Exercises to Strengthen Legs for Skiing?
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My legs are weak because I have not skied much in the last few years. I am going on a trip soon and need to strengthen my legs asap. Any tips? Thanks in advance! |
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Alpine or Tele? |
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Was in a similar spot earlier this season. Legs were way out of shape and had less than 2 months to get in shape to ski. I ran a couple times a week to build cardio, hi-rep medium range (meaning not deep) squats, lunges, box jumps, and wall sits. Think about the type of effort that skiing requires and try to mimic it. That said, I am no exercise-physiologist so I am sure someone will say that I am way off. Regardless, the above exercises and 3 days on the snow in a 1.5 month period had me in good enough condition to make a strong showing at Silverton and Crested Butte for a few days. |
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Ski a lot....... |
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#1 most important exercise is squats ( deep ). JoeP's other exercises are also excellent. Your first day back you will not have your balance so you will be using more muscle than you need, kind of like over gripping when climbing. Any type of skating is the closest activity you can do to approximate skiings dynamic balancing movements and muscle groups. After skiing if your quads mostly hurt you are leaning back on your heals, if your ass mostly hurts that means you are skiing in proper fore/aft balance. |
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Honestly, any basic lower body weight room workout will help you. It's not rocket science and it's easy to find on the web. |
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Pistols |
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Commute via bike until your trip. I started bike commuting and my legs are now massive and skinning is easy peesy. |
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I'm no expert, but here's what works well for me for a few months before ski season: |
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How soon is your ski trip? If it's within, say, a couple weeks, it's already too late. If you try training your legs now, they're just going to end up being sore for your ski trip and you wouldn't notice any appreciable strength gains even if they weren't sore. Noticeable strength gains take time. |
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Substitute lunges for all forms of walking. |
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goatboywonder wrote:Substitute lunges for all forms of walking.^^^^ FTW. Lunges will turn you into a beast man. And you'll definitely gain strength within a couple of weeks. You can deal with being sore. |
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Leg blasters. Tons of them. |
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So, i went to see my orthopedic and pt the other day and he let me know that lunges are a horrible idea for your knees. They both said the best exercises would be "Roman Chair" and a modified version of the quadricep leg extension. This modified version includes starting with your leg straight, lowering only 6 inches, then lifting your leg straight again. |