance throughout the entire range of motion that your legs use during a day on the slopes. This exercise can be mildly effective since even an isometric exercise held for endurance in one joint angle will still carry over to a slightly wider range of motion, but I actually have at least a dozen exercises that are MUCH more effective than wall squats.
One of the other major faults that I’ve found with typical exercise fitness routines for the skier is that often they neglect getting a proper joint to strength balance (proper strength ratios between hamstrings, quadriceps, etc). Although skiing demands a lot of work from your quad’s and less work from your hams and glutes, it is still really important for injury prevention to maintain proper strength ratios between all of the muscle groups of your body and to make sure the stabilizer muscles around the joints are correctly strengthened. Another factor that’s left out in most exercise programs.
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