YOU'RE TRAINING ALL WRONG! 10/29/07
by WINA STURGEON
Are you training for ski season? Is your workout the typical 10-rep, five set routine? If so, your skiing, and most especially your racing, will suffer.
Think about "ski specific" conditioning. On a run or a race course, you don't do ten turns and then stop. On a ski run, you do hundreds of turns, each requiring a squatting motion. Even on a short and simple NASTAR course, you'll do at least a dozen turns.
"You want to have more of a focus on strength endurance rather than pure strength, because of the duration of the event you're competing in," advises Rob Clayton, who is considered one of the most brilliant coaches in the world.
Clayton, headmaster of the elite Winter School in Park City, has coached on all levels and been a U. S. ski team, World Cup, Olympic, Masters and junior coach. He says that when training for ski season, think about time rather than reps.
"You wouldn't do a deep squat that would take a second and a half if you are training for slalom, because in a real slalom, the movement will be only 7/10 of a second on a world class level," he says.
Ski specific training would mean being able to do 50 squats, according to Clayton.
"But instead of static squats with the bar on your shoulder, it's much better to do walking lunges and balance squats," he advises.
Walking lunges are done with the bar in a normal position, but instead of stepping forward and back, you step forward, lunge, then bring the back leg forward and lunge again. Repeat stepping forward for each new rep.
Balance squats work one leg at a time: the foot of the back leg is placed on a chair or bench, a squat is done on the front leg, with the knee always behind the toes. The knee of the back leg should come down to three or four inches above the floor. Change legs and repeat.
"The hardest thing is figuring out which weight to use. At the end of 50 reps, you want to be close to failure. If your legs aren't ready to collapse at 45, you can handle more weight," Clayton says.
But the biggest mistake most people make is overlooking the aerobic part of ski conditioning.
Clayton explains it: "You want to have a solid foundation of cardio training so you can recover quickly from high intensity workouts. Without a good cardio base, you won't be able to work out as long or effectively, because you will fatigue quickly."
A regular skier doesn't have to be as strong as a racer, who needs more strength endurance and power. A racer should train differently. Masters, NASTAR, Town Race, and night league racers can use World Cup standards to help intensify their workouts.
There are about 40-45 gates in a GS, which Clayton says should take about 70 seconds to run on a world class level. Using duration instead of reps, check how many squats can you do in 70 seconds. Then, being sure to keep proper form at all times, try to speed it up.
Ski specific training for the time you will spend skiing a run or a race course will make you the skier you have always dreamed you could be.