Resistance Training For Skiing The Alpine - What may Be Missing In Your S&C Program
J. Hahn 2021
So you’ve jumped into a strength and conditioning program and you’re committed to improving your performance on the slopes. However you have that recurrent fear of returning to the ski hill with the knowledge that it is going to result in the discovery of new muscles that previous to this day did not exist. Low and behold your trip to the alpine has left you with the ability to identify every movement that requires the activation of these newly discovered muscles over for the next 48 hours.
If you have a base or established strength and conditioning routine that's great but it may be missing some crucial components that would better set you up for success for mitigating injury, maintaining performance and managing the demands of downhill skiing, .
So what might you be missing in your strength training that’s leaving you short of your best performance on the hill?
Although there are many factors that come into play I’m going to highlight two that I think will substantially improve your current strength programming that will improve adherence and performance to skiing in the alpine.
1. Direction of Force Production
The most classic routine I see in the gym has the average gym punter loading predominantly through a sagittal plane (forwards/backwards). This results in forces predominantly being experienced in a linear fashion, such as your basic squat variations, deadlifts, lunges etc. Don’t get me wrong these movements definitely have their place in strengthening and preparedness programs for the slopes. But if this is all your doing then it it’ll leave your legs well short of being stocked with the ammunition to take on the demands of skiing. What we lack in most strength programs is the inclusion of exercises that place a force or load through the Frontal (Lateral) or Transverse Rotational) planes.
What does this mean? So much of our movement in life is commonly experienced in linear motion, forward and backwards, think walking, lunging, squatting. However many of the demands throughout skiing require you to create force against rotational and lateral loads. Think of the demands when turning or stopping. Whether you're performing big long turns through powder, or cranking heavy sharp turns through uneven terrain you’ll be experiencing much of the force in your body through a rotational or lateral plane.
So moving only in a predominantly sagittal plane in the gym doesn’t translate into the demands on the ski hill. The muscles of the body only speak the language of force if they do not have force placed on them they don’t adapt. So the feeling of new muscles when you return to the slopes may have one part to do with the fact that you haven’t experienced that type of load for sometime through these tissues.
So what are some exercises that you can incorporate into your strength training….
Lateral movements would be any exercise that requires the generation of force or overcoming an instability through your frontal plane. Stay away from booty bands and the good girl/bad girl machine instead incorporate one of the following Lateral Step-ups, Kossack Squats, Val Slides, Side Planks or Copenhagen Planks.
Lateral Lunge
Exercises that demand rotational forces safely can be easily created by loading up heavier on one side of the body i.e. holding a dumbbell in one hand and not the other. Instead of holding dumbbells in both hands and performing your single leg strength work, try performing it with weight in only one hand. This places an external demand of a dominantly rotational instability through the hips and knees. This requires you to maintain stability (stability - the ability to resist force) via activating muscles that resist this instability whilst performing the exercises.
Ipsilateral Lunge
2. Range of Motion - Set Your Knees Free
It’s all in the knees.. If I had a dollar for every time I heard someone say “I make sure my knees don't travel over toes when I squat”, I'd be doing just fine. Just take a look at your knees next time you're in a ski boot and let me know where they end up. The ski boot design places your ankles into a bias dorsi-flexion at your ankle causing your knees to drive forward into flexion placing your body into a partial squat position.
I’m not here to debate who should and shouldn't be going into loaded knee flexion. The point I'm highlighting is that you limit your ability to create strength in ranges that you don’t load. Allowing your knees to travel forward into flexion and over your toes whilst loaded in a squat or lunge for instance is not going to damage your knees when performed correctly.
Without deep diving into crux of movement prerequisites or the correct biomechanical technique required for movement variations requiring knee flexion/extension, I want to highlight the small alterations and exercise inclusions that will help prepare the body for the loaded ranges of motion they will need to create force in.
Allowing your knees to experience load through a deeper range of motion within a setting that allows you to control the load, time and environment will only prepare your body for the forces you’re going to experience on the ski hill when you inevitably find yourself in these positions.
Introducing exercises such as a heel elevated goblet squat, squats below parallel, hip lateral step ups or front foot elevated lunges are going to allow you to load safely (when programmed correctly) into these ranges and provide the required demand to improve strength for the loads of skiing.
Heel Elevated Goblet Squat
An important thing to highlight here is that the further you move out from the mid range (strongest position of a muscle) of muscle length i.e. deeper into knee flexion, the less force you will be able to generate. It is important to load these ranges with light loads to start with and instead of increasing the weights use variations such as pausing or tempo work to manipulate demand placed on the muscle.
Although there are likely many factors coming into play as to why you aren’t seeing your S&C training translating into improved ski performance and control. It could be a simple selecting exercises that incorporate ranges of motion that work further through the ranges that your likely to experience on the hill with forces that replicate the direction in which you experience them.
What would this look like?
Well the good news is i’ll be putting this together for you and sending it out in the coming weeks.
If you have any questions or queries feel free to reach out, and we can start working you towards a better ski day.
