Spot Toning

Don’t miss any powder day’s this ski season from jello legs or injuries!

Every time I sit down to read a skiing magazine or see another so called ‘expert’ recommending specific workouts for skier’s, I have to cringe when I see some of the exercises they recommend! After all, isn’t the goal of an effective skier fitness training routine to reduce injuries while also building incredible strength and stamina 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 in half, and even prevent those nagging injuries that may even cut our season short.

Here’s the problem I see with traditional workout routines that are being recommended for skiers are that they not only use inefficient workouts 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 exercise routines that are recommending mechanical leg presses, machine leg extensions, and machine leg curls, please run screaming from that exercise 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 movements.

The same can be said if you see authors recommending smith mechanical squats or any smith machine exercises whatsoever… they should all be avoided as smith mechanical movements follow unnatural patterns (which are not biomechanically correct) that can create excessive stress on the back and possible injury there and/or in the knees.

Now what about wall squat exercises? Although almost every fitness program for skier’s in existence recommends this workout for skiers, I don’t find it to be optimal. It’s a step in the right direction compared to the machine-based workouts that I previously mentioned. But, wall squats are still not a truly effective workout that carries over directly to strength and endurance throughout the entire range of motion that your legs are using during a day on the ski slopes. This workout 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 workouts that are MUCH more effective than wall squats.

One of the other major faults that I’ve found with typical workout 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 workout programs.

Want to know all of the specific exercises that really work in having rock solid legs that will never quit on you while you are out on the ski slopes? Visit us for the best Ski Conditioning exercises and learn the best kept secrets of skier strength conditioning.