Your Exercise Program is Getting You to the Halfway Point of your ‘Ski Potential’ – At best!!!
Regardless your skiing preference, your glutes are a crucial part of your turning power
The butt is the most important part of your ski turn.
These muscles must absorb the majority of shock and distribute it down the thigh and calf before exploding out to create the ‘ski turn’. Without these muscles working properly, your front thigh muscles (the quadriceps) must do even more work which puts your knees and other joints at risk.
The exercises you will see makes use of my fifteen years of personal training experience and numerous consultations with various body-shaping coaches, physical therapists, movement specialists and other fitness professionals.
The exercises you are about to see can help you develop and tone your glutes for the action of skiing like nothing you have seen before.
Before I reveal to you my secret weapon, here is a quick and relatively painless explanation of how our muscles work (Warning: This next section may make you smarter than your personal trainer!)
Our muscles are like cables that pull – they are attached at two ends, and when we want it to achieve a movement they pull together to achieve a movement.
If you think about the line in which we move the bicep doing bicep curls, it is a straight up and down movement. We shorten our bicep through a full range of motion in a straight line (funnily enough, in line with the fibers of the muscle – this is your first clue).
To get the most out of a muscle we must exercise:
- In the line in which the fibers are oriented
- Through a full range of motion
If you missed ‘advanced human physiology 301′ in college (I loved this class, but all of my others… well, lets not talk about me – lets keep the focus on you 
Here are some visuals to work with.
Your biceps fibers run in a mostly vertical direction
Your glutes… do not. They wrap around the butt at an angle.
If you look closely (go on, soak them in… I wont tell) you will see that the fibers run in ANYTHING BUT a vertical position.
It becomes plain to see that the fibers of the glute run at almost a 45 degree angle!
By this understanding, if we want to work the butt in the same way we work the bicep (through a full range of motion), would it make sense to work the butt in a different way than straight up and down?
Think about the motion of the bicep curl being up and down, and the motion of a lunge being… well, up and down.
This guys problem (apart from having misplaced his shirt) is that he is only working the glute through half of its range of motion and therefore half of its potential.
Now look at the pictures above. I agree that the muscle might be working, but is it working the way YOU want it to be working? At full range? To full effectiveness? To give you the full potential?
Can you see how the everyday lunge (shown above) is only working our glutes through PART of the range of motion? Can you see how when you rotate your hips you use even more of this angulation? Does it make sense that your butt is the most important part of your ski turn?
If you said yes, then print yourself off a personal trainer badge and pin it on. You’re hired.
Below is a 4 minute video that explains and demonstrates how your glutes move (put together by Jamie Atlas, master trainer for Back Bowl Ski Conditioning), but also shows a couple of exercise variations that you can do to REALLY work the butt.
Watch this video to work your butt to the max like never before!
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lHU50G0tmA if it doesnt show up on your browser)
If your gluteus maximus has been a little too much on the minimus side, then these exercises are what you have been looking for. These lunge variations (if done correctly and with good form) are your new best friend – or worst enemy, depending on how you look at it 
If you don’t normally do lunges, then just do the basic ‘perfect lunge’ version – 2 sets of 15 reps each leg, 3/week (add weight if it gets too easy) for 4-8 weeks.
Then email me to say thanks – send me a thank you e-card if you would like
After you have gotten better at the basic version, try the intermediate version – but make sure you are feeling confident with the basic version first and have good form and no pain as you go through the movement.
If you have done all that and are ready for the advanced version, watch this video:
Get working with with this workout as part of your skiing routine and you will find yourself ruling the mountain in no time!
Jamie Atlas
Interested in attending a Ski Conditioning 4 week Program? Live in the Denver area?
POST UPDATE 09/01/2010! New Location for Classes: see www.fitnessbyatlas.com to read about the new setup for ski conditioning – it’s totally awesome!
Jamie Atlas - 720 203 3084 or email info@fitnessbyatlas.com
