So you have decided to get ready for the start of the snow season and want to make sure you can walk after your first day back?
Well, maybe I am jumping the gun – you might have just been going up on weekends and are getting pretty dern sick of having rubbery leg syndrome every monday.
So, the top three exercises that I do with my athletes/real people who like to ski:
Number 1:
with twist:
With every turn, your body rotates in an extremely complex arrangement of bones, muscles and everything else inbetween. If you have trained your body to be strong just in a classic ‘up-down’ phase, then you are failing to train your body the way you naturally move on skis – in rotation.
Number 2:
1- leg deadlift:
Stand on one leg. Reach down and touch your toes then stand up again. Feel the hamstraing and glute muscles kick in? What is it that makes you fall over? Could it be your body is off balance (weighted on one leg) and in a position it cannot recover from? This exercise gives you a fighting chance to not only be stronger, but to be more in control.
Number 3:
Standing cable woodchops:
Grab a cable and rotate with the arms straight as if about to chop down a tree with an axe. Do it from low to high, high to low, left to right and vice versa. Get your body twisting against resistance because with evey pole plant your body is responding to the ful body load in rotation!
POST UPDATE 09/01/2010! New Location for Classes (including Ski Conditioning): see www.fitnessbyatlas.com to read about the new setup for ski conditioning – it’s totally awesome!
Ahh, the joy of not being the one crashing… Is there anything sweeter?
The following video has a few crashes, however as you watch them, try to focus on the skis as they jump. See if you can notice certain things in common…
This video has more of the same:
The key in 90% of these crashes? Absorbing the landing.
Some of them did not have the strength to absorb the big jump. Others had the strength, but not the muscular control required.
Much attention is spent learning a variety of tricks, but minimal effort is spent actually trying to build up the muscles and muscle control that is required to take big air, make big dropoffs and to carve through moguls without eating some snow.
How to develop this strength?
Combine strength building with balance – here are the top three exercises you can do to build leg strength for skiing:
1. One leg squats on platform.
Dont just drop down and return up – angle the squatting foot in, then to the front, then out as you drop for each repetition. You will find you work different muscles in the hip with each repitition – funnily enough, these are the same muscles that will need to jump into action come time to control an awkward landing.
2. Double foot jump to box and down with twist landing
Off a raised surface (nothing too high, you just need a foot off the ground to make this effective – perhaps the same as the height of a stairway step) jump with two feet together then land with the feet rotated 90 degrees. Then jump and return up to land in the same position. Do a few jumps down to the left then to the right to work both sides. Be sure to do your best ‘ninja landing’ with this drill – make sure you land soft as possible when coming down and jumping up – the aim is to keep your knees soft and your landings silent.
3. Woodchops
The upper body drives the rotation in the lower body as you stand to come out of the turn. The rotational aspect of skiing requires the upper body have powerful strength, control and endurance not only through the upper body but through the core as well. Note that this is different than doing situps. This is focused on rotational movements – meaning crunches might give you a nice ‘front abs’, but will do little to improve your ‘skiing abs’. To do a woodchop take a cable from chest height, feet wide in stance and rotate away until the cable is almost touching your shoulder. You should feel this in your abs but also the intercostal muscles found in the ribs as you twist. Be sure to rotate to both sides as you go.
Above all, remember to do the above exercises in a progressive manner and mix it up with other activities. For best preparation, be sure to work hard, but also to rest hard.
If you need that massage at the end of the day, take it! Personal trainer orders
Interested in attending a Back Bowl 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 – Master Instructor, Back Bowl Ski Conditioning on 720 203 3084 or email jamescatlas@yahoo.com
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!
